One Nation, Under Therapy

Food for thought, today, on the absolute stupidity of what passes for mental health ideology today. From an AEI Bradley Lecture:

Nowadays, when ambulances and police race to a disaster scene, the trauma counselors aren’t far behind. They are ready to administer psychological first aid, whether it is solicited or not. Counselors have become a fixture of disaster's aftermath in America. Their obvious doubts about our natural resilience stoke the perception that we are easily damaged by crisis. But are we?...

When definitions of trauma are ludicrously defined down--when drivers involved in a one-mile-per hour fender bender are regarded the same, diagnostically speaking, as survivors of the Bataan Death March--then the concept of trauma has become meaningless and the ordeals and suffering of seriously traumatized people are trivialized.

And . . . when definitions of trauma are dumbed down, so are reasons to call in the counselors. For example, in Oregon, crisis counselors were summoned to meet with the employees of Portland General Electric when their 401K accounts took a bad hit. In Massachusetts they helped librarians cope with the destruction of books when the basement of the Boston Public Library flooded in 1998.

So when events are indisputably horrific--not warped library books but, an attack on the World Trade Center and Pentagon--many mental health professionals see themselves as indispensable. Why do they presume we are so fragile in the face of powerful events?

There is more, of course. Winnie the Pooh, et al, have been put on the couch- and the results are troubling. From the diagnosis:

Pooh and Piglet are at risk for additional self-esteem injury because of the chronic dysthymia of their neighbour, Eeyore. What a sad life that donkey lives. We do not have sufficient history to diagnose this as an inherited, endogenous depression or to know whether some early trauma contributed to his chronic negativism, low energy and anhe(haw)donia. Eeyore would benefit greatly from an antidepressant, perhaps combined with individual therapy. Maybe with a little fluoxetine, Eeyore might see the humour in the whole tail-losing episode. Even if a patch of St. John's wort grew near his thistles, the forest could ring with a braying laugh.

You may want to destroy every Pooh book you own- and more importantly, protect your child from the widespread Pooh sphere of influence.

Are we done yet? Nope. See this:

"Is everybody crazy?" Writer Jim Windolf posed the question in an October 1997 issue of The New York Observer, and then answered it himself with numbers.

If you add up all the psychological ailments Americans complain of, the portrait that emerges is of a nation of basket-cases. Ten million suffer from Seasonal Affective Disorder. Fourteen million are alcoholics. Fifteen million are pathologically socially anxious. Fifteen million are depressed. Three million suffer panic attacks. Ten million have Borderline Personality Disorder. Twelve million have "restless legs." Five million are obsessive/compulsive. Two million are manic-depressive. Ten million are addicted to sex. Factoring in wild-card afflictions like Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and multiple chemical sensitivity, and allowing for overlap (folks suffering from more than one problem), Windolf concluded that "77 percent of the adult population is a mess?’ With a couple of new quantifiable disorders, "everybody in the country will be officially nuts."

His cheeky point is that Americans are turning into annoyingly self-absorbed hypochondriacs. Why? Because they can. Go ahead and cry, says the prevailing psychological wisdom. Any trifling discomfort you might feel has been legitimized. Your pain is valid. If you think you’re sick, you are."

Read it all here. Nope, still not done. Remember that first article we pointed to? Did you catch these gems?

Schoolyard games that encourage competition are under assault. In some districts, dodgeball has been placed in a "Hall of Shame" because, as one leading educator says, "It's like Lord of the Flies, with adults encouraging it." Tag is also under a cloud. The National Education Association distributes a teacher's guide that suggests an anxiety-reducing version of tag, "where nobody is ever 'out.' "

It is now common practice for "sensitivity and bias committees" inside publishing houses to expunge from standardized tests all mention of potentially distressing topics. Two major companies specifically interdict references to rats, mice, roaches, snakes, lice, typhoons, blizzards and birthday parties. (The latter could create bad feelings in children whose families do not celebrate them.) The committees, says Diane Ravitch in her recent book The Language Police, think such references could "be so upsetting to some children that they will not be able to do their best on a test."

We'll have more to say on the matter but we thought we'd serve up the appetizer now. It does make one wonder why real teachers don't go postal. I suppose we'll have to ask Mamacita.

Something to think about.