Posted on 12/03/2004 1:46:05 PM PST by Vetvoice
Twenty John Kerry supporters met for their first group therapy session in South Florida Thursday, screaming epithets at President Bush as they shared their emotions with licensed mental health counselors.
The first of several free noontime therapy sessions at the American Health Association in Boca Raton was designed to treat what mental health counselors have dubbed Post Election Selection Trauma (PEST).
“If I had a cardboard cutout of President Bush, and these people wanted to throw darts at it, I would let them do it,” Robert J. Gordon, AHA executive director, told the Boca News after the session. “It’s no joke. People with PEST were traumatized by the election. If you even mention religion, their faces turn blister-red as they shout at Bush.”
Although the meeting was closed to the press, AHA therapists obtained permission from participants to provide an anonymous transcript to the Boca Raton News.
“I’m scared,” said one man. “Democracy is at stake and nobody is rising to protest this president.”
“I want to be a patriot, but it’s impossible to be a patriot in an immoral war,” said another participant, a woman. “Bush is breaking up marriages and dividing families by keeping our troops in Iraq.”
Gordon said the participants also granted reluctant permission to open up next Thursday’s meeting to the general press. Reporters will be forbidden from taking photographs or using the real names of patients.
“The media outlets, especially Rush Limbaugh and his ilk on talk radio, scare our patients to death,” said Gordon, facilitator for the meetings. “More than anything else, people with PEST tremble physically.”
Gordon said the Kerry supporters in therapy are predominantly Jewish and older than 50. Most are registered independents and all live in Palm Beach County.
“We mostly let them vent during the first session,” Gordon said. “By the third session, we’ll be doing some meditation exercises to aid some of their symptoms. We may use visualization and some techniques designed for bipolar disease and other mental disorders. That might help them adjust to reality.”
According to AHA officials, symptoms of PEST are similar to post-traumatic stress disorder. They include nightmares, sleeplessness, hostility, listlessness, and emotional outbursts including threats to leave the country.
“There’s an overall sense of emotional helplessness and abandonment,” said Sheila Cooperman, a licensed AHA psychotherapist from Delray Beach. “In psychology, we call it ‘learned helplessness.’ After you zap a caged dog twice, he stops moving because he knows there is no place to go. That’s what happened with these Kerry voters. They’ve been zapped so many times that they’re on the verge of giving up on politics.”
Cooperman, also a practicing psychic, added, “One person today said he thinks the country is now run by fascists. Another felt personally threatened by the president’s love for big business. Many believe Bush is going to draft their grandchildren. The anxiety may not affect them every day, but it affects their energy level.”
An additional 30 people are signed up for two other AHA election support groups, which will meet for the remainder of the year and possibly beyond. Gordon said his patients’ emotional problems typically started with the “hanging chad” debacle of 2000.
“First, they need to realize they’re not going to overturn the 2004 election,” Gordon said. “They have to live with it. The problem is they have no faith because they think the religious right has hijacked the political system. We try to tell them there is still an election in 2008. You can’t just give up and be apathetic.”
The AHA, using a holistic approach to health that has been mocked as new age voodoo by some national talk show hosts, has stressed to patients that their post-election emotions are normal and deserve to be taken seriously.
“These people talk about the 2000 election being stolen,” Gordon said. “They talk about Theresa LePore and the Ohio recount. They feel it’s the ‘Right House,’ not the White House. They feel the world is not safe with George W. Bush as president. They spewed out a lot of anger. They are angry at the Democratic Party for being aimless and leaderless. They have a right to these feelings.”
The Boca Raton News first reported on Nov. 9 that depressed Florida Kerry supporters were seeking trauma therapy in the wake of the Nov. 2 presidential election. One Boca psychologist alone, Douglas Schooler, eventually treated 20 Kerry voters with intense hypnotherapy — for a sliding fee.
The trauma specialist, whose bills were covered by clients’ insurance companies, was later accused by some colleagues of unethically “cashing in” on the misery of Kerry voters. In interviews with the Boca News, Schooler said many of the Kerry supporters had visited him for severe mental problems prior to the election.
Unlike Schooler, the AHA is a registered Florida non-profit and its therapists do not charge for sessions. Conservative talk show hosts Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh recently offered their own “free therapy,” irking the AHA counselors.
Sean Salai can be reached at ssalai@bocanews.com or 561-893-6427.
I read the letter Kerry sent to his loonytune supporters. Full of 'Oh, my God, I can't believe WE lost, when we worked so hard for so long, blah, blah, blah. I know WE'RE hurting but we need to keep working for the ideals we hold dear, programs we believe in...' A return envelope was enclosed, but nothing so crass as an outright demand for money. That will be in the next letter, of course.
"South FL is a yankee colony"
Thanks-that explains it very well-they are just like the snowbirds who descend on us up here in the hill country and stay until spring-most of them are looney liberals, too. We smile, take their money and put up with their rudness as we do so.
Mental problems prior to the election? For this they needed to pay a therapist? As was frequently posted on FR.......at no charge..... ..people supporting Kerry had to be nuts.
And he was responsible for the hurricanes and Linda Round-stadt's weight gain.
LOL!
And would that be unethical?
Post it more, post it often. I LOVE IT!!!! BWAAAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The nitwits have come completely unhinged and are beyond help. Doesn't it remind one of how the arch-communists in the Ukraine are now acting as their election fraud has been exposed and they know they can't win a fair contest. Threats of civil war and/or secession. Hmmmm, where have we heard that before?
Oh, stop it. My heart is breaking. Where's the kleenex?
(Sniffle) Imagine that, still the victim after all these years (sob).
Gosh, it musta been tough leaving their luxury homes and condos in Palm Beach, and drive to the therapist in their Mercedes and BMW's (sob).
Hopefully, they ameliorated their pain later by sipping chilled Cristal and nibbling on Beluga caviar at five-star restaurants (sniff).
They are not paying.
The moron "facilitator" Robert Gordon on with Sean Hannity right now (on or about) 5:20PM EST said it is free to the idiots down there and this started about 1987.
Gordon also admitted to Sean he did not vote "because MY choice John McCain was not on the ballot".
When asked by Sean who he would choose in a race between President George W. Bush and John Kerry then "facilitator" Gordon said he would vote for John Kerry.
A lie.
He had his shot and did not vote.
He is not "non-partisan" at all.
Robert Gordon is "non-competent"!
"Everyones ENTITLED to mental health!" -- Robert Gordon
Free means you are paying for the lib's free "mental health".
PEST control on aisle 7!
Now, be fair. Bush was, in fact, totaly responsible for Whoppi Goldberg's ballooning to size 38 plus, when she was cut off from her supply of Slim Fast and got canceled as the product's spokesthing.
One way is that b/c of their mental state, they might want to invest in some really good money-makers.....maybe selling freezers to Eskimos, or buying shares in the Brooklyn Bridge, or maybe buying property on planet Jupiter.....good solid stuff like that.
Aha, you're right. I forgot that.
"spokesthing" -- LOL!
No surprise. These parasites never do anything with their own money.
Victimization is the MO by which the lefties blame and find others responsible for their own personal failures, then expect taxpayers, deep-pocketed individuals, or the courts to bail them out.
Why?
For libs, it "feels good" to be in the throes of "victimization" and either A) causing victims, B) concocting victims, C) playing victim, D) commiserating over victims, or E) creating another class of victims to bleed over.
This quack started out the interview by stating a flat out lie, that twice as many Republicans needed this kind of therapy after the Clinton '96 election. What a liar, I never heard of a single instance of anyone flipping out and needing therapy.
Always knew liberals were mentally unstable, this just confirms it.
“I want to be a patriot, but it’s impossible to be a patriot in an immoral war,” said another participant, a woman. “Bush is breaking up marriages and dividing families by keeping our troops in Iraq.”
Really? You don't know the FIRST THING about being a part of a military family, Lady.
And these kooks are STILL in therapy? Man, those doctors (if indeed they have any credentials) are cashing in on this big-time!
Where is Dr.Kevorkian when we really need him????
Sounds like shock therapy time. They may need to be extra careful trimming the tree this year...
I have been since about 1AM on 11/3!!! :)
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