Liberal Bias in Mental Health

There is a liberal bias in the mental health profession. This bias exists not only in educational and therapy settings, but also in research settings. Because of this the profession has hurt its professional credibility, and severely hurt itself altogether.

 

     As the supply of therapists continues to grow, the profession begins to develop the supposed demand. For instance, some authors such as Rogers Wright and Nicolas Cummings (editors of “Destructive Trends in Mental Health”) contend that certain disorders are either exaggerated or flat out made up to expand the field… think Fatigue Syndrome. Everything nowadays is a disease. ADHD is a disease. Bipolar Disorder is a disease. What results from this mentality is a loss of self-reliance. Christina Hoff Sommers chronicles just this occurrence in her book “One Nation Under Therapy: How the Helping Culture is Eroding Self-Reliance”. We have also seen the pushing of victimhood, as chronicled in “Manufacturing Victims: What the Psychology Industry is Doing to People”, by Tana Dineen. People are eternally victims… victims of their environment, of their disadvantaged families, of their medication etc. This is the end of responsibility.

     Who’s to say that this is a liberal or conservative issue? Well, if one honestly looks at the issues and sees what “sides” are given time (published or not published) it becomes blatantly obvious. Those that have dissenting opinions are summarily dismissed, time and time again. For instance, mental health journals have routinely refused to publish research articles that do not go along with certain agendas. What the reader then sees is only one side of an issue. This has happened in areas such as ADHD, post abortion issues, intelligence, sexuality etc. If the researcher has an article that concludes against what is the preferred stance on a topic, then the researcher is out of luck. Occasionally research gets published, only after journal shopping has occurred. This has happened numerous times to David C. Reardon, Ph.D.. He has written many articles on post abortion syndrome, only to have them refused for publication. His research consistently concludes that women are adversely affected by abortion. But this apparently does not fit the agenda of those on boards of organizations. And yet, any research that contends the opposite of Reardon is prominently published. 

     One’s personal convictions are irrelevant here. A fair field is relevant. Scientific inquiry is not done by consensus, but by the evidence. If someone feels as though they have significant evidence, then it should be heard, regardless of political stances. One can also see this in what certain organizations tend to support. Has anyone noticed how many mental health organizations have now gotten into legislation or political movements? This is dangerous and not the mission of mental health.

     There is now a plethora of special interest groups in such organizations. Take the American Psychological Association as an example. A brief glance and one sees such groups with focuses such as “Valuing Diversity”, “Aging Issues”, “Lesbian, Gay , Bisexual and Transgendered”, “AIDS”, “Disability Issues”, “Office of Ethnic Minority Affairs”, “Women’s Programs Office”, “White Heterosexuals Office”- Wait. That last one doesn’t really exist. What if a heterosexual white male wanted a special interest group? Where would he turn? The point here is that there is not real diversity. And that is one of the main issues in the book “Destructive Trends in Mental Health”.  The editors of that text, by the way, are self-described liberals. 

     One final point to address. There is a theme developing, which the editors of this issue’s highlight text make: Graduate School admittance is adversely affected by such trends. Those applicants that list themselves as “Conservative Christians” are rejected or looked more negatively on than those who don’t identify that way. True diversity? What does this sort of discriminatory action do to the field of mental health? Where are these destructive trends going to take us mental health professionals?

-RC