6 COMMENTS

  1. The changes demonstrated here relate not to politics at all, but directly to the removal of social dogma in favour of actual science. If there is any politics to these changes, it is only found in the slowness with which they have occurred: science conclusively demonstrated (through the work of Dr Hooker and others) that homosexuality was not a mental illness in the 1950s.
    Truth is, modern psychiatry was created by people who drank the Kool Aid of Christianity, and who accepted its views on what was normal in the area of sexuality as the actual normal for sexuality. Their views were not scientific in this area, but based on “everybody knows”. Quite naturally, the application of science went on to show that everybody jolly well does not know, and particularly not so when they accept religious fables as facts.
    The changes to the definitions of paraphilias show exactly the same thing: when you abandon “everybody knows” in favour of actually researching the issue, you begin to discover (and to accept) that the truth is other than what you initially believed. It shows the respect with which science is held by the mental health professions, that these changes in understanding have been incorporated appropriately into the professional understandings of what categorizes mental illnesses. Once again, if there is anything political in these changes, it is merely the extended time that it has taken for them to be fully accepted for what they are in DSM terms (ie human variations rather than clinical diagnoses).

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    • I don’t believe that the removal of homosexuality as a “mental illness” from the DSM had a twiddle to do with science and everything to do with politics in the form of lots of gay men and lesbian women demonstrating loudly outside the offices of the APA. You do know that the supposed “illnesses” listed in the wonderful DSM are voted on by predominately upper middle class white men in committees? They make up possible new “diagnoses” while washing their hands after using the facilities, take them into committee, and vote on them. Sounds really scientific to me. What does it sound like to you?????? This is all proven from the testimony of eyewitnesses, some of whom were actually on the committees, until they resigned in total disgust! Scientific you say?????

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    • I was diagnosed as histrionic by a psychiatrist who claimed to be a Holy Bible believing man, because I had “wind blown hair,” “wears make-up,” and I was a “pleasant slim white female,” who “smiles inappropriately” when this strange doctor kept asking me over and over again about the “hyper-sexual” odd, adverse and withdrawal effects of the “happy, horny, skinny drug,” Wellbutrin.
      This doctor was so stupid, he also misdiagnosed the common symptoms of antidepressant discontinuation syndrome as “bipolar,” which means he was not even intelligent enough to read his unholy DSM “bible.”
      And to point out his inanity even further, this self proclaimed Holy Bible believer also misdiagnosed me because he was not wise enough to believe in the Holy Spirit, and he even thought the name of the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and the name of the plains of the promise land were “irrelevant to reality.”
      Fifteen years later, this stupid psychiatrist’s unholy DSM “bible” has been declared scientifically “lacking in validity” and “unreliable.” And the DNA evidence has come in casting doubt on whether he is even actually one of “God’s chosen people” at all.
      I’m pretty certain God loves the decent souls from all religions, and doesn’t have a lot of respect for those who blasphemy the Holy Spirit. As a sign I drove by yesterday said, “Love Wins.” Psychiatry today is about hate and fear mongering. “Wake me up when September ends.” Wake up, psychiatry!

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