Comedy of the Absurd
Today the American
Psychological Association announced the inclusion of yet another
disorder in its continued efforts to classify anyone that has an above
average interest in almost any subject to be pathological. The new
category is: Pathological Internet Use (PIU). They will be
adding this section to the the same variety of disorders that include:
drugs, gambling, and some eating disorders. When is enough...enough?
In the first place,
if we are to accept psychology as a science at all, then we must go back
to the original concepts of measureable quantities that were introduced
by Wundt, Helmholtz, et al. At best, psychology is an art form in
which there are a number of generally held opinions that are abscribed to
by different psychologists...none of them neccessarily agreeing with each
other as to what the truth is regarding the basis for their individual
judgements.
Secondly:
Who established the criteria for applying the Gaussian Distribuation
Curve to psychological statistics as it is used in modern psychology?
It occurs to this writer that this, in and of itself, is a question that
deserves devout attention. For if we have widespread use of statistics
in the coorelation of data, then we must carefully scrutinize the application
of this measuring device to assure that it is used properly.
Thirdly, if we allow
The American Psychological Association to continue to classify groups
of individuals as "mentally ill", then we run the risk of ending up with
a costly welfare state in which everyone is at risk for devaluation because
they have a consuming interest in one subject. Taken to its logical
conclusion, this trend could have everyone on some sort of list for mental
disorders. Surgeons would be listed on the Pathological Medical Use
list, CEO's would be listed on the Pathological Adminisratative list...It
doesn't take much of an imagination to see where this kind of thinking could lead. Soon we have everyone
eligible for some kind of government assistance and the financing for
this exceeds the ability of the government to collect sufficient taxes
to administrate the social programs...whereby creating economic dependence
on finances that do not exist.
This has always
been a self-fulfilling prophecy of the social sciences: If all clientel
are serviced to the capabilites of the organization, then it annihilates
itself due to the fact that it is based on a circle of folly. So,
let us get back to the time in our history when people were proud to be
self sufficient and gear our social programs to people taking pride in
themselves again, rather than encouraging citizens to find some obscure
disease from which they are suffering.
Gary J Sheckells
August 14, 1997
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