DynamicTruth Op Ed - Inmates Take Over the Asylum

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The Inmates Have Taken Over the Asylum
by Paul Walfield

The American Psychiatric Association has a connotation of prestige, scholarly thought and authority. Just invoking the APA’s ideas on a particular subject usually ends a dispute. That should be changing soon.

Most everyone who can think clearly pretty much dismissed the recently published book “Harmful to Minors,” subtitled, “The Perils of Protecting Children From Sex,” by Judith Levine, even though the forward of the book was written by Dr. Joycelyn Elders, the Clinton Administration’s Surgeon General and published by the University of Minnesota. After all, the book was espousing the virtues of sexual relations between adults and children. It was ridiculous, absurd and contemptible. And in spite of the denials by the author and Joycelyn Elders, the book was clearly off base, disgusting, immoral and could only be acceptable to sexual deviates. At least that is what people who can think, thought.

However, according to a June 11, 2003 article on CNSNews.com entitled “Psychiatric Association Debates Lifting Pedophilia Taboo,” the APA may be removing the term “mental disorder” when describing pedophiles. It seems the folks who decide who is mentally ill and what it takes to be thought of that way, need to debate whether or not adults who seek out children for sexual partners should be continued to be considered mentally ill or as APA members Psychiatrist Charles Moser of San Francisco's Institute for the Advanced Study of Human Sexuality and Peggy Kleinplatz of the University of Ottawa say, are “People whose sexual interests are atypical, culturally forbidden or religiously proscribed should not necessarily be labeled mentally ill.”

For the psychiatrists, men and women who seek out little children are merely displaying a natural, but not necessarily abnormal desire. That has got to be scary for all the rest of us Americans. Mental Health experts viewing adults who are sexually attracted to children as normal speaks volumes about the people who, up to now, make the rules on who is mentally disturbed.

The CNSNews article continues to explain that the APA may view pedophiles as not “psychologically unhealthy.” The folks over at the APA are also having some difficulty in deciding whether GID (gender identity disorder) is really a “disorder.”

It doesn’t take a whole lot of common sense to figure out that if a particular “lifestyle” were practiced by all, and if allowed to go unabated would end all human life on earth, should in fact be classified as a “disorder.” Unfortunately for us mere mortals, the “experts” over at the APA can’t muster enough common sense to figure that out for themselves. It appears they are so caught up in political correctness or pressured by groups espousing the virtues of sexual depravity or in the case of GID, the virtues of indecision over treatment, they have caved in, or far more frightening, really believe sexual deviance is merely an “alternative lifestyle.”

Though, there was an objection to the APA simply deciding that pedophiles are “normal,” at the convention held for that purpose on May 19, 2003, in San Francisco. According to CNSNews, “A. Dean Byrd, vice president of the National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality (NARTH) and a clinical professor of medicine at the University of Utah, condemned the debate.” Actually, he seemed to disagree with “normalizing” the pedophiles because he wouldn’t get grants to study them if they were no longer considered mentally ill, “What this does, in essence, is it has a chilling effect on research,” Byrd said. “That is, once you declassify it, there's no reason to continue studying it. What we know is that the paraphilias really impair interpersonal sexual behavior...and to suggest that it could be 'normalized' simply takes away from the science, but more importantly, has a chilling effect on research.” For some reason, most folks probably have a tendency to believe that a “normal” person at the convention would have objected to the APA declassifying pedophiles as mentally ill, on other grounds.

The article points to one such individual named Linda Ames Nicolosi, NARTH (National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality) publications director who points to the obvious, “If pedophilia is deemed normal by psychiatrists, then how can it remain illegal?” Adding, “It will be a tough fight to prove in the courts that it should still be against the law.”

The article points out that in an APA “Fact Sheet” from October 1997, the APA said, “An adult who engages in sexual activity with a child is performing a criminal and immoral act that never can be considered normal or socially acceptable behavior.” However, the APA has not rendered a decision on a person who is a pedophile, but has not molested a child. In other words, the APA is sure you are mentally ill if you are sexually attracted to small children and actually act on that feeling, but they aren’t sure if you are mentally ill if you just have those feelings but don’t give in to them and actually molest a child or children.

Well, it would seem that the people who have followed in the footsteps of Sigmund Freud, B.F. Skinner, Carl Jung, and Erik Erickson, all truly great minds and professionals in the science of psychiatry, are in actuality in desperate need of psychiatric help themselves. But, with the great ones no longer with us, who is there to treat them?

Times sure have changed for the folks at the APA, not surprisingly though; the times haven’t changed that much for the rest of us.

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Paul Walfield is a freelance writer and member of the State Bar of California with an undergraduate degree in Psychology and post-graduate study in behavioral and analytical psychology. He resided for a number of years in the small town of Houlton, Maine and is now a California attorney. Paul can be contacted at paul.walfield@cox.net

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