Unknown Speaker  00:00
I'm trying to figure out a piano chair so you can see you, you know, the topic of this session is a woman and Mother blaming in the mental health establishment, I got to stand up, I hope you will pick on formal doing that. It's just so you can all see and I can see you. And Tim has said that they should stop right at 1230. So because that's when lunch is being served. So that's what I'm planning to do. And as it's true of Charlotte's topic, and as she said this morning, this is another topic that you could spend hours and hours talking about. And this is such an important conference that I felt like I wanted to say, everything important that needs to be said on this topic. Because I gather some of you are in the mental health professions and a number of you are not. And so when there's a mixed group like this, I think it's important to to address a number of different issues. When Tammy asked me to, to give this talk, she listed a number of issues that the Varna Women's Center, staff felt they would like for me to cover. And that included the question of how the mental health establishment has the power to decide really, who gets care of certain kinds. Because if you are given a certain kind of diagnosis that's listed in the right kind of book by a psychiatrist, then if you have the right kind of insurance plan, you may be able to get reimbursed for the psychotherapy that you're seeking. And as I'm going to talk about later in the session, often women are needing psychotherapy, as you know, because of the way they're treated in North American society. And, and then it's that same society that that has certain powerful people and carefully placed positions, who get to decide whether you get the treatment that that society has caused you to me. So it's quite a vicious, dangerous kind of pattern. Obviously, if you're poor, or even if you're middle class, if you don't have the right kind of health insurance, if you can't afford it, and you and you feel you need psychotherapy, then you have to present the kind of problem that you're seeking help for in the right form, or your therapist has to give it the right kind of label. Everything I'm gonna be talking about today is obviously quite 1989, it should go without saying, but it's important to say, again, it all goes double or triple or quadruple for women of color for poor women, for disabled women, for lesbians, because you're even less likely to be able to get access to the kinds of help if you fit any of those categories. So I'm just going to make some some opening comments to touch on some of the fundamental issues. And I'll go into more detail. So there are the psychotic psychiatrists, most of all, the American Psychiatric Association, which produces the book, some of you may have heard of called the DSM, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, it's about that thick. They are in the process of doing revisions for DSM four every time they publish a new edition. All the psychiatric residents, all the mental health professionals have to get rid of their old one and buy a new one from the American Psychiatric Association. So it's a big money making project. That is not the reason they give for revising the reason that give for revising. And please keep this in mind in the course of this session. The reason that give for revising is weak in the APA, in our DSM three handbook need to have the most up to date information available about useful treatments for mental health patients. Now, that's the claim that they make. And it would really be nice if that was what really did.

Unknown Speaker  04:24
So the DSM, I have at one point called it sort of casually that's like the Bible of mental health professionals. If you're going to be crazy, you have to be crazy. And one of the ways that the DSM three lists or you don't get reimbursed by your health insurance, it's also true in Canada, where I now live in from the states originally in Canada, you know, you get you have socialized medicine and much grander scale that you have here, but only from a psychiatrist. Only from a psychiatrist. You don't get reimbursed if you go to a psychologist or social worker heaven help you a feminist Lay therapists, you get nothing from the government, but you do get those psychiatrist. So I had said, the DSM is really the Bible, when you're a resident, and you're studying for your exams to get your licensing for it to be a real life psychiatrist. This is the book you go to, to learn the truth about the varieties of mental disorders. Since I mentioned that, this book has been a series, a book about how to understand the DSM has been seriously reviewed as a semi religious text. Okay, so that that's an initial point I wanted to make about the psychiatric establishment. And of course, it's, it's still psychiatrists who are in the highest status group of all the mental health professionals, whether whether people are aware of it or not, they still make more money, they still have more power, particularly in hospital settings and clinical settings. And the the word of authorities among psychiatric professionals, tends to be taken much more seriously by the general public. And most of all, which is my next point, by lawyers. Lawyers do a lot of work with lawyers, lawyers, of course, are among the most skeptical people in the world. And it has, because of that it was amazed and working with lawyers to see the extent to which they believe that mental health professionals, especially if it's a white male psychiatrists, know the truth. They really believe that psychiatrists know the truth. And I want to give you an example, a couple of examples of that. One, you'll be very familiar with nauseating detail. And that is, the way that currently battered women goes into court. If a psychiatrist is testifying for the battle, the lawyers, the judges often end up believing what the psychiatrist says, which is that women enjoy being hurt. Women who are battered, must have a need to suffer, they seek out the kinds of men who will be abusive to them. This is a very distressing theory. But of course, it's just a theory. And if you wanted to, you could search the psychological psychiatric and social work literature, and find other theories that will help you understand why women really are battered. And of course, they have almost nothing to do with the woman and a lot more to do with the man and a great deal to do with the culture in which we raised. But what tends to happen, by and large is that the kinds of people who testify in cases having to do with battering with incest, the child abuse rates, are those who choose selectively to believe, the sexist and the woman blaming theories. And then they go into court. And then his honor, says, Well, you know, we've heard Dr. John Smith testify that this woman enjoys soccer, but she brings it on herself. After all, she stayed with this guy, so she must enjoy it. So it's this kind of sexist theory, within mental health. The mental health field acquires the status of truth as it goes back from psychiatrists to psychiatrists enough to judges, decisions and reasons for decisions.

Unknown Speaker  08:25
And I'm really puzzled by that, given, as I said that the famous skepticism that you usually see in lawyers, and the only way I can explain it, is by suggesting that if theories that that were proposed in court, were not sexist, and were not women blaming behavior, then I think judges within lawyers would be much less likely to give them the status of truth. Now in Canada there, there are laws against sex discrimination. And Canada recent recent news acquired and Charter of Rights was very great. There was nothing like our American rights in Canada until recent years. And so now, the women's legal education action plan in Canada is investigating the possibility of biting cases in which are good cases in which sexist psychological and psychiatric theories have been put forward by mental health professionals and accepted and included reasons for judicial decisions on the grounds that one doesn't have to choose a sexist theory to believe one can choose or non sexist or even just imagine it a problem in theory, that's asking too much. I want to give you another example of the way in which the mental health professionals support the courts or bring in sexist material to the courts, which the courts can then use to justify their anti woman decisions. And this is a case I realized off I should have asked the lawyer before I left Toronto how much I can say. But you won't go back. You won't tell anyone Canada will you're about to say here the trial, the trial hearing, this will hopefully be over within the next few days. I'm about to, to be an expert witness in a hearing. It's actually not in a regular court. It's before the Upper Canada Law Society, which is the province of Ontario is equivalent of a state bar association. And in this case, there's a man who's in his early 30s, who is a an admitted, convicted who has served, but we actually just a few months time in jail for having abused sexually abused his daughter. From the time she was two from the time she was four. And for having sexually abused a deaf mute girl, from the time she was seven until she was 14, she was a passenger on a bus we drove for school children. This man was allowed to certain very, very brief scenes, because the judge said, Well, you know, he's been admitted to law school. And law school will be a rehabilitative experience. So he went to law school, and he's got letters now that he's applying for admission to the bar. He's got letters from his professors in law school, basically saying he hasn't raped anybody while he's been here. He's got a letter from a law firm, with which he, I forget what you call it, your article, like did an internship, saying it would be a tragedy if this man is not allowed to become a lawyer. So this case is now before the Upper Canada law, society, their criterion for whether or not you can be a lawyer is if you are a good character, then you can be admitted to the bar, the fact that he is a convicted criminal is irrelevant, because most of the people in Moscow in the 60s were smoking brass. So they had to do away with the rule that you can't be a lawyer if you've ever broken the law. So there's a big question about whether or not this man is going to be admitted to the bar. Now the case that he has presented and his lawyer has presented was very brief. They had the man herself testifying, and they had a woman testify as a character witness for her. And they presented with a break of evidence consisting of numerous reports from the psychiatrist, who saw this medical assessment and then for what they're calling psychotherapy. For some months after the after the case came to court. The case came to the police's attention, because the commonwell wife, ex wife of this man said, she was gonna blow the whistle on her, because the abuse was continuing. The psychiatrist who saw him, has said in writing several times, this man is not dangerous, he will never do this again. In fact, he's a good character and has very conventional ideas about the law was a good, law abiding, ethical citizen.

Unknown Speaker  13:25
Now, I sat down, and I read the reports that he had written. What's fascinating, absolutely. Is that almost none of the reports are worried about the death. Because though she doesn't exist, she was totally silence. Our side doesn't want to call into court because she's now 20. And how can we guide her through this again? What if we drag her into court to testify about what he did to her? He's about to become a lawyer. And the migrant was going through the same goes for his daughter. But as I read, the material that they're presenting is the core of your evidence. It's based almost totally on this one male psychiatrists saying man is cured, and he's fine man. He said, I know that this man will never lie. Now, this is a guy who justified what he did to these little girls, on the grounds that he'd been philosophy major at the University of Toronto. And he even learned in this philosophy courses, that the only harm that comes from sexual abuse to children is if there's social censure. And so you can be sure because he told these little girls not to tell him. Other people would respond, which is absolutely shocking. Yes, do You think?

Unknown Speaker  15:06
No, I don't? I don't. Did you hear the question? If he'd been abusing the voice? Would it? Would they be dismissive? No, I don't think they would be dismissing these lightly. And and one of the there's a panel of lawyers who are serving as judges in this case, and one of the lawyers said, at the end of the last chunk of the hearings, that is there is any evidence going to be presented about whether or not these records were harmed by the abuse? And I was just horrified when I heard this question. And I said to someone on our side later, that she was on our side. And we said, Yes, don't you understand that means that when they go back, and the three judges are conferring it, but she's probably asking this question, because these other two guys are saying, Listen, we all know getting harm, please. Say, so one of what what I've said about this case, is that in an important sense, what's on trial here in 1989, is the question of whether sexual abuse is harmful or sick. And another horrifying perspective on this is that I think if he had embezzled somebody's money, or hurt somebody's property, I think there would be no question. But imagine you you embezzle, say, oh, lawyers are always taking their clients money, that's interest and investing it my brother in law's business, and they get caught and disbarred for a couple of years. And I think that if someone tried to argue, well, it's okay that this lawyer did that. Because after all, he made a profit with his clients money, so he can give an interest. I think that the Bar Association to be very clear, it doesn't matter. What was the intention, right, he broke the law, he did something that Africa, and it was the intention. And in the same way, even if by some miracle, whatever, like test by that is, even if by some miracle, these were the only two children who are victims of sexual abuse, who were not harmed in the history of the world, that really doesn't matter. Of course, what matters is his intention. And then all the psychiatric reports. It's not.

Unknown Speaker  17:13
But it's based on the concept, by organized person, that the best thing that can happen to a woman, a female person is a good way to solve the problem. Psychiatrists and mental problems.

Unknown Speaker  17:30
Yeah, I think the worst, that's the worst kind of kind of view of sexual abuse. And it was in their mind, there was the little girls. Somebody ran into the deputy a girl or young woman on the subway the other day, as she ran away, she seems to be doing fine. The daughter is no longer in psychotherapy. The man himself said to someone else, after a public address that she gave this is it. There's a lot of very prominent worker against violence against her children. And she gave a public address a couple of years ago, this was about a year after going to jail. And he went up to her later not knowing that she knew who he was, and said, my eight year old daughter has right Pharisees, do you think that's from the rock video she watches? So our lawyer asked him about this. Is it true? You asked this woman that? And he said, Yes, that's true. I did. And they said, Why did you think that it might be from the rock videos she watches rather than from what you've done to her? And he said, Well, you know, her therapist said she's just doing fine. And I have to say it is not just a white male therapists, the white male therapist with his therapist, there's a woman who is now known as a feminist therapist in Toronto, who saw the little girl and your subtle little girl and father together, and wrote a report saying you won't do it again. And in fact, it's very good. He's learned how to play appropriately with her. He builds forts with her.

Unknown Speaker  19:02
But like no one here is that none of these things are ever fewer just because not that the medical doctors to us, they give us medicines that stop things. But we have all the conditions within our bodies, and even psychologically, we're not here to prevent you take it from one place to a slightly better place. Furthermore, there is no cure what lives with Islam.

Unknown Speaker  19:33
There are about 45 basic categories of things that are wrong with these reports that have been submitted in his favor. And that's what we're going to try to go over in testimony. But what I find so appalling is the level of slavery, anything from sloppiness raging, raging to uncaring or vicious attitudes that has been entered as evidence as though Besides, your thesis is just boring. Yes.

Unknown Speaker  20:03
I never thought as you're speaking them, the concepts of justice was introduced by my mother. But there are theories that expire as frameworks or via switch theory is likely that the categories you're talking about, they said, No, I feel like the research with a psychiatrist says that it's by, you know, playing around with childhood experience as a therapist is, like valuable. And the other thing is, is that most psychiatrists can be useful to people who are like assessing others. And we get a lot of chocolate women psychologist, I've seen them get women in some survivors out of trouble, where they were driving without registration or life threatening kinds of not paying bills about suggested a lot of getting out of control experiences, which could result recently, I've seen one psychiatrist,

Unknown Speaker  21:02
give me a shirt, you will not hear me say, and you have not heard me say that all psychiatrists are bad or that all therapists are bad, and some of them do very good work for people who need help. In fact, in the DSM, they the statement, a stated principle of the DSM in the in the introduction is we're not we're not assuming any theory to be true, whether it's biochemical, whether it's Freudian, whether it's for sure, and whatever, oh, our categories, they say, are a theoretical, that's supposed to be a fundamental principle. Now, it's not true. It's not true.

Unknown Speaker  21:33
When you're going to practice from Harvard research, brainwave activity, and that's why

Unknown Speaker  21:38
those are some psychiatrists there, but there are other psychiatrists besides Harvard. And some of them some psychiatrists certainly do focus on on brainwaves. And so I need to, I need to sort of move along. I just Yes.

Unknown Speaker  21:54
That's right. I don't think you should be allowed to be a lawyer, I think you should be locked out.

Unknown Speaker  22:06
But that's not the way it goes in North America. Is not. Well, they've tried. You see, he had psychotherapy with this man over a period of two or three years. And he's now prepared to be cured. And if you sit in the courtroom, and you hear him, asked, well, when, when you when your daughter said she was acting out rape scenes for her eight year old friends, were you worried? Did you call her therapist? Did you think problem? And he says, No, that's not a management carry?

Unknown Speaker  22:53
No, he should have served a longer prison term for what he did. That the what, what seems to work, if anything is boring. What seems to work is long term interest. Treatments where you can basically immerse these people in a very different kind of culture and value system. And if there isn't a high cure rate or improvement rate for the men who commit violence against women or children. But what seems to be the most helpful if anything that's going to help is that first thing I'm saying is not that we don't like it, and then

Unknown Speaker  23:34
it's a question of ideas how to change.

Unknown Speaker  23:39
Yes. Well, you have to start with your middle. Exactly. I

Unknown Speaker  23:42
believe that there is no way to do that. You can't walk up everyone

Unknown Speaker  23:47
that there has to be.

Unknown Speaker  23:50
That's Sure, sure. Yeah, you everybody in this room knows that. If you start raising children with the attitude that women and children are not legitimate targets of violence, and that male people are responsible for controlling their aggressive and sexual natures, then you're going to end up with a whole whole different world. I hate to cut people off, but I got so much to run along through. And I need to pick out some some major issues here. Medical doctors often because of psychiatric nomenclature, and psychiatric categories, often don't discover real physical problems that women have. I bet there are people in this room who went to MDS for years and years and then who maybe were referred to a psychiatrist because the MDS couldn't find anything wrong with you. And you still had stomach pains or back pains or headaches or whatever. And so they figured you must be you must be Samantha sizing. You must be hysterical and you need psychotherapy. And then the therapy didn't help. And maybe you ended up with a nutritionist or a nature of cat or homie Have yourself sort of alternative medicine persona you discovered you were allergic to milk or wheat. And that that was what was causing your symptoms. The numbers of cases that I've seen, especially in women who have gone through these, this series of experiences is enormous, absolutely horrendous. And because the non psychiatric medical community is trained in a particular way, they will tell you, in medical school, we don't learn about nutrition, we don't learn about alternative health care models, we learned about mostly that symptom treatment, we don't learn how to treat the causes. You know, most of the treatment for AIDS has to do with central treatment and not building up the immune system, particularly in the conventional medical model. Or because of that if a medical person asks you the questions that they were taught to us in medical school, which are by no means all of the questions one could ask about your physical symptoms. And if if none of those none of your answers fits with what they've been taught in medical school, they say, well, then it must be an emotional problem. And then you're sent to a psychiatrist with what may well not be an emotional problem. But the psychiatrist gives you a label. So then, in addition to having stomach aches, we're also hysterical personality, or you're having a depressive reaction, or your self defeating personality, or you have PMS as a psychiatric disorder. at cocktail parties in media and within mental health professionals, as I said earlier, people tend to look to psychiatrists, and then psychologists and then social workers for the truth. If you look at the distribution, the traditional distribution of membership by sex. In those professions, of course, the highest status is always the professionals always the one that had the largest proportion of men, and it was social workers, social workers used to be mostly women, and they were worse than those status group. Mental health professionals are responsible for what you could call the it's an awkward turned with the elucidation of knowledge. For example, a number of years ago, I became interested in a phenomenon from a phenomenon I mentioned a few minutes ago, which is blaming women for victims of violence for their own victimization, saying that they actually enjoyed it, which is a problem for mental games, masochism. When I started reading the literature, and all of the woman blaming that goes on in this area, I was so appalled by it. And the question that kept coming back to my mind, what are the questions was, it's so obvious that women don't like to separate. Men don't want to suffer. Women don't like to suffer. I've never met anyone that really, really enjoyed something that if you said, if you could stay in this relationship, but I could say a magic word and get him to stop beating you or raping you, or humiliating you, then Would that be okay with you? I've never had any women say, No, I really want the humiliation or, sir. All right now, but that's so obvious that it seems silly, when it's put that way. So the question was, why doesn't everybody see that? Why did we end up with theories about she has a deep unconscious need to suffer?

Unknown Speaker  28:20
And one of the conclusions I reached with the theory is that, actually, you see, it's not intuitively obvious that women like to suffer. And when you propose a theory like that women are masochistic, that's not intuitively obvious. And because it's not going to be evident to the person in the street or at a cocktail party. What that means is that the people who possess this knowledge who believe that women are masochists form an elite group. You know, they can say, well, dear, you may not understand why it is that you stay with this guy who is abusive to you. But we understand you have this unconscious need to suffer. And if you say no, I hate it. When he beats me. I dreaded living on Friday nights, because I know it'll be dropping, I know it'll happen again. They say, consciously, that may be true. But unconsciously, you must enjoy this upgrade, or else you wouldn't stay with. And then that puts women in a position in which they feel totally helpless. Because if you imagine a woman in that kind of position, imagine you're saying this guy would with the answer. So I'm going to leave it because I don't like to be hurt. But I don't want to be alone. And I'm heterosexual. So I'm going to go to a party, a singles party, and I'm going to choose the sweetest, gentlest, most peaceable man in the room. So you imagine this woman entering this party, but as she does, she remembers what a character said. And the message was, I don't care what you think you're doing. Consciously, you may think you're going for the most gentle, peace loving man in the room. But unconsciously, you're going to be drawn right to a guy who's going to beat you up. So what do you do? You stay with the one who's beating you now, you feel like you have no control over your life. And after my book, The Myth of guns as the kingpin appeared, I started getting letters and blogs, phone shows, I got calls from people saying, my whole life changed. The first time I've heard someone say, I don't think women want him to suffer. And sometimes it was a friend of their sometimes they turn on the radio, you know, just when I was saying that, or somebody, somebody said that to me. They said, my whole life change. And a typical story was a woman who had been in psychotherapy for eight years. And she said, I go to see my therapist twice a week, and for the first 49 minutes, I would pour out all my troubles of the past few days. And then in the last minute, you know, it was his turn to talk, he would say, Do you see how you did it to yourself again? Now, the myth of women's masochism is very, very prevalent among mental health professionals. I've had women who call themselves feminists therapists say, gosh, you know, I never stopped to realize I say that to my patients all the time. I say, Do you see how you're doing it to yourself? Again, I'll never say it again. But what do I do now? And that's an important point. One of my students, Nikki Girard, who's an experienced feminist therapist, she says that theories like women's masochism, or what the American Psychiatric Association in the DSM, officially called self defeating personality disorder, which is another fancy name for masochism, you're in your unconscious motive is to defeat yourself. Alright. Nikki Gerard said those terms are what she calls terminal words. In the following sense, if you are a therapist, and you're trying to work with a woman who's miserable, if you say, the problem is your unconscious need to suffer, there's nowhere to go from there except deeper into the depths of depression. There's no way out and feel hopeless. And in fact, for that very reason, it's my contention that a major cause of extremely high rate of depression among women in North America, is psychotherapy, the wrong kinds of psychotherapy.

Unknown Speaker  32:45
What can you do? What happens if you're a therapist, and you're seeing a miserable unhappy woman, once you get rid of the assumption that she enjoys the suffering, that a whole new world opens up for you? And for her, you can say, let's look at what got you into this situation. And let's look at what's keeping you from getting out and do something about okay, what are the possible reasons that you got into this situation, I'm just going to mention a couple of each of these categories is that I wrote a whole book about this. A couple of reasons women get into situations in which they're unhappy, you start going out with somebody doesn't treat you well. And this can be a man or a woman. And if you're if you're a good woman, then you're you're not supposed to think that things about people. Like the good woman is supposed to wear rose colored glasses, and supposed to make excuses for your partner, and said, well, they had a hard day at work. They're under a lot of stress, they had a really awful childhood. So you're supposed to make excuses for them. What do you do? And then sometimes it's only three or four years later, when they say, gee, you know, this person had a horrible childhood that our relationship has now lasted almost as long as that person's horrible childhood and they're still treating me badly. Am I going to go on taking this the rest of my life, because they had a bad childhood. I mean, by then, you're supposed to have a commitment, you have a big investment in the relationship. It's hard to leave. Women get into upsetting or bad relationships, because the person doesn't change. Until there's some commitment. It's hard to withdraw. You've bought a house together, you've gotten married, you've come out to your parents as a couple. And then it's very hard to prove that. Women get involved in relationships or work situations that aren't optimal. Because as you know, there's an epidemic, of course, self esteem among women because we live in a society that demands and oppresses women. And so if you don't think much of yourself, you will settle for what you think you can get. Somebody else might come along and say, You're a terrific woman. You know, there's something better for you out there. But from your point of view objectively, you know, you're a slob. You know, you're not very smart, you're not sure what it means you barter, but you know that you put something over on somebody. So you better not make waves, you better not try and get out of this relationship or this weird situation, because you know, that you only got anything to begin with, or there's nothing better for you. Alright, well, if you're this person's therapist, you can say you have rotten self esteem. And first of all, you need to know, that puts you in good company with most women in the world. It's not just your problem. And secondly, now we know what we can do to improve people's self esteem. Right? The women's movement has done a lot for women's self esteem, we can make sure you hang around with people who will tell you straight when you've said something dumb, but they'll also tell you straight when you said something smart. So if you get rid of theories that are woman blaming and demeaning to women, then there are a lot of ways that you can, you can help to show women the way out of their disparity in your disbarment. So as you probably know, most mental health professionals don't push much for social change. Since this is a Conference on Women of public policy. That's a really important point to keep in mind. And by and large, historically, the higher status mental health professionals have been the last ones to push for social change. It's been the women, social workers, and those few left wing socialist male social workers, who would be much more likely and psychologists or psychiatrists to push for social change. I was working at a setting in which we had all kinds of mental health professionals for various disciplines. And there was a bulletin board on which you could post any kinds of announcements that were relevant to the work that we it was a family court clinic, and that somebody put up a notice about a welfare mothers March, this was about 10 years ago. And one of the people in charge of the clinic said we have to take that down. That's political. That's not about mental health. But they did feel free to allow cartoons that were anti woman and anti feminist to stay up there. And they did allow announcements about conferences on the advantages of treatment with all kinds of drugs, Valium, you know, lots of ballet.

Unknown Speaker  37:24
Now, I want to focus for a few minutes on some particular kinds of diagnostic categories. Before I get to particular ones, I want to make a few comments about Mother blaming. The mental health professionals have tended to be very woman blaming in general, and mothers in particular, get trashed some of my closest friends who are feminists, who are very careful about trashing women in general, or particular women will say, but Oh, wha you should see my mother, they will make excuses or they will try to understand in excruciating detail why a particular woman friend has said something nasty to them, or has reflected them or has hurt them. But if it's their mother, you know, they'll say, Well, we live in an oppressive society, and women are set up against each other. And that's why that happened in that meeting for the millennials. But my mother is just impossible. Like mothers belong in a totally different category. They have not been victims of oppression. No mother has ever been a victim of oppression in her daughter's eyes. When I wrote them into women's masochism, I often said, that will explain in some detail why I thought that women are not masochist. And invariably, people would come up afterwards and say, she knew I never thought of this. But this is really exciting. And I really think you're right, I really agree with you. Women are not masochist. Except one, US mine other than I had this vision of women all over North America, thinking that the only Africa in the world was her mother, you know, all these women taking just just my mother. Now, I don't have time to go into that topic in a lot of detail. And I've got I've got a book that's coming out about called don't play mother. But I just want to mention briefly that I got real tired of sitting in case on pieces. And hearing my colleagues say, Well, we did this assessment of this entire family. And sometimes I'd seen the interviews they did I knew the family they were talking about, I'd seen it with my own eyes. And they would say yeah, here's why we think this child is breaking and entering or committing a shot doing shoplifting or whatever. And the reason was always the mother, but then something terrible and I got really tired of thinking that it was the it was that but I certainly never heard anything good said about the mothers. Sometimes the father was a saint for putting up with the mothers, before man had been castrated by the lender and so on. But I got tired of saying this conference because I really don't think it's the medic squat or all the other squat or I think you're leading the veteran but it's not really warranted and then having them say no, we're not. Or if I made a general statement of address too much mother blaming my mental health professionals, they'd say, You're a raving feminist. Of course, you think that you know, or even worse, you're a mother, of course, you think that you have to become your little group. So I got tired of people saying, No, there's no mother blaming, not an inordinate amount of mothers learning. So So I have a PhD so I was trying to document you know, what I say you gather you gather your, there's got to be a better route than ammunition. It's so more like you gather your information, you know, you draw your resources around you so that you know what to respond when they say You're crazy. You're just a random feminist. So a student Ambien mccorquodale And I became obsessive compulsive, we constructed a list of 63 categories of leather blaming, and we classified 125 randomly selected articles from a wide variety of political journals, according to meta way, and this was after the women's movement was well underway. And frankly, what we were really hoping was to find that the women's movement had made a change. And to our dismay, that would it hadn't, that, that mental health professionals from all disciplines, and whether they were women or men were overwhelmingly murdered blaming, we finally made a list we found there were 72 Different kinds of problems in their kids, for which mothers were blamed in these 125 articles. And we just alphabetize them we couldn't we didn't know how to handle them, you know, everything from Agra phobia through homicidal transsexualism, these were, the authors use something called self induced television epilepsy was a little kid with really great features by watching TV, this was his mother's fault, the inability to deal with one's color blindness, and a breakthrough, schizophrenia, all of these things were blamed on mothers.

Unknown Speaker  42:05
So it's an extremely prevalent problem. Even though if you work in a law firm, or you work in a mental health clinic, your colleagues may have been taught to keep their anti woman bias quiet. If somebody says something about mothers, it's like it's okay. It's okay. Don't say anything bad about women, what you can say things about mothers. Now, with regard to a few specific diagnostic categories, I want to just give you some examples of how they're used to the detriment of women. I think I've really implied or said most of what I wanted to say about self defeating personality disorder, except to say that in the DSM, this was a new category that was introduced. It was first proposed in 1985, and went into the DSM three are the Revised Edition. There's about to be a big debate in the next few months, which I hope you'll hear more about and write angry letters of protest. You can write to me if you want if at 252 LAUREL Street West I'll be I'll be channeling this stuff to the FAA to fly to the l o. R. Street, West, Toronto, Ontario. First of all, because this category is a personality disorder, a personality disorder is not like if you're scared of spiders that might not really affect the rest of your life until you see a spider web personality disorder is defined as a maladaptive organization of the entire personality. Now, if you read the criteria for self defeating personality disorder, it's based on the notion of masochism. But some of the criteria include things like putting other people's needs ahead of your own, like types other people's papers, rather than her right now, self defeating personality disorder label is dangerous, largely to two big categories of women. One is traditional women, what I call The Good Wife syndrome. You know, when you grow up, the way to get a man is to be nice and unselfish and put everybody else's needs ahead of your own your man's nature kids needs. Don't ask for anything for yourself. So we raised millions of women like this. In fact, we say, Honey, you'll be rejected if you don't act this way. It's a perfect catch 22. And then when millions of women are acting this way, then we give psychiatrists this label so that they can say and you see all these millions of women who are who are acting that way they are psychiatrically disordered. Now, I said that at some hearings that APA held on this category, and I said and you know, you don't have anything equivalent for the traditional male. And they said, well, like what would that be? For example, I looked around this table You know, I thought Who the hell am I, you know, you hear all these names I've heard of all through my training. And I got to answer this question. It's mostly man. And I said, well, both, for example, you don't have a category of psychopathology that's, say, the inability to identify or express a wide range of feelings. And they said, Well, moving right along. That was that was not taken seriously. And I'm going to come back to that in a minute. The other group of people of women to which this category can be applied and is applied, and it's just devastating, is to women who've been victims of violence. Because as you know, you've been a victim of violence, you're probably already low self esteem, drops even more, you feel even more helpless and more dependent and more scared. So in order not to be beaten, you more and more put the batter's needs ahead of your own. And as you know, even if a psychiatrist asks a woman, are you a victim of violence? And we know it's been documented, most do not ask.

Unknown Speaker  46:15
The woman is likely to say no,

Unknown Speaker  46:17
because again, if she's a good traditional woman, she's been taught to protect her husband, not tell anybody what he's done. So we are, we are cycled pathologizing, this huge category of traditional good women, well behaved nice women. Yeah, we can be giving the medal saying these are called nurture, and altruistic few that I've been able to find in the DSM that's really useful for women who wondered whether we left the command to them, said that some psychiatrists are helpful to women, there's a category called Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Now, interestingly enough, this was created mostly to deal with the male Vietnam vets, who had a lot of psychological problems because of the trauma of the war experience. But it applies perfectly to women who have been victims of violence. And I've used it in court to apply to women who have been the victims of psychological abuse, massive psychological neglect, or repeated humiliation. That kind of thing. You can go into court and you can say, this woman as I did, in case of her about a year and a half ago in Canada, yes, this woman took her kids who were ex husband was sexually abusing, and, quote, kidnap them, because she'd lost custody cuz she was a lesbian. All right, yes, she kidnapped them and went underground. And when she came back, now, she was charged with kidnapping, they wanted to throw her in jail. Yes, she did that. Yes, it was against the law. Yes, any woman in her position might well have done it, and one can understand why I wouldn't support that. But in her case, it was even more pressing. Because she had post traumatic stress disorder, this woman had a lot of psychological problems, because she as a child had been the victim of repeated abuse. And then she would then repeatedly, horribly, horribly, physically and emotionally victimized by the same man who has been abusing their children. So it can be very useful. You know, it's a shame that in order to prove damage, you have to legitimize that by saying, there's a psychiatric label, we have the APA permission to apply this official label. You can't just say, this woman's life was wrecked. How do you think your honor you would feel if this guy had done to you what he did to her until the children, you can't say that it's not enough. And of course, you have to say, I am Dr. Kaplan. I've had my psychologist registration for X number of years. And then the DSM three, diagnosis number 638. Point 416 is post traumatic stress disorder, and this woman is suffering from that category. So I'll tell you, quite frankly, there are times when I'm up there as an expert witness, and I keep feeling sick to my stomach. And I want to say, How come you're listening to me? This isn't humility. It's not like a little me. It's more like, Why does Why do I have to have gotten a degree and have the DSM handbook up there with me, in order for them to say what was done to this woman and these children was wrong? That's a matter of public policy. What are the specific symptoms? The specific symptoms, oh, it includes all sorts of things like flashbacks, difficulties concentrating, difficulty sleeping, and there's a whole range and the nicest part of that of that label. Is that the definition included in the definition? I don't know how it got in there, but it's wonderful. It says that these are ways that virtually anyone respond when exposed to that trauma. So they're not saying she's sick because she responded that way. They're saying, Hey, folks, any of us would have responded that way. But keep in mind it was created mostly for the male Vietnam veteran. Glad it was created if there has to be a DSM and if we have to go into court and we have to have resources to use to help women, I'm glad it's there. Somebody mentioned the Nussbaum case this morning, I could not believe that in 1989. People were blaming her and sit and saying, you know, who was this attractive? Dashing Laird, she should have known me, Vera. Right. That's an example of the myth of women's masochism. There, Susan Brown Miller, supposedly a feminist and important feminist work, say, Well, you know, she was really a major cause of this. And she really should have known better.

Unknown Speaker  50:37
A second category that the APA included in the DSM, and that we want to try and get out of the DSM four is, well, the late term for it would be PMS as a psychiatric syndrome. Now, I do know some women that I think, have problems because of hormonal changes. I know women who was doctors didn't warn them that if they had a tubal ligation, the chances of having really severe, we'll call it PMS, because there's not a better term for it. Now, something bad happens right before your period, after you have a tubal ligation, even if you've never had trouble before, chances for that are very high. So I know some women who seem to have quite severe trouble, not a lot, but some who do and some of that moderate trouble. The problem is that if it's remotely based, which is the implication of calling it PMS, then why do we call it a psychiatric disorder? Why do we have to do that? After all, it's one, it's dangerous when you have a sex linked disorder. Doesn't that allow for sexism to rear its ugly head. Now, it's known, for example, that men have cyclical changes in their behavior. And it's known that these are related to some extent to hormonal changes. Now, not a lot is known about it, because you don't get research money to study it. You do get research money to document that women go crazy because of our problems. With it's very easy to get research money to document things that are wrong with women. But we don't have in the DSM nor do you hear anybody proposing that we have post influenza Did you know that's another physiologically based mood change? The one big category new category that's physiologically based, is PMS. Now, Robert Spitzer, who was the quote, unquote, genius behind the DSM three are set at a news conference at an APA convention a couple of years ago, there was a woman from a woman's magazine who said, What, Dr. Spitzer, what do you and your psychiatric colleagues have to offer women who have terrible menstrual cramps or to get real irritable that time of the month? And he said, Well, we don't know, psychiatrically, he said, We don't know yet what to do for these women. And she said, What do you mean to tell me that women who think they have DNS could learn more about how to take care of it by reading our magazine, than by going to you and your colleagues? And he in all honesty said yes. He said yes. But don't you see, he said, No, listen, listen for the paternalism it's not hard to spot. He said, Yes. But don't you see, that's why we need to include it in the DSM. Because not until we get these women diagnosed, can we figure out how to help them. They say, I think I tried to get in touch, I got in touch with the insurance lobby in Washington, DC and the equivalent in Canada. And I said you people should be scared to death about this psychiatric diagnosis. Because what's going to happen is MDS are going to send women to psychiatrists for their PMS. And then they will lie on the couch and they'll free associating. They'll talk about their dreams four times a week. And it won't help them because if it's a hormone, lead based disorder, and if it's not like folic PMS, why associated with the menstrual cycle. If it's a hormonal II based disorder, no amount of analyzing is going to make your menstrual cramps go away, or to get rid of the hormonal II based irritability. So they will be drawing on their insurance money until they reach menopause. And then of course, they'll need psychotherapy to deal with going crazy because of menopause. Now, the insurance lobby doesn't seem to care about that. And I don't understand why because that's another public policy issue that I would think they would they would jump down the throats of the APA for that. And I don't understand why and I have not been able to get them to respond to inquiries about why aren't you doing anything?

Unknown Speaker  54:44
Just because you wasn't it wasn't in attendance lobby in the first place. We've

Unknown Speaker  54:48
got to diagnose, okay, it's a real tricky issue. All right. Historically, women have been told you go crazy. You're impossible because you on the rag, you know, your we can't stand to be around you What's the matter with you? And so the the menstrual cycle was used to dismiss women and to to demean with. Alright. And then, of course, because of the women's movement, some people started saying, Excuse me, but I really do have a rough time around that time of the month. And I want to recognize that I don't want people saying, oh, but if you're truly liberated woman, you want to have menstrual cramps. You know, you can have natural childbirth and it won't hurt a bit. It's the greatest orgasm of your life, you won't have menstrual pads. You know. I mean, there are some people went awfully far in in a very brief direction. And so someone would respond, we're saying, my experience is being dismissed and ignored here. So yes, some feminists were anxious to have PMS recognized. I would like to see it recognized but not as a psychiatric disorder. Furthermore, there's an important perspective in which to see even increased irritability, or increased rage level around the time that right before your period start. And that is, I don't care how bad women's PMS is, in most severe cases, if it is PMS, if you prepare their level of violence, and irritability with the family members, to the level of violence, and then, of course, there's no comparison, even those few famous cases about a woman who killed somebody and then she gets off because they say she went here this. I can't say anything about the cases in England. And I don't know about the cases here except for one or two. In Canada. If you're allowed to find out about what what the history was of the relationships before the murder was committed every case, I've been able to find out if there was a case in which the woman had been repeatedly data for a period of years. But the media story said, Her lawyer says she has PMS, the media didn't even report that she was a bad employee. They'd much rather make it look like this is a case in which we can prove that women sometimes go crazy, because we are physically different from men. Rather than saying, gee, maybe you can understand that we don't the murder, that maybe you could understand maybe he was doing something wrong, rather than she's crazy. He did something horrible. So we see why she ended up. There is also a syndrome of Munchausen syndrome, which has been used by doctors and psychiatrists for a long time. It's used to apply mostly to women who are described rather sardonically, as you know, the kind of woman who goes from doctor to doctor to doctor till she gets somebody to operate on her. You know, doctors will tell her nothing's wrong with you. So she goes to another one. So the the core of Munchausen syndrome is supposedly that you have a need to be physically sick, you need to believe you are physically ill, so that somebody will cut parts of you out of or off. And when the women's movement, and all the brave women started coming forward and saying I was in insist that the first reaction of the general public a few years ago was, if so many women are saying this must be true. This is horrible. This is a major social problem. Since then, as you know, there have been a spate of books, say about by people who were falsely accused, supposedly falsely accused, and I guess probably some who were. And now the tide seems to be turning lawyers are as a matter of policy, advising their women clients in divorce and custody cases, they will say to them, I don't care if you know that your ex husband was sexually abused your children. We're not bringing that up in court. Because judges regularly will get angry at the woman for saying such awful things about her ex husband. You're just making this up to try and get custody or to get child support money or to get him into trouble. We know women are vicious and resentful and angry and manipulative. I was in a meeting with top family lawyer so Toronto, at which they said that women who in the context of a custody case claim that their children were sexually abused by the ex husband are vicious, lying, manipulative ex wives.

Unknown Speaker  59:33
Right. And so the bind this was the horrible line is that if I'm a lawyer, I would probably advise whether or not to bring it up, because that's the way to lose custody. Men who have sexually abused their children are likely to get custody in many court cases because the judge gets so mad at the woman for accusing him of sexual abuse and we know men don't do that, of course, but right now

Unknown Speaker  59:59
What's happening is that the courts are saying that they really cannot protect their children and therefore they must be taken away from course we can't. So after she deals with the abuse that she would deprive a bunch of as an adult.

Unknown Speaker  1:00:12
That's right now, you're damned either way to see because if you don't report the abuse, then you know what people say she can doted. Why did she protect a kid, and if you do record it, then you're lying. And you're scheming and you're just an angry ex. Why? Now, the the new category that's being applied to women who say that their children have been sexually abused by the children's father is something called Lunch houses by proxy. And the assumption is that these women don't have a deep psychological need to believe that they themselves have something wrong. They have a deep psychological need to believe that horrible things are happening to their children. And this has been used in the courts. So if you say your child has been sexually abused, that is evidence that you have a psychiatric disorder. Now, let me I just want to reach here. Julie Brickman who's a feminist psychologist in Toronto that described what happens in the in a traditional mental health community where there's incest when family unit is considered incest is regarded as caused by women. First dominant mothers ill tempered what oh, no, sorry, dominant mothers ill tempered wives are seductive daughters first, a cold and rejected rejecting mother initially twist the boy, which delivers him into the hands of a wife, who deprive them of sexual and conjugal rights, and finally sets him up for a sexual relationship with his seductive daughter. So the man who commits the inset is usually not blame, he usually doesn't get a psychiatric label, he is not described as pathological. His mother is his wife is and his daughters. And that's very, very common. You don't have much toilet, I I want to suggest that the Canadian Mental Health Association finally came out with a report that a number of women, including myself put together called Women in mental health and Canada strategies for change. The CMHA didn't quite know what they were gonna get from this group. And they're not entirely comfortable with it. But there's going to be the first Canadian National Conference on Women and mental health and bands in May, it's a great time to go to famp. If you've never been, by the way, there, it's going to be a huge conference. And one of the things that we did at the end of the CMHA report was we said, Okay, you want to know what would provide good mental health for women? We'll tell you, because, you know, the CMHA is asked to report on this, the tendency is to say, don't over medicate. Women don't give it too much value. Make sure that therapists don't sleep with them, make sure that they they're not told they have self defeating personality disorder symptoms, focus on the mental health community. But of course, what would really make for great mental health among women is to implement the anti feminist agenda. You know, pay equity, affirmative action, make sure women are not victims of violence and sexual slavery and so on. As a matter of public policy, when government bodies at all levels, and when mental health associations think about what's needed for women's mental health, they usually don't think about those things. Alright, that's considered political, rather than professional. And I'd like to urge people to get in touch with their mental health associations with their local Psychological Association or social work association or psychiatric association with all levels of government with training programs for mental health professionals, and urge them to include all of these kinds of steps in their agendas. And in their training programs. If you ask people who are being trained a psychotherapist even today, you'll see that you almost never hear any of the new feminist theory. If they talk about they say we teach psychology of women, it's Freud and penises are the masculine protest. It's not the wonderful, brilliant stuff that's coming out of Wellesley, for Jean Baker Miller and Janet Surrey and Irene Stiver. If anybody wants his references like everybody everybody here should write to the Stone Center, Wellesley College Wellesley, Massachusetts, but it's long this stone Sanford stone like rock, right stone Sanford, Wellesley College, Wellesley, Massachusetts, ask for their work in progress listings and get everything written by Jean Baker Miller. These are just little papers that really have no Miller. serie su R R E bar.

Unknown Speaker  1:04:59
Starter Strv er, Jordan, as Kaplan with the K relations. It's fabulous. It's what they call the self in relation theory. And they have just succeeded in getting that implemented as a part of the curriculum at McLean Hospital outside of Boston. That's the first major step of that claim that I've heard of. But if they can do it there, then Waze has been a very conservative place in a lot of ways that then other people can get it done in other places. And I just, I just want to, I want to add a step. I was gonna say, I'm glad that people, by the way have have spoken up as I've gone. I hate these things. Because you know, the women's conferences, there's never enough time, right? I get paid to come here to talk. So I feel like there's a certain amount of stuff that I have responsibility to say, but I also want to hear what everybody else has to say. And so it never works out fine. But anyway, I think the last thing I want to do and then we'll have a few more minutes for discussion, is I want to tell you something and read something briefly. Margaret Eichler, who's a feminist sociologist, where I work in in Toronto, heard me talking about the myth of women's masochism in the DSM. And she said, Well, you know, Paul, you said that they will have an equivalent to self defeating personality disorder for men. Why don't we do one? Why don't we do a macho personality disorder? And it is Margaret, you're right. Yes. So Margaret, and I got together with my computer. And, and we have here I had brought a few copies, just a few. And it's called draft proposal of new category that we want, we want to have included in the DSM four. Now, I have to tell you, we started this as a joke, and a consciousness raising experience. And this is what we're going to tell APA, in all honesty when we submit it. And then as we put together the criteria for this disorder, and we started reading it, and other people started reading it, we all started going. This isn't funny. This really is if there's such a thing as major psychopathology, this is it. And if we're going to have these handbooks of psychiatric nomenclature, this definitely should be in it. All right. So one thing I want to tell you is that in my book, The Myth of women's masochism in a paperback version, the cheap version, I added a chapter right before it went to press called afterward warning, which is the the only documentation I'm aware of that tells about how they they push that diagnostic category, self defeating personality through the APA. And when you read it, I think it will just pull your hair. One of the things I didn't know, and most people don't know is when when you read in the DSM, that a person having this client for whom this label is appropriate, how has to meet seven of the following 11 criteria. It sounds like science, you know, and they say, this is all based on good research, which is absolutely, totally untrue. And I document that in that chapter. So you think seven out of 11. So I guess they studied 1000s of people who have this disorder, and they found that 90% of the were 85% of have seven of these criteria. Not true. They say Fred, how many credit criteria do you think they should have to make? Oh, I think six What do you think George? I think a seven sound okay, yep, say seven? How do they come up with the 11 criteria? They ask around? Hey, doctor, so and so have you seen women with self defeating personality disorder? Yeah,

Unknown Speaker  1:08:36
I see him all the time, you know, undermining their chances for success. Alright, well, what do you think it how would you describe it? Let me jot that down. Right. That's the climate science. Okay, so mark, and I put it I put at least as much buy into microsurgical. The Myth of women mastic okay. Right. Yeah, it's wrong on the program is that female applicants and get the paperback version because it's cheaper, and it's got the additional check. Okay, so we call this delusional dominating personality disorder. What you have to realize about the DSM is when there's a lot of protest against one of their proposed disorders, as there was, you know, against this one and against PMS, and then changed the title, they started with masochistic personality. And under protest, they said, oh, we'll change the label. So it's harder for people to pinpoint what's wrong with it. You know, PMS is now called late luteal phase dysphoric disorder, so nobody knows the damn thing about what they're talking about. So how can you pretest if you don't even understand what it is they're saying. So so the longer the label the better. So this is DDP D delusional dominating personality disorder. Individuals having this disorder are characterized by at least six of the 14 team criteria. And what you'll notice we have a question mark after six because this is to allow our colleagues in the scientific and professional community to give us feedback about whether to be six so In a minute, okay, note that such individuals nearly always suffer from at least one of the delusions listed. Okay? And we've used this exact kind of terminology that they use in the DSM criterion one inability to establish and maintain meaningful interpersonal relationships, to inability to identify and express a range of feelings in oneself typically accompanied by an inability to identify accurately the feelings of other people. Oh, by the way, the psychiatrist said, self defeating personality disorder is not sexist because it can be applied to men, too. I mean, it almost never is, of course, but that's beside the point. We are making homosexual men right, we are making it clear, as you'll hear it that this is a sex blind category, it can be applied to either women or men. All right. And by the way, it's solidly based in good research because there are all those John Wayne movies. Three inability to respond appropriately and empathically to the feelings and needs of close associates and intimates, often leading to misinterpretation of signals from other poor tends to use power silence withdrawal and or avoidance rather than negotiation in the face of interpersonal conflict or difficulty. Do you know people like this? I know, I know this. Setting money is definitely a thing.

Unknown Speaker  1:11:21
This is very sexist to me that we all laughing at this. There are some people much of psychotic behavior that Dr. George Goldberg be familiar with the book the hazards of being male has documented. And while I'm a feminist first I had become involved with the male movement as well in learning what the complementary issues are for men in this society. That's so oppresses us by gender, they get it too. Now, I'm not saying that we don't have more problems and the power may be on us. But Warren Farrell, also in his book talks about what is power, the power that we have to interlink to people that we are taught to have, is wonderful and marvelous. And they don't have that power. Not saying that they don't control the society because of the power. They have all the power. I think, I don't, I don't agree with you. And I'm not here to defend man, but I'm really affected. I'm just affected by you're laughing at it. Because it's pathetic to me. I have a son. And I don't want my son to grow up like that mindset. I'm working so hard against it. But let me tell you the power on this world is to me and not you saw Yes, I understand. But they're the the convener of the group decided she would like to hear what I'm saying is that

Unknown Speaker  1:12:29
you can get I have a few copies. Thank you for your comment. Let me for ya, I have both I have both feelings. And, and as I said, we started out doing this as a joke now. And what I should make it clear what our intention is with this. We are saying it's pathological. That's not to say that if my son ends up this way, I'm just gonna condemn him. We're saying this is this is a disorder, a major problem that's rampant throughout our culture. It is devastating to people who have to deal with people who have this disorder. And it's also very damaging to people who have the disorder themselves, who may not recognize it, because that's part of the disorder is that they've been taught not to see it as a problem. Okay, so this is I think it's it strikes us I think, when people are laughing, it's partly because it's a laughter of recognition. Oh, my God, yes. You know, what, we talk about women as being pathological? We have to try Oh, always explain how we're not really, you know, but isn't it? Isn't it bizarre, that we haven't thought of this before as being really, really sick? I know, I'm not the first person to think of it as bizarre but you know, as a society, we haven't thought of it. So. So it is horrible. And it is it is also it is also what

Unknown Speaker  1:13:47
it's funny. We have to realize that they run things somewhat. I mean, they're they're their conditions. Why? Because, yeah, because they have learned to use their power. That's right. That's right.

Unknown Speaker  1:14:02
All right. So let me get let me get through these if people wanted to hear them, and I only have a few copies. genders. They have a gender specific locus of control, note the jargon, the belief that women are responsible for the bad things that happen to want to sell. And the good things are due to one's own abilities, achievements or efforts. And there's a lot of documentation of that six accent an excessive need to inflate the importance and achievements of oneself males in general or both. This is often associated with the need to deflate the importance of one's intimate female partner, females in general or both. And again, it's not funny because there is internalized there is internalized misogyny, even sometimes in lesbian couples. And so when I said this can apply to women that tragically it also can set in the presence of any one of the following delusions, a the delusion of personal entitlement to the services of one any woman with whom one is personally associated to females in general for males in general or three, both of the above be the delusion that women like to suffer and to be ordered around. See, and I mean, you know, again, this is serious men do believe these things a lot. See the delusion that physical force is the best method of solving interpersonal problems. D the delusion that sexual and aggressive impulses are uncontrollable in one oneself two males and Gen three both of the above, ie the delusion that pornography and erotica are identical at the delusion that women control most of the world's wealth and or power but doesn't live the world's work. Gee, the delusion that existing inequalities in the distribution of power and wealth are a product of survival of the fittest and that therefore allocation of greater social and economic rewards to the already privileged, our marital, and then we have a little note, the simultaneous presence of several of these delusions in one individual is very common, and frequently constitutes a profoundly distorted belief system. Number eight a pronounced tendency to categorize spheres of functioning and sets of behavior rigidly according to sets, eg the belief that housework is women's work. Nine pronounced tendency to use a gender based double standard in interpreting or evaluating situations or behavior eg a man who makes breakfast once is extraordinarily it's considered extraordinarily good but a woman who wants to flex to make breakfast is considered deficient. 10 a pathological need to occur one socialized social importance by displaying oneself and a company of females who meet any three of the following criteria. A are conventionally physically attractive B are younger than oneself, C are shorter in stature than oneself D weigh less than oneself, he appear to be lower on socio economic criteria than oneself, F are more submissive than oneself. 11 a distorted approach to sexuality displaying itself in one or both of these ways a pathological need for flattery about one's sexual performance and or the sides of one's genitalia. B an infantile tendency to equate large breasts on women with their sexual attractiveness. Number 12 a tendency to feel inordinately threatened by women who failed to disguise their intelligence. Number 13 is unable to derive pleasure from doing things for others. That's a direct counterpoint to the self defeating personality disorder where it's safe to derive pleasure from doing things for others. 14 emotionally uncontrolled resistance to reform efforts that are oriented toward gender equity. Right and then as they have in the DSM categories, we have a couple of little notes no A is the tendency to consider oneself a new man. Neither proves nor disproves that the patient fits within this diagnostic category. Right you know, guys who think they're different, but there will not be patients who fit this description should not be diagnosed as having obsessive compulsive disorders. Some psychiatrists had suggested to me that that's really what this is, since obsessive compulsive disorders affect only a limited part of the personality and functioning, whereas this disorder is pervasive and profound, maladaptive organization of the entire personality. And then we have a note on incidence, by far most commonly seen in males, but occasionally we'll probably will probably change this because we meant it tongue in cheek, but I know they would misinterpreted at APA, by far most commonly seen in males that occasionally present in a gender disturbed female that was supposed to be clean shaven, tends to characterize leaders of traditional mental health professions, military personnel, executives of large corporations, and powerful political leaders of many nations, but can be found in all social strata and religious and ethnic groups. And then we have a final note, in keeping with the stated aims of the DSM, the proposed category is a theoretical, so it's not based on any particular theory, but there is little or no evidence that is biologically based. In fact, there is a great deal of evidence that it is an extremely common disorder that involves a great deal of psychological upset both to the patient and to those with whom the patient deals. There is also evidence that the disorder is socially induced, and therefore that individual psychotherapy and group psychotherapy in the subtitle are useful. As an example it is generally recognized among clinicians working with male perpetrators of white battering Raven incest, many of whom fit the description of gd p d, that group treatment can be very helpful when it includes identification of the patient's problems and provision of a milieu in which different values and interpersonal styles are promoted. There is also some evidence that the younger the patient when such treatment is begun, the better the prognosis. Okay, now, we, for those of you who picked this up, we've asked here for for you to give us feedback or suggestions by the end of April because that's when we're going to be submitting our feet. Okay.

Unknown Speaker  1:19:52
And yeah, we we've, why don't we take about a couple more minutes for for some questions or comment? Yeah,

Unknown Speaker  1:20:01
I think you're worth it. Yeah, I'm Sumerian associated with a toxic comments ruining women who enhance their?

Unknown Speaker  1:20:10
Yeah, if they if they don't have to marry women they think are dumber than they are right. That's another option. Yeah. Is there communism? Or you're you're hungry?

Unknown Speaker  1:20:19
Is that what it is? You want to go?

Unknown Speaker  1:20:20
Yeah, one last time it

Unknown Speaker  1:20:27
was clear that children are teenagers.

Unknown Speaker  1:20:32
And that you have access to messy house not not like childhood, to watch the parents. Yeah,

Unknown Speaker  1:20:39
there is some really important work actually being done by a man named Peter Jaffe, who's married to offenders. And he's the head of the family court clinic in London, Ontario. I can't I don't have references, but I can tell you how to write to him, if you write to, to Peter Jaffe, jfsc family courts clinic, London, Ontario, we'll probably get. And that's a really important point, because a lot of people have said, well, the psychiatric mental health community has neglected to talk about the effects on children have of watching their mothers be beaten. And it's an In fact, again, is that as a matter of public policy, judges will very often exclude from testimony. And in a in a child custody case, any information about a man having been abusive to the wife, they will say this has nothing to do with the custody of the children, even if the children were watching, that doesn't prove that he's not a good father that he beat his wife up in front of the kids. Let me just close by saying I'd like to suggest that we hit a lot of really very areas, I'd like to suggest that we keep in mind the most fundamental issue, which is that mother blaming and women blaming, established women as scapegoats is legitimate and scapegoats. Women are the source of the causes of trouble in this view, as a matter of policy, and mental health professions as a matter of public policy. And as lay people at cocktail parties that have come to believe we stop when we see women as the cause of problems and a source of problems, then we stop worrying about the problems that are inflicted on women, the sources of problems and pain in the lives of those people. And of course, if we don't think about the sources of problems and pain and women's lives, then there's no way that we're ever going to change them. So if we stop women blaming and stop mother blaming, that's an important first step for change.

Unknown Speaker  1:22:36
We have to stop