Ganesh, about the psychiatrist- I understand he may have been acting in accordance with the beliefs of the time (wasn't behaviourism rampant?) and might have believed aversion therapy to be effective, but he was (illegally) a gay man doing horrible things to a boy of 18 to cure him of being gay. Surely he must have had some pangs about it?
Well, yes, aversion therapy is, by necessity, "horrible" - and yes, he may well have experienced "pangs". His job was to alleviate the 18 year old's distress (and I note the teenager concerned was neither evading a prison sentence nor compelled to treatment under the Mental Health Act - he was seeking help under his own volition) and if the means to alleviate that individual's distress (apparently) existed, should he have refused it on the grounds that he himself had not undergone aversion therapy?
I mean, if you're a gay psychiatrist when it's punishable with imprisonment or treatment, why would you choose to pursue that particular career path?
Which "particular career path"? Specialist 'sexual problems clinics' are thin on the ground even now, and were practically unheard of in the 1960s. Our Guinness-swigging 18-year-old would likely have been referred to a general adult psychiatrist. Should the gay psychiatrist have refused to take the referral? I don't think so.
Wouldn't it be a little less weird to choose to work in another branch of the profession?
I may be wrong, but I seriously doubt the psychiatrist was setting himself up as an 'ex-gay' specialist; it's far more likely that he was a general psychiatrist using an experimental approach in the treatment of an unusual referral. So, no.
I'm not demonising psychiatrists or even specifically that one, but a parallell might be a heroin addict doctor choosing to work in drug rehab and giving lectures on how terrible addicts were- doesn't look good, it indicates a lack of compassion (to my mind the most important trait a Dr should have)
Well, we've absolutely no evidence that the psychiatrist concerned had 'chosen' to specialise in the modification of homosexuality; as I say, it's more likely that he was tailoring his approach to the specific demands of his patient - who, presumably, was insistent that he wished to be 'cured' of his orientation.
Your equating heroin addiction and homosexual desire is problematic in a variety of ways. Heroin addiction implies the physical dependence on a particular substance which must be taken in order to avoid unpleasant feelings of withdrawal. It's all-or-none. Homosexual desire, by contrast, varies in degree and may or may not be acted upon. The psychiatrist was encountered in a gay bar: this has little bearing on whether he consciously identified as homosexual or had sex with other men - and there's no indication of the level of his 'dependence'. It's therefore difficult to speculate on his degree of conscious hypocrisy/sadism/lack of compassion.
A more apposite analogy - to my mind - is the headache/pain one I employed earlier. We all experience pain differently, and I prefer to avoid medication and manage my own headaches by drinking plenty of water and waiting for them to subside. If an individual comes to me complaining of agonising migraine and insists I do something about it, am I being hypocritical if I then prescribe an analgesic? Should I attempt to advocate what works for me, or should I go by the available evidence (paracetamol being 70% effective for headache, say)? Would it be less hypocritical - or more "compassionate" - for the migraine patient to be treated by a doctor who has never experienced headaches? |
