Bias as mental illness


Bias as mental illness

Issues and Action in Education

An e-letter produced
by
EdWatch, a nonprofit organization.

December
15, 2005

In light of the expansion of personally invasive
surveys of the values, attitudes, and beliefs of school children and the
current push for

universal mental health screening,

starting in infancy, last week’s Washington Post article on bias
as a mental illness sends a chilling reminder of where this may be headed.
Excerpts from “Psychiatry Ponders Whether Extreme Bias Can Be an Illness”
follow. (
Read the whole article here.)

By Shankar Vedantam, Washington Post Staff Writer, December 10, 2005:

“…some [mental health practitioners]
are asking whether pathological bias ought to be an official psychiatric
diagnosis.”
 
“Perpetrators of hate crimes could
become candidates for treatment and physicians would become arbiters of
how to distinguish ‘ordinary prejudice’ from pathological bias.”
 
“Darrel A. Regier, director of research
at the psychiatric association, said he supports research into whether
pathological bias is a disorder.”
 
“Doctors who treat inmates at the
California State Prison outside Sacramento concur: They have diagnosed
some forms of racist hatred among inmates and administered
antipsychotic drugs. ‘We treat racism and homophobia as
delusional disorders,’ said Shama Chaiken, who later became a
divisional chief psychologist for the California Department of
Corrections, at a meeting of the American Psychiatric Association. ‘Treatment
with antipsychotics does work to reduce these prejudices.’
[Emphasis added.]
 
“Chicago psychiatrist Bell said he has
not made up his mind on whether bias can be pathological. But in
proposing a research agenda for the next edition of psychiatry’s DSM of
mental disorders, Bell and researchers from the Mayo Clinic, McGill
University, the University of California at Los Angeles and other
academic institutions wrote: ‘Clinical experience informs us that racism
may be a manifestation of a delusional process, a consequence of
anxiety, or a feature of an individual’s personality dynamics.’

Apparently, some in the mental health field
intend to treat the beliefs and values of criminals with drugs.

“Bias” is also, however, being treated as a crime. A column this week by
Melanie Phillips in the British The Daily Mail (“Owellian
Britain”) describes an encounter with the police over a “homophobic
incident”:

“When the new Civil Partnership Act came
into force last week, family values campaigner Lynette Burrows took part
in a discussion on BBC Radio Five Live about its implications.
 
“During the programme, Ms Burrows said
she did not believe that homosexuals should be allowed to adopt. Placing
boys with two homosexuals for adoption, she said, was as obvious a risk
as placing a girl with two heterosexual men who offered themselves as
parents.
 
“To her astonishment, the following day
she was contacted by the police who said a ‘homophobic incident’ had
been reported against her. She had committed no crime but, said the
police, it was policy to investigate homophobic, racist and domestic
incidents because these were ‘priority crimes’. Such action was ‘all
about reassuring the community’.
 
“Far from being thus reassured, it is
difficult adequately to express one’s shock and abhorrence ­ not at Ms
Burrows, but at the actions and attitudes of the police. What kind of a
society has this become where, if someone expresses an opinion which
falls foul of the politically approved doctrines of the day, the police
start feeling their collar?
 
“Freedom of speech is supposed to be the
bedrock value of a liberal society. It should only be constrained in
extreme circumstances where a crime may be committed, such as incitement
to violence or encouraging terrorism.
 
“In the case of Ms Burrows, no crime had
been committed. It was simply that her views fell foul of the doctrine
that to criticise the behaviour of self-designated victim groups is to
be pronounced guilty of prejudice.

Is the U.S. far behind? Similar hate crimes and
anti–bias legislation exist in the United States, as well, and the pressure
is on to expand them. (See

“Forcing Diversity in the Classroom.”) Along with legalizing same sex
marriage, these laws have the potential of creating a whole new outbreak of
“homophobic” or “intolerant” behavior by those who continue to speak out —
in classrooms or elsewhere. Will they be diagnosed with a mental disorder?
(See

“Assessed for Bias.”) Will drugs be the prescription? It’s worth asking
those questions, in light of this shocking Washington Post article.
 

Ed
Watch
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