Category Archives: Psychiatry

RIP, Heath Ledger

Celebrity, Film, Gender, Hollywood, Psychiatry, The Zeitgeist

I don’t know much about this young actor; I’m not sure there is that much to know. To “mature” women like myself, he epitomized the new feminized male, low on testosterone and anemic to look at. (In “The Patriot,” I only had eyes for Mel.) Unmanly and hence unattractive. Young women nowadays, as I’ve observed, seem to like the type.

“Whenever I venture out, I encounter this not-so-new breed of man. Typically, he’ll have a few spoilt, cranky kids in tow, and a papoose strapped to a sunken chest. He’ll be laboring to make the outing to Trader Joe’s a ‘learning experience’ for the brats—one that every other store patron is forced to endure. This generic guy oozes psychological correctness and zero manliness. He’s not necessarily effeminate, mind you. Rather, he’s safely androgynous, and most certainly not guy-like in the traditional sense. As personalities go, he and the wife are indistinguishable.”

Poor Heath had been separated from his live-in lover. Perhaps she dismissed him because he failed to check the percentage of trans fats when out shopping. I’m just speculating.

As sad as the death of any harmless-enough young person is, I’m afraid I was not wowed by his performance in “Brokeback Mountain,” a film I was forced to view—well, let’s just say “circumstances combined to render me a captive audience.” I wrote:

“Heath Ledger as Ennis (an unfortunate name) Del Mar tried to emulate Marlon Brando’s potato-in-the-cheek mumbling in ‘The Godfather.’ A bad idea then—and now. The ‘love scene’ between the two men was akin to a bear fight. And as sensuous (contrast it with the artful and achingly sad scene in ‘Midnight Express’). The only sympathetic and authentic character was Alma Del Mar, the betrayed wife (portrayed by Michelle Williams), and her castaway kids.”

As for prescription drugs, which Heath took to put him to sleep and allay anxiety: A daily glass or two of red wine, and a jog will cure most neuroses. Even if take medication at a time in your life when they’re needed—they often act as a placebo—be sure to wean yourself off these kidney and liver killers. If you can’t sleep, read until you fall asleep. It has worked for me since the age of six, although, admittedly, I am bad sleeper, and go to bed at 2:30am.

RIP, Heath Ledger

Celebrity, Film, Gender, Hollywood, Psychiatry, The Zeitgeist

I don’t know much about this young actor; I’m not sure there is that much to know. To “mature” women like myself, he epitomized the new feminized male; low on testosterone and anemic to look at. (In “The Patriot,” I only had eyes for Mel.) Unmanly and hence unattractive. Young women nowadays, as I’ve observed, seem to like the type:

“Whenever I venture out, I encounter this not-so-new breed of man. Typically, he’ll have a few spoilt, cranky kids in tow, and a papoose strapped to a sunken chest. He’ll be laboring to make the outing to Trader Joe’s a ‘learning experience’ for the brats—one that every other store patron is forced to endure. This generic guy oozes psychological correctness and zero manliness. He’s not necessarily effeminate, mind you. Rather, he’s safely androgynous, and most certainly not guy-like in the traditional sense. As personalities go, he and the wife are indistinguishable.”

Poor Heath had been separated from his live-in lover. Perhaps she dismissed him because he failed to check the percentage of trans fats when out shopping. I’m just speculating.

As sad as the death of any harmless-enough young person is, I’m afraid I was not wowed by his performance in “Brokeback Mountain,” a film I was forced to view—well, let’s just say “circumstances combined to render me a captive audience.” I wrote:
“Heath Ledger as Ennis (an unfortunate name) Del Mar tried to emulate Marlon Brando’s potato-in-the-cheek mumbling in ‘The Godfather.’ A bad idea then—and now. The ‘love scene’ between the two men was akin to a bear fight. And as sensuous (contrast it with the artful and achingly sad scene in ‘Midnight Express’). The only sympathetic and authentic character was Alma Del Mar, the betrayed wife (portrayed by Michelle Williams), and her castaway kids.”

As for prescription drugs, which Ledger took to put him to sleep and allay anxiety: A daily glass or two of red wine, and a jog will cure most neuroses. The first is easy, the last, not so easy. Even if medication is taken at a time in one’s life when it’s needed (it often acts as a placebo), be sure to wean yourself off these kidney and liver killers. If you can’t sleep, read until you fall asleep. This has worked for me since the tender age of six, although, admittedly, I am bad sleeper and go to bed at 2:30 am.

‘Sex, God & Greed’

Christianity, Criminal Injustice, Journalism, Media, Pseudoscience, Psychiatry, Psychology & Pop-Psychology, The Courts

In 2003, Daniel Lyons, in Forbes, hashed out all there is to say about the sexual-abuse shakedown to which the Catholic Church has been subjected. It’s worth revisiting this exceptional exposé, now that the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles, lamentably, has decided to capitulate, rather than fight a racket facilitated by courts that are conduits to theft. Writes Lyons:

“….The focal point of this tort battle is the Catholic Church. The Church’s legal problems are worse even than most people realize: $1 billion in damages already paid out for the victims of pedophile priests, indications that the total will approach $5 billion before the crisis is over… The lawyers are lobbying states to lift the statute of limitations on sex abuse cases, letting them dredge up complaints that date back decades. Last year California, responding to the outcry over the rash of priest cases, suspended its statute of limitations on child sex abuse crimes for one year, opening the way for a deluge of new claims. A dozen other states are being pushed to loosen their laws.”

“’There is an absolute explosion of sexual abuse litigation, and there will continue to be. This is going to be a huge business,’ MacLeish, age 50, says. A Boston-based partner of the Miami law firm of GREENBERG TRAURIG (2002 billings: $465 million)…”

Lyons and Dorothy Rabinowitz of the Wall Street Journal are the only writers I know of to have pointed out how many of these class-action claims are, if not bogus, backed by the discredited excavation of false memories. (See my “Repressed Memory Ruse”):

The repressed memory hoax “…. relies on a controversial theory that has split the world of psychology into bitterly opposing camps for more than a decade: the notion that people can wipe out memories of severe trauma, then recover these repressed memories years later…
Richard McNally, a Harvard psychology professor…. thinks recovered memories of trauma are questionable. He has conducted numerous studies on memory, particularly with sexual abuse victims. He says people don’t forget a trauma like anal rape. They might forget something like being fondled as a child, but that’s because the fondling was not traumatic, he argues. ‘It might be disgusting, upsetting—but not terrifying, not traumatic.’”

“McNally’s take on this subject has set off a hometown feud with Daniel Brown, an assistant clinical professor at Harvard Medical School who is a leading proponent of recovered memory. The two archrivals have never met, engaging instead in a ‘battle of the books.’
In 1998, when Brown won an award for his 786-page tome, Memory, Trauma Treatment & the Law, McNally wrote a scathing review that criticized Brown’s methodology. In March of this year McNally published his own book, Remembering Trauma, in which he bashes repressed-memory theory and criticizes Brown’s work yet again.

‘Sex, God & Greed’

Christianity, Criminal Injustice, Journalism, Media, Pseudoscience, Psychiatry, Psychology & Pop-Psychology, The Courts

In 2003, Daniel Lyons, in Forbes, hashed out all there is to say about the sexual-abuse shakedown to which the Catholic Church has been subjected. It’s worth revisiting this exceptional exposé, now that the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles, lamentably, has decided to capitulate, rather than fight a racket facilitated by courts that are conduits to theft. Writes Lyons:

“….The focal point of this tort battle is the Catholic Church. The Church’s legal problems are worse even than most people realize: $1 billion in damages already paid out for the victims of pedophile priests, indications that the total will approach $5 billion before the crisis is over… The lawyers are lobbying states to lift the statute of limitations on sex abuse cases, letting them dredge up complaints that date back decades. Last year California, responding to the outcry over the rash of priest cases, suspended its statute of limitations on child sex abuse crimes for one year, opening the way for a deluge of new claims. A dozen other states are being pushed to loosen their laws.”

“’There is an absolute explosion of sexual abuse litigation, and there will continue to be. This is going to be a huge business,’ MacLeish, age 50, says. A Boston-based partner of the Miami law firm of GREENBERG TRAURIG (2002 billings: $465 million)…”

Lyons and Dorothy Rabinowitz of the Wall Street Journal are the only writers I know of to have pointed out how many of these class-action claims are, if not bogus, backed by the discredited excavation of false memories. (See my “Repressed Memory Ruse”):

The repressed memory hoax “…. relies on a controversial theory that has split the world of psychology into bitterly opposing camps for more than a decade: the notion that people can wipe out memories of severe trauma, then recover these repressed memories years later…
Richard McNally, a Harvard psychology professor…. thinks recovered memories of trauma are questionable. He has conducted numerous studies on memory, particularly with sexual abuse victims. He says people don’t forget a trauma like anal rape. They might forget something like being fondled as a child, but that’s because the fondling was not traumatic, he argues. ‘It might be disgusting, upsetting—but not terrifying, not traumatic.’”

“McNally’s take on this subject has set off a hometown feud with Daniel Brown, an assistant clinical professor at Harvard Medical School who is a leading proponent of recovered memory. The two archrivals have never met, engaging instead in a ‘battle of the books.’
In 1998, when Brown won an award for his 786-page tome, Memory, Trauma Treatment & the Law, McNally wrote a scathing review that criticized Brown’s methodology. In March of this year McNally published his own book, Remembering Trauma, in which he bashes repressed-memory theory and criticizes Brown’s work yet again.