Inkwell: Authors and Artists

    
Another way to see the problem that arises when the architects of the DSM
try to solve their political problem by becoming culturally sensitive is
to lookat <marie's> example of the nun run amok.  She says that it is up
to the nun's superiros to determine that she is not acting normally within
the context of a culture of women who believe they are married to God, and
then to refer the errant nun to a psychiatrist. 

You can see the dodge pretty easily here: why should the superior nun be
trusted to make this determination? There's actually a short novel whose
name and author I cannot remember at this moment, in which a novice starts
to develop stigmat. The abbess or mother superior and the local district
priest decide that this nun, whose name I think is Mariela, must be
stopped. They
don't refer her to a shrink, but it is clear that they are able to use
their power to decide that her strangeness is actually heresy.  Superior
people, in any subculture, are the ones most likely to feel threatened by
dissent. 

So what is the role of the psychiatrist in this scenario? To accept the
superior's assessment an d then to treat the bad nun. That is precisely
how psychiatry operated in the Soviet Union.

MOre to the point, what happens when there is no superior to defer to, as
happens in 98% of the cases that come into my office: those of people who
are from the dominant culture? Then it is indeed up to the shrink to
decide if it's a pathological delusion or just a very different and
subversive idea. And there ain't no science in the world that can make
that determination.

Mental health professionals ought to just accept that they are agents of
social control, openly declare their ideologies, and go from there. It
would save an awful lot of trouble.
  

    
The book is called Mariette in Ecstasy.
  

    

> There is a movie, "I Confess," about a priest to whom a confession of
>  murder is made. I think the priest is played by Montogmery Clift. It's
the
>  only movie I'eve ever seen that takes place in Quebec City.
>  

For the record, this is one of the more obscure American Hitchcock films,
and one of the most blatantly Catholic. The hook is that the priest is
accused of the murder and can't clear himself without violating the sanctity
of the confessional. 

For another film with a similar hook, check out the thoroughly incompetent
Mickey Rourke vehicle A Prayer Before Dying, based on Jack Higgins's equally
incompetent novel. 
  

    
So Salon.com, havin gsaid they would fix the problem, has not done so. I
sent email to the reporter asking for clarificationbut I haven't heard
back. I guess it doens't really matter, because it's only up for a day,
and now it's in the archives, and who bothers to look at the past when
there's so much neat stuff happening in the present?

My favorite part of this story is that ther is a link from the homepage of
salon.com that takes you right to this conference.  
  

    
All the excerpts thht are gonna be online are now online at
www.mcsweeneys.net.  There are five, numbered, inexplicably, I, II, III,
VI, V. Roman numerals for dyslexics.
  

    
Thanks for mentioning that, Gary. I thought it was me!
  

    

Frm the media conference:



1735, 5 of 5: David Brake (derb) Wed 29 Sep 99 06:41 9
 I thought the Unabomber stuff was (more than) a little over-sold -
 after all, we only get to read one (rather inconsequential) letter from
 the Unabomber himself first-hand.