“Psychotic” needs a subscript

“Psychotic” is defined as “being out of touch with reality.” But whose reality?

The Hebrew Bible considers atheism psychotic. Twice the Psalms say: “The fool has said in his heart ‘There is no God.’ ” On the other hand, the New Atheists consider theism to be psychotic.

Psychotic_Theism and Psychotic_Atheism are quite different.

Before the American Psychiatric Association (APA) removed references to psychoanalytic jargon in its Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM), Freudians used a broader term — “neurosis.” Neuroses included not only distressing breaks with reality but also thoughts that seemed to the analyst to be breaks with reality — whether or not they were ego-dystonic, which is to say personally distressing. Consider William Stekel’s 1922 book Homosexual Neurosis for a view of homosexual ideation as a psychosis contrary to (heteronormative) reality. But in 1973 the APA removed ego-syntonic homosexuality from its DSM.

Ronald Bayer documents in his 1987 Princeton University book
Homosexuality and American Psychiatry that the APA’s motive for the change was political, based on its (pansexual) view of reality.

I’m glad that psychoanalysis is out of favor with psychologists. Freudian analysis is pretentious and overly influenced by the analyst’s world view. Freud’s views are too easily politicized. Not a surprise! Freud is an intellectual child of Nietzsche, who — having abandoned God — was left with merely a “will to power” in making moral decisions.

Take the gulags of Marxist Russia for example, where prisoners were interred for their mental illness, to wit holding views contrary to the prevailing world view of the State. Marx is also an intellectual child of Nietzsche. Robert Heinlein’s 1941 science fiction short story, “They,” is clever allegory for this misuse of psychoanalysis.

Why am I thinking about these things today? Two sources came together for me this week.

I am finishing Arthur Goldberg’s 2008 book Light in the Closet (Torah, Homosexuality and the Power to Change). It argues that a conservative Jew cannot embrace the “gay is good” mantra.

Psychotic_GayIsBad and Psychotic_GayIsGood are quite different.

So are the anthropologists right after all? We must subscript all our terms with our world view.

Almost.

This week I also listened to Pastor Tim Keller’s masterful talk at Google headquarters (yes!) condensing the beginning of his book The Reason for God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism. Keller quotes Bishop Leslie Newbigin’s caution about the familiar Feeling the Elephant analogy, here (starting 21 minutes into the talk, and extending for 2 minutes):

We might say that anthropologists are

Right_Anthropology

after all. Humility is required.