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Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!allegra!mit-eddie!godot!harvard!seismo!umcp-cs!mangoe
From: mangoe@umcp-cs.UUCP (Charley Wingate)
Newsgroups: net.flame
Subject: Re: Neurosis and Sin
Message-ID: <1661@umcp-cs.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 6-Dec-84 17:52:02 EST
Article-I.D.: umcp-cs.1661
Posted: Thu Dec  6 17:52:02 1984
Date-Received: Sat, 8-Dec-84 06:57:27 EST
References: <700@noscvax.UUCP>
Reply-To: mangoe@maryland.UUCP (Charley Wingate)
Distribution: na
Organization: U of Maryland, Computer Science Dept., College Park, MD
Lines: 23

In article <700@noscvax.UUCP> jmichael@noscvax.UUCP (James A. Michael) writes:

>I never equated "neurosis" with "the common cold."  If somebody
>can believe that "... neurosis is a result of sin," then, using
>the same arcane logic, he/she could conclude that any physical
>or mental disorder also follows from sin.  I don't agree with this,
>but if this is "juvenile," then I'm guilty.  Charley Wingate also
>quotes Carl Jung as, "Neurosis is almost always a substitute for
>legitimate suffering," and responds, "Sounds like sin to me."
>Again, I don't agree with this difinition of sin, and doubt that
>Jung would, also. 

I've always mistrusted the term "disease" as applied to mental disorders.
Something like schitzophrenia, which has established physical causes and
treatments, doesn't bother me, but I think the evidence is insufficient
to put neurosis in the same category as the cold.  A large part of the
psychiatric community (for instance, see M. Scott Peck) believes that
neurosis and character disorder are products of the patient's thought, rather
than externally caused.  I have problems with theories which remove
personal responsibility from the system, and this is precisely the effect
of equating neurosis with "any physical disorder".

Charley Wingate   umcp-cs!mangoe