Really good talk! May I say though, the "mental health profession" is the biggest fraud and grift of all time. I would not operate on the premise that it is legitimate. It is hardly just in the case of gays and lesbians where they have no idea what they are doing. They harm as often as they help, and overall, they only harm society with their bogus ideologies. Interesting that you say here you would like to know what exactly psychologists are taught in school. Isn't that the million dollar question! But no one ever asks it. People flock to their "therapy" sessions despite having no idea what assumptions, premises and ideologies the "professionals" are operating on. And of course the incentive to help is completely financially warped.
Secondly I can tell you about a lesbian trans activist! Where I am in Pittsburgh (funny you used Pittsburgh in your hypothetical about targeted marketing!) we have a local lesbian who has been an absolutely obsessed trans activist for many years. On her blog, Pghlesbian.com, her obsession is particularly focused on "murders of trans women." She also published on her blog multiple libelous and defamatory articles and statements made about me by my former neighbors, for which I've sent her (and them and others) a notice of intent to sue, and she fundraised off the defamatory lies to raise money for her various "LGBTQ" causes including a yard sign campaign she launched in June 2022 distributing, she says, more than 1,800 "Protect Trans Kids" yard signs around the city of Pittsburgh and environs. Her name is Sue Kerr. As you say, it is a very strange phenomenon, the women and lesbians who have glommed onto "trans". (My guess would be actually that Kerr ended up this way as a result of "help" she received from "mental health professionals" earlier in her life.)
"They harm as often as they help, and overall, they only harm society with their bogus ideologies."
Indeed. I remember a sardonic quip to the effect that the cure rate for psychologists is about the same as for African witchdoctors. And the Wikipedia article on the Myers Briggs Type Indicator system -- for personality typing -- includes criticisms to the effect that it is pseudoscience and no better than a Chinese fortune cookie for doing that.
Criticisms that might be levelled at the whole concept of gender -- hardly better than phrenology and astrology. "Quack medicine" as a recent UK Times article on Tavistock put it.
However, there is some merit and value in the concept -- feminine and masculine, and gender nonconforming for examples. My attempt to put the concept on a more scientific footing:
Thanks for the link. Yes, I'm waiting for a really talented investigative writer to tackle the (admittedly massive topic of) "mental health" -- what that phrase really is and means and has accomplished -- including connecting the dots with "trans".
I don’t know if it will go down as the definitive work you’re hoping to see (I’d buy that book too) but Abigail Shrier’s Bad Therapy is a good start, I think.
Yes Shrier's book should help but I just think the propaganda machine easily overpowers any criticism of the industry and has done so since forever. There have always been people trying to be heard about how they have been harmed in the name of help for "mental" issues but they've never gotten anywhere, and by definition are among the least powerful, their lives destroyed by psychiatrization. In the 80s with SSRIs and the rise of "therapy" -- both of which pushed hard on teenagers and children -- the harm and the propaganda ramped up exponentially. It's a tangled web of no clear definitions or boundaries between / among psychiatry, psychology, and many other stripes of people billing themselves as some sort of therapist or counselor. It's a hydra similar to trans lie-deology.
Really good talk! May I say though, the "mental health profession" is the biggest fraud and grift of all time. I would not operate on the premise that it is legitimate. It is hardly just in the case of gays and lesbians where they have no idea what they are doing. They harm as often as they help, and overall, they only harm society with their bogus ideologies. Interesting that you say here you would like to know what exactly psychologists are taught in school. Isn't that the million dollar question! But no one ever asks it. People flock to their "therapy" sessions despite having no idea what assumptions, premises and ideologies the "professionals" are operating on. And of course the incentive to help is completely financially warped.
Secondly I can tell you about a lesbian trans activist! Where I am in Pittsburgh (funny you used Pittsburgh in your hypothetical about targeted marketing!) we have a local lesbian who has been an absolutely obsessed trans activist for many years. On her blog, Pghlesbian.com, her obsession is particularly focused on "murders of trans women." She also published on her blog multiple libelous and defamatory articles and statements made about me by my former neighbors, for which I've sent her (and them and others) a notice of intent to sue, and she fundraised off the defamatory lies to raise money for her various "LGBTQ" causes including a yard sign campaign she launched in June 2022 distributing, she says, more than 1,800 "Protect Trans Kids" yard signs around the city of Pittsburgh and environs. Her name is Sue Kerr. As you say, it is a very strange phenomenon, the women and lesbians who have glommed onto "trans". (My guess would be actually that Kerr ended up this way as a result of "help" she received from "mental health professionals" earlier in her life.)
"They harm as often as they help, and overall, they only harm society with their bogus ideologies."
Indeed. I remember a sardonic quip to the effect that the cure rate for psychologists is about the same as for African witchdoctors. And the Wikipedia article on the Myers Briggs Type Indicator system -- for personality typing -- includes criticisms to the effect that it is pseudoscience and no better than a Chinese fortune cookie for doing that.
Criticisms that might be levelled at the whole concept of gender -- hardly better than phrenology and astrology. "Quack medicine" as a recent UK Times article on Tavistock put it.
However, there is some merit and value in the concept -- feminine and masculine, and gender nonconforming for examples. My attempt to put the concept on a more scientific footing:
https://humanuseofhumanbeings.substack.com/p/a-multi-dimensional-gender-spectrum
Thanks for the link. Yes, I'm waiting for a really talented investigative writer to tackle the (admittedly massive topic of) "mental health" -- what that phrase really is and means and has accomplished -- including connecting the dots with "trans".
I don’t know if it will go down as the definitive work you’re hoping to see (I’d buy that book too) but Abigail Shrier’s Bad Therapy is a good start, I think.
Yes Shrier's book should help but I just think the propaganda machine easily overpowers any criticism of the industry and has done so since forever. There have always been people trying to be heard about how they have been harmed in the name of help for "mental" issues but they've never gotten anywhere, and by definition are among the least powerful, their lives destroyed by psychiatrization. In the 80s with SSRIs and the rise of "therapy" -- both of which pushed hard on teenagers and children -- the harm and the propaganda ramped up exponentially. It's a tangled web of no clear definitions or boundaries between / among psychiatry, psychology, and many other stripes of people billing themselves as some sort of therapist or counselor. It's a hydra similar to trans lie-deology.
👍🙂 In the interim and ICYMI, you might enjoy The Ballad of Dr. Sigmund Freud by the Chad Mitchell Trio:
https://genius.com/The-chad-mitchell-trio-the-ballad-of-sigmund-freud-lyrics
Worth searching for the YouTube video 🙂
Ha, that's great, thanks :)
Hope we get to chat sometime!