California Psychologist Wants 'Extreme Bias' Against Homosexuals Added To 'DSM'

NARTH ^ | January 6, 2006

[lizol]

California Psychologist Wants 'Extreme Bias' Against Homosexuals Added To 'DSM'

January 6, 2006 - In early December 2005, Washington Post writer Shankar Vedantam reported on the efforts of UCLA psychology professor Edward Dunbar to encourage the psychiatric community to add "extreme bias" against homosexuals (or ethnic groups) added to the American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM). Professor Dunbar is considered an expert on hate crimes and serves as a consultant with the Los Angeles City Police Department, the LA Unified School District and the Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian Center.

The Post article quotes Darrel A. Regier, director of research at the APA who supports research into whether pathological bias is a disorder but wonders if adding it to the DSM would be useful. "If you're going to put racism into the next edition of DSM, you would have enormous criticism." Critics would ask, "'Are you pathologizing all of life? You better be prepared to defend that classification."

Sally Satel, author of PC, M.D.: How Political Correctness Is Corrupting Medicine, calls Dunbar's proposal "absurd" and says such a diagnosis could be used by hate crime perpetrators to escape punishment.

However, Alvin F. Poussaint, professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School agrees with Dunbar and characterizes individuals with extreme bias as "delusional." He notes: "They imagine people are going to do all kinds of bad things and hurt them, and feel they have to do something to protect themselves. When they reach that stage, they are very impaired."

Shama Chaiken, with the California Department of Corrections also agrees with Dunbar. "We treat racism and homophobia as delusional disorders."

[Nathan Zachary]

"Oops, oops, I'm in California, now the guys with the white jackets are going to come to take me away and throw me in an asylum."

Sounds racist to me. Aren't lunatics just born that way?

[Burkean]

Isn't it already covered under "obsessive compulsive disorder"? Any extreme bias toward anything, if it is extreme enough to disrupt one's life, whether it be a bias against homosexuals, an ethnic group, dogs, flying, heights, hearing the Bible read out loud in a public school, it's all OCD if it's overboard and interfering in a normal life.

[My2Cents]

This guy doesn't show up on the UCLA School of Psychology faculty list (looking for his email address). Maybe he's a fraud; maybe last week he thought he was Napoleon.

[scripter]

HA ping.

[lizol]

During a New Years party I had a "discussion" with an extremely "argument proof" lady - about gay issues, and particularly about the possibility to allow gay marriages here, in Poland.

People of that kind are really strange.
They demand tolerance for all the eccentricities from everyone, claiming, that they are super-tolerant, but in fact they are extreme bigots.

That woman - when got rid off all her arguments, and obviously didn't now how to refute mine - stated, that she hoped, that there were not many more people with brain small like mine, who are employed on a position, like I am.

So I terminated the "discussion" and regreted, that I had engaged myself in it - as she spoiled the party (at least for me and my wife, who got called a "kitchen wife" by her).

[Moose4]

Liberalism is a mental disorder.

}:-)4

[popdonnelly]

Since when is bias a psychological disorder? There are all kinds of biases, exhibited by all kinds of people. Sounds to me like the professor is using psychology for his own political ends. Maybe he's biased.

[popdonnelly]

Since when is bias a psychological disorder? There are all kinds of biases, exhibited by all kinds of people. Sounds to me like the professor is using psychology for his own political ends. Maybe he's biased.

[lizol]

Yep, and watch you bar of soap, when get there. Don't let it fall on the floor.

[keithtoo]

Pschologists react to a Bullsh!t Detector the way vampires react to a crucifix.

[Zathras]

Free speach is now a mental disorder.

[JDoutrider]

Ping for later

[wildbill]

I'd accept that IF they'd also accept extreme bias against conservatives as a mental disorder.

But of course that would cause a problem in academe since most professors would be cited as insane.

[Chode]

how's about Extreme Bias against STOOOOOOOPID people??? what a putz...

[Last Dakotan]

Next thing you know, they'll have us shot.

Or, back to the lions.

[LauraleeBraswell]

It's funny how pysiaxtrists like to over examine every single disorder and search for some root cause. Every single one, except homosexuality. Homosexuals are always "born that way," it's untouchable.

[Psycho_Bunny]

Um......if this moron were to get this listed in the DSM, wouldn't it eventually help the very people it's meant to classify?

Suddenly, defense attorneys will be throwing the term around left and right:

"Did you beat that gay man?"

"Yes but I have a classified mental disorder...."

 

[LoneRangerMassachusetts]

Sounds funny (ridiculous, stupid, etc) until you understand that prisoners who exhibit bias against homosexuals are being given drugs to "solve" that little problem. This is scary.

Do you mean that men are give estrogen and women are given testosterone to correct this new disorder?

[TigersEye]

More evidence that the sickest among us gravitate towards careers in psychiatry. Take a pill, doc. It won't cure your problem but you won't care anymore.

[susannah59]

"They imagine people are going to do all kinds of bad things and hurt them, and feel they have to do something to protect themselves. When they reach that stage, they are very impaired."

Yup, sounds like liberals to me.

Of course, the DSM already has something covering that. I think it's called paranoia.