so will that counselor start telling hetero women to end their relationships because it’s proven that the number one killer of women is violence by men?  Given the known risks and all…

Isn’t “Stop being such a faggot, you stupid godless pile of dung” one of the Twelve Steps?  I’m still a little surprised Adams didn’t go the extra mile and denounce all homosexuals as heroine-addicted amoral degenerates who shouldn’t be allowed in the presence of polite company anyway, much less professional psychiatric help.  I mean, if gays are allowed to seek assistance for their emotional problems, who knows where it could lead?  They might build up enough self-confidence to demand that they not give up their seats on the back of the bus.  And nobody wants that.

If they destroyed AdeA, that would explain why I wanted to toast when news of their marriage came out…

“number one killer of women is violence by men”

Actually is doesn’t make the top 10 according to the CDC:

Leading Causes of Death in Females by percentage:
All Females, All Ages Percent*
1) Heart disease 27.2
2) Cancer 22.0
3) Stroke 7.5
4) Chronic lower respiratory diseases 5.2
5) Alzheimer’s disease 3.9
6) Unintentional injuries 3.3
7) Diabetes 3.1
8) Influenza and pneumonia 2.7
9) Kidney disease 1.8
10) Septicemia

if health risks are the issue, dykiness is the answer! Sweet.

Should a counselor who believes in white supremacy be allowed to tell clients to “Try to stop being black all the time?”

To my knowledge, there’s not a single known case of woman-to-woman transmission of HIV/AIDS, nor is there a risk of unwanted pregnancy. The risks of domestic abuse and sexual assault are lower, too. It seems to me, then, that the counselor should be encouraging lesbian relationships if she were really working in the best interest of her clients.

Homicide is the second most common cause of TRAUMA-related death in pregnant and post-partum women:

“According to the (CDC) study—which examined trauma deaths only and did not compare them to maternal deaths due with medical causes—auto accidents accounted for about 44% of maternal trauma deaths, homicide accounted for 31%, other unintentional injuries accounted for 13% and suicide accounted for 10%.

Black women and women under age 20 were at highest risk of being murdered during or after pregnancy, according to the study. Black women had a maternal homicide risk about seven times that of white women, and black women ages 25 to 29 are about 11 times as likely as white women in that age group to be killed when pregnant or in the year following childbirth.”

Also from CDC, “Homicide was the leading cause of occupational death from injury for women”

Also from CDC, all causes of death, all women, age groups - homicide rank:
age 1-9 #4
10-14 #6
15-19 #3
20-24 #2
25-34 #5
35-44 #9
45 on - drops off the top 10 list.

Dr. T, if you’re going to be murdered at all, you’re going to be murdered by a man. And if you’re a woman, and you’re going to be murdered, you have a 25% of being murdered by a man you are in a relationship with. Whereas if you are a man, and you’re going to be murdered, you have only a 5% chance of being murdered by a person, male or female, you are in a relationship with. So for the safety of everyone, clearly gay relationships are the way to go, as lesbians don’t murder each other (90% of all murderers are male) and gay men don’t murder each other (only 5% of all male murder victims are murdered by an intimate partner, and that includes both the gays and the straights.)

Now, you might say that the reason the murder rate of women by intimate partners is so high is because the murder rate of women at *all* is so low, and that the murder rate of men by intimate partners is so low is because 80% of all murdered people are male. And you would be right. But surely such facts should not prevent me, a counselor, from advising women to dump their boyfriends and establish lesbian relationships, or telling men that the odds are they will murder their girlfriend so they should have gay male relations and avoid committing murder, as my stats are perfectly true (if skewed) and have much more bearing on reality than, say, the belief that birth control pills cause abortion, a belief for which there is no scientific support whatsoever.

In fact, in general, men are dangerous. Men are dangerous to other men, and men are dangerous to women. So as a counselor, my advice to women should be to avoid men *completely* and live in lesbian separatist communes, and my advice to men should be to get sex changes and go live in said communes, because your risk of being murdered, mugged, or beaten is astronomically higher for males than females, and your risk of suffering *any* violence is astronomically higher in the presence of males than the presence of females. As a matter of fact, I have good scientific evidence that the population of males should be culled for the safety of all humans, and so if my advice as a counselor to young men is to kill themselves, well, I’m doing it for the safety of humanity. Men are dangerous! We need fewer of them. There is *much* much better evidence of men being dangerous to people than of homosexuality being dangerous to people.

How far do you think I would get as a counselor if my advice to people centered around the proven fact that men cause 90% of all violence to other humans and therefore safe human relationships should exclude men as far as possible? I’ve got much better evidence for my belief than these counselors have for their belief that gayness is bad for people.

As reported, this is simply unprofessional. The counselor might well say that she would prefer to refer to available colleague X across the hall, because her judgment as directly related to lesbian relationships might be biased due to her religious beliefs, or because her knowledge is low in the topic, and X does a better job at this topic. An immediate statement to the client (and writing the session off) would allow the client / patient to choose a more suitable counselor. Of course, in emergency situations, the counselor has to deal in as neutral a fashion as possible until a more appropriate counselor is located.

All therapists are not right for all patients. Bias, suppressed or unconscious, or low cultural competency, should be considered by both the therapist and the patient in the choice of an appropriate match.

Alara, I can’t cite the figures offhand, but I believe that the violence rates in male-male pairs is approximately that in male-female pairs, and that female-female pairs have a slightly lower rate of violence than male-female pairs (all sorts, including mild violence without ER visit). Homicide rate is significantly higher in pairings including a male, and I believe that there is a slightly greater rate in male-male pairings, probably due to the more evenly matched nature of the combatants. (ie, females easier to control for the average male). Differences between male-female and male-male homicide rates might not be statistically significant, however.

Can you imagine working with this douchebag? Every single one of his columns is a complaint about “campus feminists” or some other group of people that he works with and likely interacts with almost every day. I’m surprised he hasn’t been fired for creating a hostile workplace. He is actively lowering the value of the degrees from the university at which he teaches.

So hang on, let me see if I’ve got this striaght (no pun intended, I assure you). This guy thinks that because of the health risks of being gay, healthcare* should be proscribed for gay people.

Clue meter reading: zero.

*Emotional healthcare in this instance, I guess.

well, nothing of mike’s beats this gem:
“‘Every gay man has a right to feel comfortable.’ I heard this one from a first-year law student at Yale. He actually informed me thrice that his right to be comfortable as a gay man trumps the First Amendment. I guess they don’t teach constitutional law until the second year of the Yale law program. But the question is: How did this sissy get into Yale Law School?”

I’m sure you’re right, Nancy; I was *actually* making a point about abusing statistics at the same time as I was making a point about the ridiculousness of letting people give poor health care because of their “beliefs” about health care.

5% of all murdered men die in intimate partner violence, vs. I believe about 25% of all murdered women; but this is massively skewed because 80% of all murdered people are male, so the proportion of men murdered by people who *aren’t* intimate partners is much higher. If you break it out the other way, where you analyze the gender balance of people murdered by intimate partner violence, 25% of the victims are male and 75% are female, but the data I was looking at didn’t break out the gender of the killer *or* extenuating circumstances (such as, who started the violence that led to the killing, ie, was it self-defense or was it murder.) So there wasn’t a way to parse out, of the 25% of murdered people killed by intimate partners who happen to be men, how many of them might have been abusers who were killed in self-defense, how many of them might have been killed by gay male partners, etc. Which is one of the reasons it would be totally wrong to use these stats to advise people to enter homosexual relationships to avoid violence (another being, even if it *were* true, it’s wrong to tell people “don’t be straight” when they are straight no matter *how* good your reasons are, and obviously, this reflects right back at the counselors saying “don’t be gay” to people who are gay.)

“Dr. T, if you’re going to be murdered at all, you’re going to be murdered by a man.”

Not a single bit of argunment from here.  Just refuting the complete lie posted by the first poster.

One of the great perks of being a moron is that you get to use lot’s of clever analogies without the constant requirement that they have some modicum of truth behind them.  It’s one of the many reasons that being a moron is so popular.

Where the hell did that apostrophe come from?  The Ghost of Zappa strikes again.

there’s not a single known case of woman-to-woman transmission of HIV/AIDS

There is a documented case, but it was due to practically criminal stupidity.  The two women shared sex toys, used while the HIV positive woman was menstruating.

Being a professor only means the person is thought to have expertise in a subfield of his/her discipline and at least a passable ability to teach it.  A PhD does not necessarily guarantee others that the given holder has a modicum of intelligence or logical reasoning skills as this case clearly shows. 

With tenure and the traditions of academic freedom the way they are in practice at most collegiate institutions, though…..he’d have to do something really serious such as blatantly plagiarizing from other authors in his published books/articles or demonstrating serious signs of “moral turpitude” like committing a felony. 

So as a counselor, my advice to women should be to avoid men *completely* and live in lesbian separatist communes, and my advice to men should be to get sex changes and go live in said communes, because your risk of being murdered, mugged, or beaten is astronomically higher for males than females, and your risk of suffering *any* violence is astronomically higher in the presence of males than the presence of females. As a matter of fact, I have good scientific evidence that the population of males should be culled for the safety of all humans, and so if my advice as a counselor to young men is to kill themselves, well, I’m doing it for the safety of humanity. Men are dangerous! We need fewer of them. There is *much* much better evidence of men being dangerous to people than of homosexuality being dangerous to people.

Alara,

Out of curiosity, is this not a bit of channeling Mary Daly’s arguments from Gyn/Ecology?

“All therapists are not right for all patients. Bias, suppressed or unconscious, or low cultural competency, should be considered by both the therapist and the patient in the choice of an appropriate match.”

Ding!  Counselors, especially those in cooperative or corporate/public health settings, do this so often that it’s staggering to think of someone having been such a douchebag about it that there are grounds for a lawsuit over it.  Hell, a lot of the time part of being a good counselor is picking up on when a patient might be better served by a different counselor—with a different skill set, cultural background, or specialty training—and then making that happen if the patient feels the switch would be beneficial.  If counseling a lesbian makes you uncomfortable for religious reasons, you explain as tactfully as humanly possible that you think your background and personal beliefs will impede the therapeutic relationship and have in hand a list of practices or counselors that would be a much better match.

Of course, Adams seems to think that the job of the therapist is to be a moral scold, so no surprise at his examples.  Never mind that a counselor whose patient was engaging in actively self-destructive behavior wouldn’t benefit in the slightest from being told to put the sandwich/crackpipe/penis down—that might deprive some petty asshole of the opportunity to live vicariously through the fantasy of an unprofessional and ineffective therapist sitting in judgment of their patients.

Never actually read Gyn/Ecology, or heard of it until people started pointing out that when I play a lesbian separatist on blogs, I sound like Mary Daly. I probably should, though.

I don’t, BTW, actually believe that the world would be better off without men, or whatever. I usually put that performance on in the context of evo psych (if “men are biologically evolved to prey on women” is true, then “women should cull the population of men” is really a more valid reply than “women should huddle in their homes and try to not provoke men” is, given that women are human and what humans do to dangerous predator animals; in real life I don’t actually accept the truth of the first premise, but it’s fun to buy the premise and then go somewhere the sexist ev psych types *really* didn’t want you to go with it.) This seemed like a good opportunity to put it on as well; I mostly do it to mock sexist science.

I have read Elizabeth Bear’s “Carnivale” and everything by Sheri Tepper, though, and for all I know *they* may have been inspired by Mary Daly.

Never actually read Gyn/Ecology, or heard of it until people started pointing out that when I play a lesbian separatist on blogs, I sound like Mary Daly. grin I probably should, though.

Ended up reading that book as a curiosity during the summer after taking a modern German history course which covered a great deal of the history of European racism and antisemitism which led to the Nazi perpetuated holocaust and atrocities and a year after taking a high school survey course on 20th century Genocides ranging from the Armenian Massacre to Pol Pot’s murderous legacy in Cambodia.  It also included a sordid history of eugenics as it was practiced in Europe and the US. 

Due to this sequence of events, I still have a visceral reaction of disgust when I think of her arguments from that book.

Does Adams have a degree from the “Just Stop It” school of psychology?  Is he seriously suggesting that gay people would benefit from their therapists telling them to stop being gay?  Yeah… I’d say that he is, and there’s no reasoning with someone that irrational.  You’ll never convince him that being gay is not harmful, while taking crack, for example, is.  He’s the sort of guy who really does deserve a punch in the face and unrestrained efforts to ruin his career.

Walden (the therapist in the case), though, seems to have acted reasonably professionally, then lost her job anyways.  Maybe religious bigots shouldn’t be therapists at all, but I’m tempted to give such people the benefit of the doubt when they’re aware of their own biases.

OK, I haven’t been to counseling, but my sense is that the counselor is not especially in the business of “expressing objections.”  I thought the whole idea was exploring the reasons behind why the person being treated acted or felt the way she did, in a safe-space of sorts.  “Mike Adams glibly wrong” is pretty much in the category of “dog bites man” or “gun injures shooter,” I know, but just how wrong is he here, vastly or uber-vastly?

As Nancy suggested, this issue is not as clear cut as one might think. I honestly don’t trust the reporters to get the details right, so I’m going to assume for a moment that we don’t have all the information.

As a counselor/therapist, it’s absolutely clear in our code of ethics that if you feel that you cannot treat a client with reasonable objectivity, then you should not treat them if there are better options available. Of course, appropriate referrals to other competent professionals who will take the case are also ethically necessary.

So basically, assuming the counselor in question made appropriate referrals, then she is ethically fine in a professional sense. Of course, that doesn’t change the fact that she’s a huge bigot… but in this case refusing treatment and referring is better than providing substandard care.

I have to point out, any Christian therapist ought to be able to refuse counseling to Jews, atheists, Muslims etc. Their lifestyles lead only one place—Hell! You can’t get any more unhealthy than that!

Those Christian therapists would just be enabling those deluded, damned sinners.

Dr. Mike Adams, PhD.I.C.K. continues his unbroken streak of writing columns that reveal what a complete asshole he is. How does he do it? Doesn’t he ever get tired of being one? Doesn’t he ever feel like taking a break from it, and acting like a normal, tolerable human being? Or would that change in his personality be so jarring it would traumatize him?

Also, note the oh-so-tasteful title of this guy’s piece: “Fat Lesbians on Crack.” (Although, to be fair, it may have been some other Townhall jerkoff who wrote the headline.)

This “professor” reminds me of the guy who used to illustrate the “one drop” rule of racial purity by saying something like, “If you put a cupful of sewage into a pitcher of lemonade, it becomes sewage, but if you put a cupful of lemonade into a pitcher of sewage, it’s still sewage.” He couldn’t imagine why anyone found his analogy offensive.

He needs to learn to science anyway: you can’t judge someone’s health risks from their appearance alone, per recent science.

So, no, it would not be good health care for a provider to make dire prognostications about someone’s health status based solely on their weight, just as it is not good mental health care for a provider to suggest that a relationship is unhealthy because of the sexes and/or genders of the people involved. IRONY!  IT’S WHAT’S FOR DINNER!

OK, so the “counselor” is claiming that it’s OK to “treat” patients in direct contradiction to the DSM. That’s fine from a first-amendment point of view. It’s not fine from a keeping-a-state-license or other accreditation point of view.

<blockquote>Is he seriously suggesting that gay people would benefit from their therapists telling them to stop being gay? <?blockquote>

No!  He’s saying that therapists would benefit from telling gay people to stop being gay.  Cause there’s nothing wrong with it.

“It” in this case meaning thinking gays are skeevy and evul and hellbound.

stupid dysfunctional shift key screwing up my blockquotes!

World O’Crap has an extensive file on Dr. Mike… with photos… if you enjoy laughing & retching at one and the same time.

Frankly, I’d rather a counselor reveal their bigotry upfront (although preferably in a polite, “I don’t feel comfortable working with you because you’re x; here’s a referral” way) than bite their tongue and try to help me while judging in their heads.  I doubt they’d do me much good in the latter case.

I had a psychiatrist from hell for six months: that was how long it took for his terrible, terrible counseling skills to manifest (although it had nothing to do with my sexuality or religion).  It would have been nice if I’d realized earlier that he was an asshole; I just thought he was tolerable (I was seeing him for drugs, not therapy, or I’d've been pickier, within the options available to me).

As regards “health risks,” methinks he intends all that sweet, sweet receptive anal intercourse.

If there is anything - anything at all that I know this Nation stands for, it is that a Lesbian has a right to force a professional-patient relationship upon an unwilling professional.  I mean, its not like there are any other professionals willing to see her without causing a row.

If there is anything that the American people absolutely love heading into a National election, it is Folsom Street Fair regulars bringing actions against decent people who generally mind their own business.  Well played.  Jolly good show.

You know, you might come to realize that 75% disapproval of the President is not the same as 75% support for the agents who oppose him.

“Maybe a place like Taliban-controlled Afghanistan would be more to your taste…?”

Eh, but I’m also purported to be a brown person hater, so it is kind of a wash.

“As regards “health risks,” methinks he intends all that sweet, sweet receptive anal intercourse.”

Lesbians are known for a lot of things, but not “sweet, sweet receptive anal intercourse.”  Besides which, all sex is dangerous when you use no protection.  It’s a common falsehood that “gay” sex is more dangerous because merely establishing someone sexual orientation tells you nothing about what specific activities they enjoy and what sort of protective measures they take.

“If there is anything - anything at all that I know this Nation stands for, it is that a Lesbian has a right to force a professional-patient relationship upon an unwilling professional.”

Cool sarcasm, Pink Dinkins.  I don’t think anyone is suggesting what you’ve written here.  Having been in therapy, it’s inappropriate for a counselor to bring up their personal objections—- other than to suggest that they are not a good “fit” for a therapy-client relationship.  There’s certainly nothing wrong with a therapist not accepting certain clients, but the smart ones find a way to say so without making the patient feel like they’re beyond help, or that their not worthy of the service.  Therapy works best when a counselor and patient can establish a professional bond   I was in therapy a lot when I was younger, and the only time a therapist brought up any sort of “objections” is when I was late for an appointment or when I missed one altogether.  In other words, they objected to my treatment of them and their time, which is a reasonable objection to raise.

There is a delightful person who exposes false diplomas.  Try degree.net for some fun.  Given that nearly all the Bushites have diplomas from such upstanding skools as BobJones U, Pat robertsonU and Strip Klub, and SlummyRanch Kollege…should we expect any one who adds PhD to their name to be truthful?

Alas, Mike Adams’s PhD is legit, although that fact certainly ain’t a credit to his institution.  His thesis comes up on ProQuest’s “Dissertations and Theses” database: 

“Labeling and differential association: Towards a general social learning perspective of crime and deviance”
by Adams, Mike S., Ph.D., Mississippi State University, 1993, 131 pages.