Posted on 06/21/2005 5:51:45 PM PDT by Without Barbarians
Here is the whole text (from the link above):
Psychiatry Turns A Hard LeftThe American Psychiatric Association, in an attempt to expedite its descent into irrelevance, this week at its annual meeting chose to endorse same-sex marriage.
Before one applauds the moral fortitude and progressive instinct of this august body, we may want to ask not whether there should or should not be same-sex marriage, but what psychiatry could possibly contribute to this discussion. The answer is nothing.
You can't get away with pat answers, such as psychiatrists see the psychiatric ramifications of discrimination or being unable to marry. There are psychiatric ramifications of bankruptcy, and war, but no one felt compelled to write a policy statement on it (and thank God.)
And no, there isn't a difference between bankruptcy and gay marriage-- not to psychiatry. That's the exact point. These are social problems about which psychiatry is definitionally ignorant. The APA did not endorse polygamy. What's the difference? If homosexuality is not a psychiatric disorder, than there is no more reason to be more for or against it than there is for any other kind of marriage. The APA is no better suited to answering these questions than, say, the NFL.
Perhaps the APA should try to diagnose itself. What other explanation, beyond collective malignant narcissism, could there be for thinking that psychiatry has anything meaningful to say on this topic, or that it should say anything at all? What if the NFL came out against antidepressants in children? This is a perfectly valid analogy, because neither the NFL nor psychiatry have special knowledge that would allow them to be able to make such statements. What do psychiatrists know about same-sex marriage that the quarterback for the Eagles doesn’t? Don’t laugh—I’m serious. What’s the answer?
Has it occurred to the APA that not every psychiatrist agrees with gay marriage? Or that it does not—and has no right to—speak for psychiatry, or for psychiatrists? Does it think it is above its constituents, or that it knows something they do not? It is only allowed to legitimately express a policy above the objections of its members is if the policy was based on science. Perhaps the APA cares to release this intriguing scientific data? While it is at it, perhaps it can also release the data supporting the use of half of the medications currently favored by APA Guidelines, because my own investigations find very little in the way of evidence. But this seems pretty much business as usual for the APA. Rather than work on its own serious failings, it involves itself in social policy. Outstanding.
“Modern” (read: pharmacological) psychiatry is obsessed with reinventing itself as a biological and scientific discipline. Well, if it wants to be a science, it better start acting like one.
Meanwhile, psychiatry watches itself rot from the inside. The FDA demands a "class labeling" that all antidepressants can cause suicide. But this is no more logical than saying that all antihypertensives cause urination; or that all sodas cause insomnia. But rather than the APA re-evaluating the actual data on this issue, rather than directing policy on _antidepressants_, rather than doing its _job_, it allows itself to be directed by the FDA.
The FDA effectively killed Vioxx, and not a peep was heard from the APA about the dangers of letting the government regulate their practice. You can say Vioxx has little to do with psychiatry, but I can assure you it’s a lot more than gay marriage.
Determining what is true and what is not, through serious and often disconcerting scientific enquiry, is very difficult. It is much easier to involve oneself in matters of opinion and debate, in activism, because it is both immediately rewarding and it is easy. It’s hard to measure things in psychiatry, and when it is possible the results are often disappointing. So it busies itself with matters of conviction because it feels some responsibility to have convictions. It doesn't. It has a responsibility to the truth, and if it doesn't want to invest any energy in that pursuit, it is on them. But don't mask it with whimsy and dilettantism.
I should point out that gays, far from being pleased with the APA’s stand, should actually be horrified. I want serious attention to the following question: Do you-- does anyone-- want social policy suggested by psychiatrists? Think long and hard.
Imagine the outrage if the APA had come out _against_ gay marriage, or _for_ the war in Iraq. There would be battalions of people saying, "well, what the hell do psychiatrists know about war in Iraq? Who the hell do they think they are telling gays not to get married?" There is no protection in being confident of the rightness of your current position, as history is soaked with examples of how terribly bad doctors are at determining what is right and what is wrong. Not long ago homosexuality was considered a disease. The APA Convention in Atlanta isn't too far from Tuskegee. See? If you are interested in learning what is ethical and what is not, you should not ask a doctor. Especially not a psychiatrist. If we allow psychiatrists to tell us what is legally or even sociologically acceptable, then there will come a day when they will tell us something that turns out to be very, very wrong. The Tuskegee experiments were endorsed by the AMA—and the AMA gave its endorsement _after_ ethics concerns were raised by Peter Buxtun. Remember that.
When you want to know how to fight a war, you ask the Generals. But if you want to know when to fight a war, you ask the statesmen—not the Generals.
I would demand the immediate cancellation of my membership to the APA if I had ever been deluded enough to have given one dime to that vacuous ochlocracy in the first place. Psychiatry would do well to remember Wittgenstein TLP 7: Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.
And they once called homosexuality a mental disorder. I wonder which time they were right? I guess we will each have to decide for ourselves unless they can show which replicable experiements they ran to scientifically prove that homosexuality is not a mental disorder.
Nothing surprising here!
Most shrinks choose the profession because they are trying to understand their own insanity.
Confirms suspicions--The blind telling the confused where to go.
Really, boy o boy, this is amazing! Who'd of ever thought...
The press and homosexual politics again takes precedence over science...much to the chagrine of science, I add, and the setback to science, which is worse.
Let's see...the original determination I read by this "group" was that they reasoned that "'gay' 'marriage'" would make society "nicer" and less strifeful for some in our society (gays) and that, therefore, that they should be indulged and given what they want ("'gay' 'marriage") in order to help society out in general.
On the other hand, MANY OTHER psychiatrists and pscyhogoists (different entirely in academics and training and practices, to state the obvious) also reason (these are the sane group) that their profession is not to reason politics nor to advise about social issues.
Which I agree with, that last group and part.
This determination (that "gay marriage is advisable" or thereabouts) is no more a statement about mental wellness and/or pschological reliability than is the group making the advisement...meaning, it appears to be an imbalanced group of human beings with their own pscyhological disturbance "ruling" (that's a sure giveaway right there that the source is questionable, given what and who they are trained to be and yet are not) making waves because they have the command of a high level of publicity, to promote personal wants and whims, and not even remotely something that bespeaks or represents sound psychology or wellness of human personality.
This group has no place or business or even vehicle to cast such an irresponsible statement into our public discourse -- they can as individuals, yes, but to rely instead on their clinical and licensed positions to attempt to "advise society" on something such as this, it's as if a band of schizophrenics are "ruling" a hospital complete with white coats and stern looks of authority but who are completely deranged behind the personnas.
I heard the "President" of the American Psychological Society (or something close to that) on a televised program not too long ago and the woman was bonkers, very, very presumptuous, condescending and quite irrational.
She and her group have no more basis for making this opinion known as they do as individual with opinions, but it is an issue that is altogether outside and apart from who and what the group is and represents. They have no basis to even make this statement within the definitions of their professional group...I mean, why aren't they also making pronouncements on what the price of apples "should" be or, perhaps, that all humans "would be" happier (?) if all humans drove a Chevrolet convertible or some other sort of inappropriate nonsense to their clinical areas of expertise.
I think that by the very nature that this statement has been made by this group, particularly, it's a pretty good indication that society can now see who it is who'se driving the "be gay and be happy" philosphy.
Because, it's personal philosophy -- the "be gay and be married and everyone will be happy" stuff, to paraphrase -- and not even remotely an area of advice or professional opinion that this group should even be involved in.
Because they are (involved in it by their own decision), I think they're revealing their inability and incompetence in a clinical capacity.
Sorry for the typos (^^)....
They're only looking out for their own members, after all ...
Can you think of a better way to increase business. They must have had a marketing expert advise them on this.
The mentally deranged telling the truely mentally ill what to do.
Must ping later.
Just remember that psychiatrists also used to prescribe cocaine for "women's ailments" and such...and/or send women in menopause to institutions because of the "insanity" of the experience.
Now I do recall that the woman I saw and heard not too long ago on that television program was the female M.D. who is the President of the American Psychiatric Association...and was as nutty and shrill as ever I have heard and seen, anywhere.
This just isn't an area that that group should even be involving itself in and because it is, as that "President" described on that program (and as this article shares), I'd say it's pretty good evidence that the group itself is top-heavy troubled.
Let's see...would "society" be "better" if all houses were painted pink? I'm waiting for the American Psychiatric Association to make a determination about that, and a few other things that may make society a happy place.
Why not. It's as reasonable an issue for them to consider and opine about as is "gay marriage".
And don't even get me started on the issue of religion and religous values and doctrine as it's perceived by many among that group.
This is politics, not psychiatry.
Again?
I was minoring in psych in college when they started to 'redefine' such issues as whether or not homosexuality should be a disorder anymore. My study material defined it thusly but we were told, and had many discussions about it, that they would be 'changing' their position. I'm guessing there was some pressure. But at the time, stories and rumors of methods used by Kinsey and things redefined as normal by him started to emerge. Horrible stories, including his 'research' on molested children, which often meant he quietly observed and recorded data while abuse continued. Sickening. Yet we were warned that people were coming back around to him. And sure enough, now he's a hero, he's saved our nation. Barf. I'm guessing it will be something like that. It already is, the once disorder of homosexuality is now a norm. In a generation or 2, a new group of psych students will likely be studying the effects of the 'normalizing' of homosexuality and the APA (if it still exists) endorsement of gay marriage. And probably analyzing why it did not work. As many know, there did exist data that showed how homosexuality could have 'turned up' in individuals, genetic and behavioral, how it was 'disordered' from the norm, though not necessarily a 'disease', the defining aspects of disease went even further. But to prove, after that, that those studies were flawed? I don't know how they actually 'proved' it, or even if they cared to bother to justify their dramatic change in position, or even if they cared why it was necessary to prove previous studies were wrong.
"They must have had a marketing expert advise them on this."
LOL! But probably true...
Actually, as I recall, being queer was once classed as a mental disease. Then the yahoos at the APA decided it was not. And the rest has been downhill.
So Psychiatry has been hijacked by the liberal left?
They need lobotomies to be cured from the disease of liberalism. So now they endorse Gay Marriage? they used to treat it as a disorder right?
Religion of secular humanism = shifting sand
The Word of God as absolute truth = solid rock
Which one do you build your life on?
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