Podcast on the APA, Destructive Trends in Mental Health and Politics
We talk today to Dr. Nicholas Cummings, former president of the American Psychological Association (APA) and author, along with Rogers Wright, of Destructive Trends in Mental Health.
Dr. Cummings spearheaded the successful effort to get the APA to stop regarding homosexuality as a mental disease--and now he is treated as an anathema by the same organization he headed--find out why. He discusses the ultra liberal agenda that has captured psychology, psychiatry and social work, why men have fled these fields and the politics of mental health that affect all of us or our loved ones. You can listen to the podcast directly (you don't need an iPod!) by clicking right here, or you can get it via iTunes right here.
There's an archive of previous episodes here. There's also a collection of low-bandwidth versions for dialup users, etc., available here.
Please leave any comments or suggestions below.
posted by Helen at 1:40 AM
46 Comments:
Thank you for highlighting this. As a social worker, I can assure you that the field is disproportionately populated with liberals with knees reflexive jerking. That an intelligent person could hold other views is frankly incredible to them, and they know conservative arguments only by their caricatures.
This is an interesting subject, I'm looking forward to listening.
A few topic suggestions: Barbeque podcasting. You all have some great barbecue in Tennessee and since each region has its own style it's the kind of thing that people get passionate about. It would make for a good show.
There are a lot of interesting things going on in Consciousness Studies that would make for some good podcasts, perhaps something on Near Death Experiences.
Chattanooga professional photographer and pilot Ron Lowery flew and photographed the Lewis and Clark route and has a book. I haven't bought it yet, but from the website it looks good and his story might make a good podcast. (I have no connection to Lowery, just thought his adventure was interesting and since he and you were in Tennessee...)
http://www.chasinglewisandclark.com/
imagine@ronlowery.com
423.344.3701
Speaking of redefining the household and the individual according to leftist social agendas, I'm hoping that this issue will also eventually dovetail with discussions about the child custody and the divorce industry's epidemic corruption of the primary right to parent and be parented without interference.
The unholy triumvirate now consists of statist psychology, statist education, and statist family law. They are inseparable. Your rights are simply not your rights anymore.
The family is in the crosshairs and your and my legislatures are motivated by special interest to keep it that way.
It's to bad a great organization gets infested with vile like this. I've met
former homosexuals who have been saved
from this destructive life style. Helen correct me if I'm wrong but the average
life expectancy is what 49 years. Hats
off to Dr. Cummings. Now they want to infest out public schools. This is just unholy. "God help us". It's a sin in my book.
Bob:
I think you'd be disappointed in Dr. Cummings. He's not anti-homosexual at all. He just wants the APA to stick to science, and not pretend that politics are a substitute for research.
-- Helen correct me if I'm wrong but the average life expectancy is what 49 years. --
Helen doesn't need to correct you. I'll correct you: No such statistic exists.
I suspect jonathan is mostly right. Googling around, I found some estimates, mostly in line with "49," but nothing firm, and a lot of them seemed like back-of-a-cocktail-napkin calculations. I imagine the entire dropoff from a standard life expectancy is due to AIDS. I don't want to say that "doesn't count" (it sure as hell counts for those who have it), but it is not the clearest expression one could have of the reality. As far as I know, homosexuality is a "dangerous lifestyle" only for that reason, and if a particular individual doesn't have AIDS, there is nothing more dangerous about it. So it is likely technically true that homosexuals have a shorter life expectancy, but that misleads somewhat. They don't have a shorter life expectancy than a heterosexual person with AIDS, for example.
And now, back to our regularly scheduled programming...
Who said I or Dr. Cummings was anti- anything. I might disagree with some of his comments but I know he is for gays
doing somethings they want. They seem to want a special place in society that's just for them. Bring on the science and
research that proves its a natural life style. The next thing they will tell us
is that it's not a mental disease to have sex with 12 year old children. Most
psychiatrist I know use nothing but drug combinations to treat patients.
You are right. It's the AIDS and other
sexually transmitted stuff.Sorry I forgot.But I still say that the 49 figure is close. It wasn't before the 1980's.
This politicization is not new. When I was in medical school 20 years ago, I seriously considered going into psychiatry; in fact my first two publications are in the psychiatric literature. However, it was clearly an agenda-driven profession, and I ended up choosing another speciality.
As an aside, the scientific articles abt gay life expectancy are:
Hogg RS, Strathdee SA, Craib KJP, O'Shaughnessy MV, Montaner JSG, Schechter MT. Modelling the impact of HIV disease on mortality in gay men. International Journal of Epidemiology 1997;26(3):657–61.
and
Cameron P, Landess T, Cameron K. Psychol Rep. 2005 Jun;96(3 Pt 2):915-61.Homosexual sex as harmful as drug abuse, prostitution, or smoking.
Both suggest a 20 year decrease in life expectancy.
However, both have methodologic problems, and both suffer from including data from periods during which HIV therapy was not as good as it is now. In addition, there are always severe problems with making sure there are not confusing factors. For instance, there have been a
number of studies indicating that gays have a much higher suicide rate. However, when the data was normalized for gender role, sexual
orientation, per se, was not particularly important as a factor. The risk was loaded onto gender role, not orientation (Fitzpatrick, KK et al. Gender role, sexual orientation and suicide risk. J Affect Disord. 2005 Jul;87(1):35-42.)
Further, one must separate correlation from causation. For instance, people without a high school education have an 11.8 year decrease in life expectancy, according to one study (Wong, et al. Contribution of major diseases to disparities in mortality. N Engl J Med. 2002 Nov 14;347(20):1585-92.), but dropping out of high school doesn't "cause" death.
The Cameron stuff is not scientific and has been rebuked not only by the professional organizations, but even his anti-gay allies.
The "Paul Cameron" is the same one who has gone after Dr. Dobson for being too pro-gay. And word on the street is that Cameron is angry at Dobson for no longer using his research because his numbers simply aren't credible, not even for FOF.
The Hogg study was more legitimate, but is no longer current (though never replicated and only studied one gay urban enclave)e.
And the figure wasn't "20," but "8-21."
Here is a link where the authors admit the study is no longer valid because it was taken before the introduction of newer meds:
"In our paper, we demonstrated that in a major Canadian centre, life expectancy at age 20 years for gay and bisexual men is 8 to 21 years less than for all men....In contrast, if we were to repeat this analysis today the life expectancy of gay and bisexual men would be greatly improved. Deaths from HIV infection have declined dramatically in this population since 1996. As we have previously reported there has been a threefold decrease in mortality in Vancouver as well as in other parts of British Columbia.4"
http://ije.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/full/30/6/1499
NPR did a wonderful show on how the change occured using a grand daughter of one of the men involved to interview him about their stratagy used in getting APA to change it's policy.
It was good enough I send for a copy.. Call NPR Chicago at 312.948.4680 and ask for This American Life, the 1/18/2002 brodcast, "The 81 Words" (serial 204 ?, may be just a disk number).
Fasinating !! Keep in mind as you listen to the meetings they had.. this was not too long after a Supreme Court decision that homosexuals could not present themselves as a "class" in court unless homosexuality was know as an unchangable characteristic. That was the motivation that set the ball rolling.
Bill, Retired Psychologist
The "trend" of politicizing the mental health industry really isn't new.
The mental health profession shouldn't be in the business of enforcing morals or social norms.
Having a "mental disorder" is a health, not a moral issue and is analogous to having high cholesterol or hypertension.
Mental disorders, like "race" and "gender," are socially neutral and as such are covered under the ADA and other disabilities pieces of legislation.
So when we see something like this written:
"The next thing they will tell us
is that it's not a mental disease to have sex with 12 year old children."
We see utter confusion between "morals/values/social norms" on the one hand and "medical science" on the other. Yes, the PC forces are doing it now. But in the 50s the people who put homosexuality on the APA's list of disorders to begin with were doing it then too.
For more, see:
http://jonrowe.blogspot.com/2005/12/mental-health-and-social-norms-death.html
I guess Hitler had a morals/values/social norms problem and not a mental disease. But that's right you mental health people shouldn't be in the business of enforcing laws against social norms like being anti jewish,anti Christian and just plain nuts.Come on get real.
I guess Hitler had a morals/values/social norms problem and not a mental disease. But that's right you mental health people shouldn't be in the business of enforcing laws against social norms like being anti jewish,anti Christian and just plain nuts.Come on get real.
Hitler was a believer in eugenics, like many other people at the time, including many "intellectuals" in the US and Britain. (In the US thousands of people were involuntarily sterilized, often for things that sound suspiciously like the "social norms" you mention.) Hitler used eugenics as an excuse to pathologically and opportunistically attack several groups.
Let me guess, bob. "Social norms" should be whatever you decide and you should be allowed to enforce them. So let's hear it, bob, what are the "social norms" that will create paradise on earth if you're allowed to enforce them?
Psychiatry has always been politicized profession, everywhere in the world, always. The only question is who is in charge of the show at any given time.
In Soviet Union during Brezhnev's days political opposition was considered a mental disease and was "treated" with "various forms of restraint, electric shocks, a range of drugs (such as narcotics, tranquilizers, and insulin) that cause long lasting side effects, and sometimes involved beatings"
More is here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psikhushka
Beware of APA! Next logical step in their agenda is to put Americal libertarians into Psikhushkas!
I was going to go into psychology/sociology, but in the end chose computer science.. They seemed to just be full of false prophets whom I did not want to be associated with.. I've lost two friends to their 'cures' for 'diseases' (one to a chemically encouraged suicide and the other to a chemically created ADD,) and watched a third just plain mistreated for an 'eating' disorder,
The suicide was given happy pills then had them suddenly taken away, you do the math. It was called a tragedy, personally, I call it murder.
the ADD was just smart and bored with our pathetic school; I could relate, I was too. The ADD drugs destroyed him, now he can't function without them and just simply isn't there when he runs out. Docs kept upping the dose, but of course the dose caused the problem in the first place. A few years ago he was informed that he was taking enough to "kill and 8 year old". I have no idea what year old his dosage could kill now.. Docs didn't cure a thing, they just created a steady cash flow.
the eating disorder never had an eating disorder, chose to not eat due to lack of self confidence and confusion over what exactly beauty is and how to get it. Or, in plainer terms, she had an image disorder. A needless distinction right? Everyone, every single person I have ever talked to about this subject understands that the typical eating disorder has nothing to do with eating and everything to do with changing image. So her treatment?
Her treatment involved being legally required to sit in a room while being yelled at to eat by various social workers. Unsurprisingly, it didn't work. Well, atleast they didn't try to force pills on her
how can I have any respect at all for the profession when it's practitioners know LESS than the average layman? Much less want to join their ranks?
So it's not just the politics driving people away, it's also the complete incompetence of practitioners who have no idea what the hell they are doing. It's not like the subject is rocket science.. The worst believe everything to be a disease and a mind-altering-pill treatable one.
(disclaimer: Pills are a wonderful tool; but IMEO they should be treated as a last resort used only in life-threatening situations and given their mind altering nature there should be much stricter controls on who can hand them out)
kill the spaces and put the @ 'n .com where it belongs
d c ree per gmail
The suicide was given happy pills then had them suddenly taken away, you do the math. It was called a tragedy, personally, I call it murder.
That seems a little extreme. I mean I have little faith in mental health professionals and less in the various flavors of brain candy, but murder? I'm sure if your friend had informed her therapist what she intended to do he would have made sure she got help. There are scores of variables involved in situations like that - perhaps your friend was severely abused much earlier (possibly even by a family member), which increases the risk of suicide astronomically.
I'd be careful of who I called a murderer. I know anyone accusing me of responsibility for someone's else's suicide would be in deep, deep trouble.
Well lets see maybe it would be the word of God, Mr anonymous or whoever you are.
Sorry but I quess that ruins your parade.
Dear Bob # 2 . I like your take on this stuff also.
-- Well lets see maybe it would be the word of God, Mr anonymous or whoever you are. --
That's fine. But "the word of God" has nothing to do with "mental disorders." You shouldn't be trying to medicalize "the word of God" and taking things which you believe to be "sins" and turning them into "mental disorders."
In doing so, you are no better than those who are taking PC morality and medicalizing it.
"The Cameron stuff is not scientific and has been rebuked not only by the professional organizations, but even his anti-gay allies.
The "Paul Cameron" is the same one who has gone after Dr. Dobson for being too pro-gay..."
In general, if you want to deal with the methodologic problems with a study, you don't want to do it with agenda-driven ad hominem attacks. That makes you no different than what you are claiming to argue against, and diminishes rather than validates your cricitism. After all, if you judge a study based on the convictions of the researcher, then we should equally distrust what you write because you also have an opinion...
I mentioned the methodologic problems and changes in therapy. My post was only in response to the claim that such studies did not exist.
I didn't have time to get into Cameron's methodologic problems, which are numerous. Believe me, there are far more than "the convictions of the researcher" at play here. That's why I alludge to Dobson, who clearly has anti-gay convictions, no longer using Cameron's work.
Here are three links which show how bad Cameron's work is.
This stuff is real old news. Almost 10 years ago or so, Bill Bennett cited Cameron's "43" claim, and then after reading criticisms regarding Cameron's methodology, he ate crow and retracted his endorsement for that stat.
http://www.indegayforum.org/authors/olson/olson27.html
http://www.indegayforum.org/authors/pietrzyk/pietrzyk53.html
http://www.indegayforum.org/authors/sullivan/sullivan10.html
Money quote from Olson's article:
-- From this Cameron and company concluded not that newsworthy deaths tend to get into newspapers, but that gays must experience shockingly high rates of violent death. With a perfectly straight face they report, for example, that lesbians are at least 300 times more likely to die in car crashes than females of similar ages in general. --
bob #1-
Well let's see, the "word of God" that you mention has been interpreted to condone a wide range of things - from drinking strychnine and handling rattlesnakes to slaughtering nonbelievers to burning "witches" to torturing false confessions and conversions out of nonbelievers - that sound like textbook mental illness.
So basically you're conceding my point, that the "social norms" you refer to are whatever you decide with the thin veneer that they have to be authorized by some interpretation of scripture somewhere.
Here's an interesting link that discusses the methodology of Cameron's studies.
http://psychology.ucdavis.edu/Rainbow/html/facts_cameron.html
You shouldn't be trying to medicalize "the word of God" and taking things which you believe to be "sins" and turning them into "mental disorders."
Clearly, among other things, that would be confusing motive and action. 'Sins' are actions prohibited by "the word of God," but mental disorders are not actions. Mental disorders can motivate or disinhibit actions, but they aren't actions.
The idea of mental disorders is actually at odds with most concept of sin, because a mental disorder interferes with free will and hence moral culpability.
However, I don't see an inherent problem with viewing major deviations from social norms as evidence of mental disorder, or seeing motivation to violate major social norms as mental disorder. How do you define a sociopath as disordered except by the impact of his actions on society? In strict naturalist, utilitarian, Darwinian terms, a sociopathy could be viewed as an evolutionary advantage. Many mental disorders manifest themselves in ways that, absent a moral framework, work to the advantage of the disordered person and the harm of others, and if they work to the harm of the disordered person, clearly, there is no amoral justification for intervention. Pure naturalist utilitarianism renders any disorder little more than an object of curiousity.
"However, I don't see an inherent problem with viewing major deviations from social norms as evidence of mental disorder, or seeing motivation to violate major social norms as mental disorder."
Heh. Yeah, that's what the Soviets did when they noted that anybody who engaged in "anti-Soviet thought" was clearly mentally ill.
The content of this podcast is enlightening, but the technical quality is intermittently endarkening, as is the case with the other Glenn and Helen podcasts I've listened to. Although the voices of the phoneline guests sound fine, the hosts' voices are thin and echo-chambered. This obliges a special effort to concentrate on what's being said, rather than on how hard it is to know what's being said.
Heh. Yeah, that's what the Soviets did when they noted that anybody who engaged in "anti-Soviet thought" was clearly mentally ill.
Of course, EVERYTHING can be abused, but what justification does society have, in an amoral framework, for acting on an individual's mental state, other than the impact of his/her behavior on social order/stability?
Of course, EVERYTHING can be abused, but what justification does society have, in an amoral framework, for acting on an individual's mental state, other than the impact of his/her behavior on social order/stability?
Of course in our society the justification of "social stability" isn't valid. If something isn't a crime, its Constitutionally protected expression. Much of the time totalitarian states are very "stable", but you wouldn't want to live there.
Of course in our society the justification of "social stability" isn't valid. If something isn't a crime, its Constitutionally protected expression.
Social stability in this context can mean making sure people aren't being stabbed in the street. Stop reading through the lens of your paranoia and realize that for Ted Bundy, John Wayne Gacy, and Jefferey Dahmer, the primary basis for labeling them mentally ill was their major deviations from social norms, i.e. murdering people (or do you consider that Constitutionally protected expression?
Social stability in this context can mean making sure people aren't being stabbed in the street. Stop reading through the lens of your paranoia and realize that for Ted Bundy, John Wayne Gacy, and Jefferey Dahmer, the primary basis for labeling them mentally ill was their major deviations from social norms, i.e. murdering people (or do you consider that Constitutionally protected expression?
That's covered in my statement - last time I checked serial murder is a crime. Protecting people's person and their rights from force and fraud is fundamental, or should be fundamental.
What do some famous serial killers have to do with this? Serial killers are a very rare, very sensationalized phenomenon. Violent crime has been declining for a long time now. Our society should be getting more free, not less.
And in a time when our civil rights and liberties are being eroded, it isn't paranoid to be concerned about our civil rights and liberties being eroded.
Protecting people's person and their rights from force and fraud is fundamental, or should be fundamental.
And it falls under the heading of preserving order. But then, why should it be fundamental? Why not have a purely Darwinian world, where the fittest prevail? Your definition of what is "fundamental" is as dependent on a belief structure as any other, and we're back to the issue I was partially bringing up.
What do some famous serial killers have to do with this?
Society is pretty unanimous that they were mentally disordered, but, for instance, Dahmer's behavior was normal for some cultures. And now we're back to my point. I pointed out that 'sin' is a term dealing with ACTIONS, whereas "mental disorder" is a term describing drives and motives. Society has no place coercing people except when their ACTIONS cross certain boundaries.
There's nothing wrong with characterizing deviations from social norms as evidence of mental disorder, BUT there's no justification for coercive intervention with the mentally disordered, unless their ACTIONS are crimes. I never said anything about So you see, civil rights and liberties aren't an issue in what I'm saying, and to infer that they are IS paranoid, especially when I drew it out to give you multiple opportunities to go and read the entire paragraph you originally excerpted, this time for comprehension and with an understanding of context. But no, you had to keep trying to call me some sort of would be tyrant, when I'm probably more libertarian than you are. Now, you've wasted all your energy of tilting at the windmill of my definition of mental disorders, without ever stopping to consider what it implied in terms of application, when you could have been addressing a real erosion of liberty like campaign finance reform or the Patriot Act.
No, I just said that "social stability" wasn't an acceptable motivation to go after anything other than criminal behavior. Going after anything other than actual criminal behavior would be tyranny.
And I never said anything about "going after" anyone.
Your paranoia inferred that all by itself.
How do you propose to "maintain stability" without action? The phrase assumes "stability" is in jeopardy. Of course false assumptions can create just as much error as false theories.
CAN YOU COMPREHEND THE WORDS YOU READ? I never said anything about MAINTAINING social stability. What did I actually SAY?
1. Social stability encompasses your fundamental of protecting people from others, i.e. making sure people aren't being stabbed in the street.
2. Absent a moral framework, I ASKED justification a society had for acting on an individual's mental state, other than the IMPACT of that person's ACTIONs on social stability, i.e like when he KILLS people. (Notice, I did NOT assert that this was a valid justification, either - I asked if there was any other rationale. The clear implication is that I was asking for a MORE valid rationale, and thus, was assigning it an inferior level of validity.
My whole point here was to differentiate between a mental state which motivates and action and the action itself. Maybe, just maybe, you can overcome your paranoid impulse to label one of the most libertarian people here a fascist because a few buzzwords out of context tripped your antennae, and we can get around to discussing that, but I'm not holding my breath. I don't think you can let it go.
Well, it seems that anonymous has let it go, so on to the point:
If a given set of behaviors is motivated by genetics or some pathology, does that require that society allow, tolerate, or embrace that set of behaviors? Consider all the behaviors that have had such causes assigned them, from theft to violence to homosexuality to alcoholism.
dweeb,
If alcoholism is self medication for an underlying problem (PTSD for instance) shouldn't we recognize what is going on and prescribe safer drugs (such as cannabis) for the problem?
I think it is important to separate genetic problems (if that is the cause) such as theft, which hams identifiable victims, from those such as alcoholism or homosexuality which do not.
If we keep it simple - government only has an obligation for crime victims - then we get smaller government with lesss power to follow the fads of scape goat of the day.
dweeb,
It turns out I can't read either. My apologies.
I was responding to the person you quoted without reading the whole thread.
Simon
Did I mention the "addiction" industry?
Is Addiction Real?
How about the drug war as rent seeking?
The War On Unpatented Drugs.
some interesting information if you want...
http://thinkcell.org/
I have found index with some guidebooks similar to your blog content and would like to share. There are interesting ideas for mental health, parenting, family, etc. Get it and enjoy!
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