In a message dated 7/29/10 10:40:22 AM, hamilto...@aol.com writes: > ... a psychological counselor cannot be a competent counselor if they > reject the science of medicine on homosexuality, which appears to be what is > happening here. >
Until 1973, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders categorized homosexuality as a mental disorder. And my impression is that political pressure had as much to do with that change as scientific evidence, which was just beginning to come out :-) at that time. Presumably some on this list (had they been professors in 1972) would have said that a person who was lesbian or gay and did not believe that he or she was suffering from a mental disorder should not be licensed as a therapist, because he or she rejected the science of medicine on homosexuality. I hope we would all agree, in hindsight, that that would have been unfortunate and unnecessary. Some of today's scientific truths will be tomorrow's benighted ignorance. I'm not suggesting any particular ones; I don't have a crystal ball. Of course we can't operate today by tomorrow's knowledge, but awareness that there surely will be different knowledge tomorrow suggests that tolerance of differences is not a bad choice for today. Art Spitzer
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