Free Republic

A leading psychiatry group has told its members they should not feel bound by a longstanding rule against commenting publicly on the mental state of public figures — even the president. The statement, an email this month from the executive committee of the American Psychoanalytic Association to its 3,500 members, represents the first significant crack in the profession’s decades-old united front aimed at preventing experts from discussing the psychiatric aspects of politicians’ behavior. It will likely make many of its members feel more comfortable speaking openly about President Trump’s mental health. The impetus for the email was “belief in the...

November 15, 2016 -- Those who are setting our so-called “values”, such as the small but powerful group of academics, mainstream media, and homosexual activists, do so by attempting to impose strange myths and ideas that have no scientific basis. These myths include the one that homosexuals are “born that way”, can’t change, and must be accepted for “who they are”. Further, those claiming they are a different gender than that with which they were born, i.e. the transgendered, who “feel” they belong to other than their gender at birth, must be accepted as such. The public is supposed to...

A U.S. Air Force psychologist described an al-Qaida sleeper agent as a sometimes kind, respectful man who nonetheless would attack the United States if given a chance. The psychologist testified during the first day of a sentencing hearing for 44-year-old former Bradley University graduate student Ali al-Marri, who has admitted training in al-Qaida camps and having contact with those involved in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. The second and what is scheduled to be the final day of al-Marri's sentencing is Thursday in U.S. District Court in Peoria. The Qatar native faces up to 15 years in prison after pleading...

White House officials pushed to ban conversion therapy for LGBT youths, pointing to new findings that debunk the therapy. A ban on the conversion therapy for minors was introduced in Congress on Thursday, following a report from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. "The science rebukes this so-called practice and so do we," White House Senior Adviser Valerie Jarrett told reporters on a call Thursday. The report from the administration includes a consensus from an expert panel held by the American Psychological Association earlier this summer.The panel found that variations in "sexual orientation and gender identity are normal,...

TORONTO — The American Psychological Association’s Council of Representatives voted overwhelmingly today to prohibit psychologists from participating in national security interrogations. The measure passed by a vote of 156-1, with seven abstentions and one recusal. The resolution states that psychologists "shall not conduct, supervise, be in the presence of, or otherwise assist any national security interrogations for any military or intelligence entities, including private contractors working on their behalf, nor advise on conditions of confinement insofar as these might facilitate such an interrogation." The new policy does allow for psychologist involvement in general policy consultation regarding humane interrogations. The prohibition...

Last week Rep. Jackie Speier, D-Calif., introduced a bill in Congress asking states to ban sexual orientation conversion therapy, often abbreviated as CT, for minors. California is one of two states that have prohibited licensed professionals from offering the practice, which includes efforts to change not only sexual orientation but also gender identity. While the congressional bill is only a resolution—it encourages states to bar the practice rather than proposing the heavier lift of a federal ban—the idea that CT is dangerous and should be banned is gaining momentum ... What do we actually know about the practice of CT...

Lee's Note: Robert B. Young, MD, is a member of Doctors for Responsible Gun Ownership -- a project of the Second Amendment Foundation. His take on the American Psychological Association's latest anti-gun report is insightful and should be mandatory reading. I debunks many anti-gun myths and talking points.

Milk—it does a body bad? Some Connecticut lawmakers seem to think so. The state legislature is considering a bill that would ban day care centers from serving whole milk or 2 percent milk to children. The move, according to the bill’s sponsors, is aimed at curbing childhood obesity—but opponents say the information is outdated. While the American Academy of Pediatrics put out a 2008 recommendation that children switch to low-fat milk after the age of 2 because they don’t need the fat content, others argue that the fat isn’t the dietary demon some claim. …

(big time BARF ALERT!)When I was a little kid, I used to hear my brothers, cousins, and friends say things like “That’s so gay!” on a pretty regular basis. I would usually laugh along, hoping with all my might that they didn’t know my secret. My parents and other adults in my life would tell me things like “Boys don’t cry” or “Be a man!” which essentially was their way of telling me that being emotional was forbidden or a sign of weakness. When I was a teenager, there were a few boys at my high school who ridiculed me,...

I read an article recently, by Brandon Turbeville, about the Executive Actions Obama signed January 3 further limiting our gun rights, and it got me to thinking about the “Axis of Evil” which have now joined forces to disarm us. Although there are plenty of tertiary players, it’s mainly Obamacare, NSA and the American Psychiatric Association (APA) who make up this merry collaboration of oppressors. Although Mr. Turbeville covered the idea of using mental disorders to disarm the population in his article, I wanted to dig deeper and further illustrate how all of the elements are in place now to...

NEW YORK – The underlying assumption that has led to the increasing legitimization of same-sex marriage is now fueling a growing effort in academic circles to mainstream pedophilia. Once considered taboo, psychologists are beginning to walk down the same path LGBT activists established more than 50 years ago, insisting that pedophilia is an inborn “sexual orientation,” not a learned sexual behavior. If people are born with a sexual attraction to minors, the argument goes, their “orientation” should be accepted as normative and not stigmatized. James Cantor, Ph.D., a clinical psychologist in the Law and Mental Health Program at the...

After certain press criticism and a productive online backlash in the blogosphere, the American Psychiatric Association (APA) is performing a gratifying volte-face in its use of the term sexual "orientation" for paedophilia. In its fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5), the APA has distinguished between paedophilic disorder and paedophilic orientation. Paedophilia-advocacy groups, like B4U-ACT, a grassroots lobby group, have long seen the declassification of paedophilia to the status of an "orientation" for “minor-attracted persons" (MAPs) to be a necessary means to their ends. The North American Man-Boy Love Association (and numerous international affiliates advocating...

After a national backlash from social conservatives, the American Psychiatric Association (ASA) has dropped its designation of pedophilia as a “sexual orientation.” In May, the APA released the Fifth Edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5). In this document, the first new edition in 10 years, the APA described pedophilia as a sexual “orientation.” The classification went largely unnoticed until last month, when the NeonTommy blog of the Annenberg Digital News at the University of Southern California published a blog post critical of the terminology. Social conservatives said calling pedophilia an “orientation” was a step towards...

The American Psychiatric Association’s (APA) decision to once again reclassify pedophilia has led to further concerns that the professional organization is attempting to legitimize the disorder, paving the way for its defense and the recommendation of removal of age-of-consent laws.In a press release Friday, Liberty Counsel, a nonprofit organization that promotes the causes of religious liberty, the sanctity of human life, and the family observed that in its newly published Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition (DSM-5), APA “changed the classification of pedophilia from a ‘disorder’ to a ‘sexual orientation,’ but, following the public outcry, APA released...

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie recently signed Assembly Bill 3371, which forbids licensed professional counselors in the state to “engage in sexual orientation change efforts with a person under 18 years of age.” Christie indicated that in signing the bill, he was accepting the professional expertise of the American Psychological Association. It is true that the APA has been highly critical of “sexual reorientation therapy” or “sexual orientation change efforts.” It is unfortunate that both the legislature and the governor failed to recognize, however, that even professional organizations can fall prey to political pressure and ideological bias—as has certainly been...

Using the same tactics used by "gay" rights activists, pedophiles have begun to seek similar status arguing their desire for children is a sexual orientation no different than heterosexual or homosexual.

It’s not a stretch to suggest that Americans are over medicated. In 2011 doctors across the nation wrote an astounding four billion medical prescriptions, amounting to an average of 13 prescriptions for every man, woman and child in the United States. In the next few weeks the American Psychiatric Associations is releasing their updated fifth version their Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5); the so-called ‘bible’ of psychiatric diagnoses. The new manual promises to take mental illness and the use of prescription drugs to a whole new level. You may not be considered “crazy” or “mentally ill” today,...

The "bible" of psychiatric diagnosis shapes—and deforms—both treatment and policy... --snip-- The DSM-III (1980) was an effort to jettison outdated theories and terms such as "neurosis" and replace them with an objective list of disorders with agreed-upon symptoms. The DSM-IIIR (1987) was 567 pages and included nearly 300 disorders. The DSM-IV (1994, slightly revised in 2000) was 900 pages and contained nearly 400 disorders. The new DSM-5, with its modernized Arabic number, is 947 pages. It contains, along with serious mental illnesses, "binge-eating disorder" (whose symptoms include "eating when not feeling physically hungry"), "caffeine intoxication," "parent-child relational problem" and my...

The National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) is distancing itself from the the American Psychiatric Association and its upcoming Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5). While they acknowledge that the goal of DSM "is to provide a common language for describing psychopathology" they are no longer convinced that approach has value if we are going to solve 21st century cognitive science problems.  It is, paraphrasing the statement  of Thomas R. Insel, M.D., Director of the National Institute of Mental Health, more of a dictionary than a manual.  He uses the term "Bible" instead of 'manual' but I would...

Although fewer than 6 percent of American adults will have a severe mental illness in a given year, according to a 2005 study, many more—more than a quarter each year—will have some diagnosable mental disorder. That’s a lot of people. Almost 50 percent of Americans (46.4 percent to be exact) will have a diagnosable mental illness in their lifetimes, based on the previous edition, the DSM-IV. And the new manual will likely make it even "easier" to get a diagnosis. If we think of having a diagnosable mental illness as being under a tent, the tent seems pretty big. Huge,...