Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site bbncca.ARPA Path: utzoo!linus!bbncca!sdyer From: sdyer@bbncca.ARPA (Steve Dyer) Newsgroups: net.motss Subject: Re: Notes on last few submissions Message-ID: <801@bbncca.ARPA> Date: Sun, 24-Jun-84 04:37:54 EDT Article-I.D.: bbncca.801 Posted: Sun Jun 24 04:37:54 1984 Date-Received: Sun, 24-Jun-84 08:16:42 EDT References: <1497@decwrl.UUCP> <3100@cbscc.UUCP> <1608@seismo.UUCP> Organization: Bolt, Beranek and Newman, Cambridge, Ma. Lines: 31 >> Sorry, Jeff, but that view isn't supported by psychology and psychiatry >> at large. The American Psychiatric Association voted in 1974 that homosexual- >> ity is *not* mental illness. (There was dissent, but it didn't take.) >The APA voting on something does not make it so. We know so little about the >workings of the human mind that there just isn't any way at all anyone could >conclusively make that statement. The fact that they voted on it; hell, is >anyone voting on the wavelength of light these days? You don't vote on >"science", you're either right, wrong, or you just don't know. For support, >I suggest that the gentle reader compare a few of the current views on >psychology that are floating around. Don't even go to rolfing or some of the >more offbeat ones. The mainstream is so clogged with viewpoints (viewpoints >that differ to the extreme) it isn't funny. At this point, psychology isn't >science, it's fuzzy like a rug. But, you see, psychology will NEVER be science, and "mental illness" isn't quantifiable the way the wavelength of light is. It is not a "thing", it is simply a classification of behavior, here the most broad category that one could imagine, one that separates behavior into "good" and "bad". The APA wasn't operating in a vacuum when it voted to strike homosexuality from this classification. It was forming an opinion based on the emerging mainstream view of sexual orientation and what constitutes mental illness. It is valid to ask the question: "If an individual is well-adjusted, emotionally mature, behaves properly, is well-integrated into his/her environment, and this person happens to be gay, is it USEFUL to describe that person as "mentally ill?" You can see how the APA answered this question. -- /Steve Dyer {decvax,linus,ima}!bbncca!sdyer sdyer@bbncca.ARPA