Hidden Truth/Hidden Truth.iso/data/newspostings/1401-1500/1447

Internet Message Format | 1996-06-19 | 5.5 KB

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Newsgroups: alt.alien.visitors,alt.paranet.ufo,sci.skeptic
Subject: Re: John Mack, MD on Pacifica Radio!
Date: Wed, 19 Jun 1996 03:39:39 GMT
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Brian writes:
>>Although I remain pretty skeptical of en masse abductions -- though a few
>>well-documented cases do exist

Mr. Adams writes:
>You mean "well-documented" cases of people telling wild stories.
>Naturally that means a lot to you, but outside of the lunatic
>fringe it amounts to nothing but documentation of a possible
>psychiatric disorder.

Dear Mr. Adams,
Of course it amounts to documentation of a possible "psychiatric
disorder."  However, it does not amount to NOTHING but documentation
of a possible psychiatric disorder.  You are employing tunnel vision
here.   It is the type of vision that equates to, "If I can't SEE it,
or FEEL it, or SMELL it or TOUCH IT...it ain't real."  In other words,
if *I* don't experience it, then *you* don't experience it!  We would
have a rather sorry state of affairs if we took that position when
Albert Einstein was spreading his "wild stories" about a relative
universe, or Steven Hawkings about black holes.  I think that if
modern psychiatry took that position, we would have injected them both
with about 20 ccs of Haldol and tucked them neatly away with the rest
of the lunatic fringes, because their ideas certainly didn't fit into
the commonly held notions of space and time that were prevalent then.

Brian writes:
> >  The woman, whose
> >name I forget, came to him and pretended to be an abductee, and Mack was
> >convinced.  Then she admitted she lied in an attempt to expose his
> >gullibility and discredit him.  Skeptics around the world praised her
> >results.

Your response it:
>And for good reason!

I am going to apologize for not having the recall or the study's
reference on hand, but there was a very highly profiled study back in
the 60's where a sociologist (or he may have been a
psychologist...again my apologies for lack of citation) walked into a
psychiatric hospital with his "co-conspirators" and began to relay a
laundry list of schizophrenic symptomotology that he was "supposedly"
experiencing to the attending physician.  He "acted" the part well,
just like your "lady skeptical infiltrator" here.  He and his cohorts
were subsequently hospitalized and placed on psychotropic medications.
They later admitted to the hospital staff that they had faked their
symptoms, and when they were released they wrote a huge, highly
critical journal article about how overly-reactive the psychiatric
community was, how overly-willing these people were to diagnose him
with a psychotic disorder.  In other words, he was "debunking" the
psychiatric community.  And he was quite smug about the way he was
able to pull it all off, feeling that he proved once and for all how
incompetent psychiatry is.

There is little to no difference between this case and the one you are
relying on regarding the woman skeptic.  This man was fully aware of
the symptoms he was describing to the doctors; I'm sure he did quite a
bit of research on it prior to his "hospitalization."  But what did he
really prove?  In all honesty, all that he proved is that 1) he is a
good actor, 2) he is dishonest and 3) that the psychiatric community
responded to the symptoms he, himself, presented (with acumen) to
them.  That is all that this woman's case "proves" to me.  It merely
"proves" that Dr. Mack responded to her syndrome as she disclosed it
to him.  Nothing more.  By the way, this man was not reimbursed for
his efforts either (this is supposedly a key element used by the
skeptical community to "prove" this woman's integrity...which
integrity I question greatly).

When a doctor hears a patient expressing symptoms of a syndrome that a
large sample of the population expresses, be it schizophrenia or lung
cancer or abduction, the doctor treats the symptoms.  It would be
highly unethical for him not to.

You write:
>Oh brother.  Could you be more of a blinded UFO believer?  The point that
>she demonstrated is that everyone is just "reproducing the 'symptoms of
>abduction'"!  Everybody might as well be lying, since the #1 expert in
>the field can't tell any difference!

I disagree.  Again, I refer to the notion of "syndrome."  Both in the
psychatric discipline AND the medical discipline. I had an
appendicitis attack years ago, and thank god that I was "reproducing
the symptoms of appendicitis" when I went to the ER and described my
symptoms.  I might not be here today if I hadn't.

With best regards,
Cathy Z.
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 "The difference between an honest fanatic
 and a criminal lunatic is difficult to define,
 and of little interest to the victim."

                       Sheriff MacPhail (1646)

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