From Mind Freedom News, copying an article in Psychology Today.
The American Psychiatric Association’s convention held a serious debate on classing bitterness as a mental illness.
www.mindfreedom.org/kb/diagnostics/dsm-bitterness
At least thankfully “Part of the incredulity the APA discussion has generated in the media and blogosphere is doubtless because bitterness strikes the person feeling it as a justified response to a social ill or personal wrong.” Obviously this is about Orwellian docility conditioning. Force everyone to be happy with their lot in life or else drug them, yet pretend there is still democracy. Anti-bitterness propaganda has been used by religion and psychology for 3000 years as a trick for telling the unheard working majority to be more accepting and less critical of society.
“Now I grant that there’s a lot of anger and bitterness out there. Part of it, I’d wager, is targeted appropriately at a Republican administration that managed in eight years to bring a largely healthy economy to its knees.
Do we need to give additional reasons for bitterness at that outcome? The Bush administration managed to lead the country into a protracted, illegal war, based on trumped-up evidence; ignored memos that said the country faced credible terrorist threats; locked up large numbers of suspects afterwards without trial or due process; lied to its citizens about the widespread use of torture; eliminated every sensible, necessary check on financial regulation to prevent a fiscal meltdown; mocked the facts of climate change; and dithered as Hurricane Katrina devastated a large city.
Heaven knows, there are reasons enough to be bitter about the untold number of opportunities squandered, the problems that have escalated in their place, and the crises now with us that were once entirely avoidable.
But when justified anger at such incompetence is discussed as a sign of mental illness, it’s borderline insulting, especially because half the reason for the discussion is to ensure that drug companiesanxious to prod their faltering revenuescan promise relief from the alleged disorder with yet more pharmaceuticals. “
… “ Just one of the many reasons for alarm here is the thought of the DSM, of all documents, trying with a few vague, open-ended criteria to legislate what is reasonable bitterness and what is not. If you knew that “fear of eating alone in restaurants” and “avoidance of public restrooms” were both official symptoms of social anxiety disorder, among the most widely diagnosed of mental illnesses in the United States, you would share my concern. “
I share his concern.
You don’t need to be a genius to realise, fo instance, that when President Obama says no prosecutions of CIA torturers from the Bush era because “America should look forward nor back”, the propaganda of letting go and anti-bitterness serves totally consciously as a tool for state perpetrators of atrocities to escape justice.
autistic groups fairness watch 