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I am really glad I got to grow up in the seventies and eighties, when psychologists were still blissfully kept out of the business of child raising.
Before anyone (rightfully) accuses me of anti-psychologist bias: I studied the stuff for a while in university, before I deemed it to be too unscientific, and too preoccupied with behavioral fashion than an attempt of objective analysis of human behavior. (Note: wherever I write 'psychologists', I'm referring to psychiatrists as well, just to show you I'm not being fussy.)
Rather than trying to marvel at the infinite variety the human mind can bring to this world, most psychologists fear difference and try to annihilate wherever they see it. The current day psychologist is comparable to the biologist who tries to lessen his workload by trying to eliminate all but one species of butterfly, and by classifying the rest as deviations in a manual. There's no such thing as an appreciation for a diverse ecosystem in psychology.
I'm not kidding. There really is a 'deviations manual' and it's called the DSM-IV. The very name tells of its innate scientific flaw. DSM means Diagnostic and Statistical Manual. You read that well. A diagnosis of a mental disease is based on a statistical analysis. Or, in other words, on a deviation from the mean. It even has a category to classify the unclassifiable (they're the 'NOS' or 'Not Otherwise Specified' in this table).
Before I get to the part in which we rid ourselves of all psychologists, I first have to infuriate some feminists by giving my perspective on gender characteristics. My (admittedly, rather simplified) view of the difference between men and women is the following: the first gender brings chaos and change into the world, the latter provides balance and order.
In other words, men are nature's experimentation box, warding off stagnation and providing new roads to follow; women are nature's gyroscope, making sure changes don't come too quickly and thus jeopardize the species. That this is evolutionary sound behavior can be observed by watching which couples pair up on a Saturday night. Boring guys don't do well. Neither do girls that are as crazy as men. (My own preferences seemingly being an exception to this pattern, although, as my ex-girlfriends can all attest to, not one of them is as mad as I am, thus proving my theory.)
Now, this has all worked very well for about 3 million years - we're still here, aren't we, and at the top of the food chain - until psychologists came along. The psychologist, in an attempt to camouflage his fundamental lack of understanding of the human condition, sticks to his DSM-IV as if it were the Gospel of Ultimate Humanity, and uses it with religious zeal to smite everyone who can be considered a deviation by this book. (You can even give fictional characters this treatment.)
He or she will use whatever means to achieve this goal. Even to the point of giving adult anti-psychotic drugs to young children who don't respond to classic 'hyperactivity' drugs as Ritalin (which in itself isn't a harmless substance). Last year, 35,000 Dutch children received adult psychiatric medications, which were never tested on young people, and which may cause diabetes, impotence and depression, especially in high dosages (or, perhaps, in small dosages in small bodies?). To achieve this, a psychologist carefully massages the female instinct for balance, and uses it to make her fear the loss of her greatest love: that for her child. The psychologist sees no bone in abusing motherly instincts to get her to give these drugs to a child. Then again, having a conscience would probably separate him or her from the mean.
Now, I'm not saying there can't be one or two good psychologists around (although they sure do a good job of hiding themselves). I'm also not saying that some of these 35,000 children won't benefit from adult drugs. I've seen real mental patients and it ain't pretty.
What I am saying is that I sincerely doubt whether Dutch women and men have such bad genes that they produce dysfunctional children in such massive amounts.
The end result of all this will of course be that a generation of really boring Dutch will grow up. Those boring Dutch will then produce boring children, and pretty soon more interesting nations without psychologists will take over our place in the world. This means that in the end, evolution will rectify the problem, but I'd rather not wait that long.
Instead, I'm inclined to agree with a statement of a acquaintance of mine, who works as a psychiatric nurse:
'Let us pray that the last psychologist on Earth is strangled with the intestines of the last vicar.'
Though I can't help but wonder what kind of DSM classification that quote earns him.
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