QUOTES A)"Besides, Moser and Kleinplatz add, psychiatry has no baseline, theoretical model of what, in fact, constitutes normal and healthy sexuality to which it could compare people whose sexual interests draw them to children or sadism/masochism." B)"And the saddest thing about the current climate," she added, "is that people who ask for help because they are not at ease with homosexual impulses, right now are frequently forbidden to obtain it." MY RESPONSE A) No guidlines. Adopt the criminal guidelines. As a treatment beheading would suffice. B) I agree. Almost no mental health professional will "treat" gay people regardless of desire.
When the APA removed homosexuality from the DSM, it was in some respects a recognition of the fact that homosexuality shouldn't be stigmatized. I don't think this logic necessarily carries over to removal of other paraphilias, with the possible exception of gender identity disorder; the question the APA seems to be discussing is whether sexual paraphilias (a category that does include horrible behavior) should be classified as tidy diagnosable illnesses or as something else. The vast majority of psychiatrists would argue that pedophilia, in particular, is horrible and fully deserves the stigma it gets, whether it's an illness or not; NARTH's decision to quote from one of the few oddball researchers who disagrees with the majority view is unfortunate and completely unfair, because it misrepresents the purpose of the APA conference (which actually has to do with research rather than ideology, though I wouldn't expect the politically-fixated blowhards at NARTH to understand the distinction). So to answer all of NARTH's rhetorical questions: No, Virginia, the American Psychiatric Association neither endorses nor approves of pedophilia and sexual sadism. Its members include no small number of psychiatrists who have to deal with the effects of child abuse, in particular, and it's churlish to treat these folks as if they have no moral standards just because they're psychiatrists. Cheers,
Aberrant behaviors should have never been codified or medicalized in the first place! This labeling has gone astray. Now a group of psychiatrists and other mental health workers want to include in the next edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM), Post Traumatic Slavery Disorder! This disorder would excuse African-Americans form all violent crimes as the theory is violence (slave masters beating their slaves) has been handed down from one generation to the next. A number of African-American organizations find this move appalling!
Does it really matter whether sexually abusing children is an illness or not? Burglary isn't an illness; it's a crime! As for the rest, frankly, who cares, so long as the Dachshund is happy...
As did a number of black people when 2 guys got to spend 18 months at home for rape instead of prison because of cultural reasons. http://ace.acadiau.ca/soci/agt/soci3703/soci3743/HaitianSexAslt.cgi In Canada, native culture is used, sanctioned by law, to give reduced sentences. Who are the vistims of most native crime? - natives.