There’s this old Buddhist story about a king that proposes a game to a group of monks. They must compete to identify an animal in a dark room. Whichever monk identifies the animal first will become the head monk at a temple the king is building. Eager to demonstrate their wisdom to the king, to […]
As difficult as it may be, try to set aside the Trumpian focus here for a moment, and let’s just talk about the DSM diagnostics–the criteria set by the American Psychiatric Association that are used widely in many parts of the world to diagnose mental illnesses. What you see there in Dr. Frances’ tweets are […]
A recent study in the Canadian province of Quebec, surveying the sexual fantasies and behaviors of 1040 people, found that around 45% had fantasized about doing things the DSM 5 labels as atypical or paraphilic, and about 33% had acted on those fantasies. You can check out the study, published in the Journal of Sex […]
This past March, the Catholic News Agency in Rome published an article titled, “How can you tell if someone is demon-possessed?”. In it, Father Cipriano de Meo, an exorcist since 1952, explains that discerning the difference between demon possession and mental illness is an important part of the exorcist’s role because, “typically, a person is […]
