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Pastimes : Let's Talk About Our Feelings!!! -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: E who wrote (105405)	5/28/2005 10:55:39 PM
From: epicure	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 108807

I agree. I was going to say it wasn't what I considered a science- but I didn't want to offend, and so I edited my post and changed it completely. But since you said it first, I will agree. And 100 years ago- or whenever the pronouncement was FIRST made, psychiatrists were making ludicrous pronouncements about all sorts of things (I'm sure you are familiar with many of the things that were said about women, and let's not forget that truly bizarre theories about masturbation were current at the time).

To: E who wrote (105405)	5/28/2005 11:20:34 PM
From: Grainne	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 108807

I understand completely with what you are saying about psychiatry in the sense of psychiatrists as therapists. There are aspects of art and science to being an effective therapist, and much is subjective. However, psychiatrists are scientists in the broad sense of science, since they are medical doctors. Is the study and practice of medicine no longer considered a science in the United States? And I was speaking specifically to the definition of the word "disorder" and the determination that by definition, homosexuals did not fit into the description thereof. I think that stating that psychiatrists simply removed homosexuality as a disorder because of social/political pressure is also dangerous in that it allows prejudice and bigotry toward a whole group of people to continue. I actually think psychiatrists were way ahead of the curve in declassifiying, if you look at what was happening in 1972. Most gays were still closeted, and those who did come out did not do so typically intil their mid-twenties. Stonewall had happened, but not much else in terms of gay rights. It was really the beginning of the movement. Out gays were beginning to move to San Francisco, because there was so much discrimination in their more conservative communities, but the trend was really new. It would still be a decade before the AIDS epidemic began.