Psychiatry Considers Pathologizing Beliefs

"Pathological bias", a debilitating degree of hostile beliefs such as racism or homophobia, has been suggested as an addition to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM).

What next, excessive religiosity? Extreme ambition?

Reminds me of a Swift Report piece that came out last year:

A team of scientists has announced a breakthrough in therapies that could someday be used to treat so-called deeply held personal beliefs. The therapies, known as VOX III inhibitors, target the area of the brain responsible for generating strong opinions and have already shown promising results when tested upon lab rats and on human subjects at either end of the political spectrum.

I realize that there are notions of mental health and mental illness that can't be separated from cultural norms, but I can't help but think of the 'therapies' applied to homosexuals when we were considered a mentally disordered group: aversion therapy, nausea producing drugs, castration, electric shock, brain surgery, breast amputations, etc.

Obviously, mental health treatments have come a long way, but it seems that mental health practitioners have not.

Posted by shamanic at December 9, 2005 11:00 PM | TrackBack