In praise of iTunesU

I am now well on my way through another iTunesU course. This one, on The Hebrew Bible in Judaism and Christianity, given by professor from Harvard is five star excellent. Twenty six filmed one hour lectures that show just the professor but includes the voices of the class with some additional captioning. The extra treasure trove are the lecture notes for the whole of the course with hyperlinks to many of the extra readings.

This is not a course for the feint hearted or those who want an easy life. The lectures are best preceded and succeeded by a close reading of the paper or on line notes.
 Go to iTunesU follow links to Harvard and then to this course.

Overall, I am reminded of the day when universities were thought to be a public good. They still could be.

Homophobic bullying in schools

In my work with younger LGBT people I am saddened by the continuing high levels of emotional and psychological distress they experience - even with increasing degrees of social acceptance and legislative changes. There is still much to do. Last week's Stonewall report on gay men's health reports that 3% of those surveyed had contemplated suicide in last year. My own clinical experience, gained over 30+ years, is that those from religious backgrounds where the religion was taken seriously in the family are more likely to be at risk of emotional distress and psychological illness.

Here we have an anti-bullying in schools video which,whilst being a little schmaltzy, makes the point that there have to be big cultural changes in schools. It comes from Ireland. I wonder if the UK governments would feel able to produce their own versions and what about the many faith schools treatment of their sexual minority young people.

 There has to be a greater degree of support and openness on the part of both staff and students. What do you think?

Sheep and their minders

Readers will know my views on sheep metaphors in the scriptures. They have a value but can be limited Yesterday, I heard a convincing homily where the assumed sheep turned into the shepherd. The homilist turned the tables and spoke of his humility in the face of those to whom he is called to minister. Of the man with a wife who had a dementing condition but chose not to have treatment for his own cancer lest he be unavailable to care for his wife. Of the homilist, when he was a teacher (“a tin pot dictator”), telling off a youngster for missing his homework only to find the child was acting as carer to his sick mother and siblings. Sheep in reality being shepherds.

Being in a wheelchair

There are many adjustments that I have had to make in the last couple of years. One of them is having to use a wheelchair as my mobility is now much reduced. I have become a collector of dropped pavements, or more precisely, the lack of them. Of facilities that claim to be disabled friendly and are not. Of the still large number of places, like restaurants, out of bounds unless elaborate arrangements are made in advance. I am grateful to various departments of he city council who actually do listen to comments – for instance the problem with tree roots pushing up pavements and making my wheelchair journeys quite hazardous – and without fuss something done to smooth the my progress and that of many others with poor mobility; of high levels of disabled person support for example at Leicester Station or at the Tigers; of the sheer ease of arriving at John Lewis’ car park, getting across the glass bridge and into John Lewis’ shop itself – complete with its flat floors that are wheel chair friendly.

One of the unexpected adjustments, however, is becoming invisible, or as good as invisible. An incident: I had been away and arrived back on Eurostar at St Pancras. The crowds getting off the train were anxious to be on their way. The concourse was very busy, it was a Friday night, a man on his mobile phone walked straight into me, stood on my foot, the wheel chair paddle cracked, I yelped, He shouted out, “Never saw you mate” and was gone. Immediately, I was surrounded by a crowd of fellow travellers anxious to help. I was in tears not so much at the man, though I could have given some words of advice, but at the kindness of strangers. Although the wheelchair was repaired, it has never been the same since. Nor have I. Now I am much more wary of my relative invisibility. I have become much more willing to anticipate being not seen. I suppose I have become much more assertive at announcing my presence. Some would think this a form of  unnecessary militancy. The idea of the grateful disabled person is sort of nice, but the sound of angry one is decidedly not so nice– but I have come to see it is necessary.

It’s the small things that make so much of life harder – and easier.

Rome goes for US sisters

The news that Rome is very unhappy with religious sisters (not nuns, please) in the USA is no surprise. What is surprising is the venom barely hidden in the attack. I think the boys in black may live to regret this move. Anyone with any nouse at all knows that the objects of their wrath are held in great respect and admiration by most Catholics - lay and ordained. The sisters are the ones who not only do the donkey, and often dirty, work but they have a no-nonsense approach to the world and to the silly men in black which is grounded in common sense.

Gone, long ago, are the dragons of my childhood. The sisters of today are tough women, not demanding the best seats in the house, who get on with their charism whatever it is. The silly men in black in Rome and their apparatchiks do not wipe that many bottoms I imagine and until they do they should sit back and let sister get on with the real work of Jesus.

I imagine that the silly men in black will be arriving in the UK soon. God help them.

Spitizer says sorry

http://www.truthwinsout.org/news/2012/04/24542/ Dr. Robert Spitzer Apologizes to Gay Community for Infamous ‘Ex-Gay’ Study Posted April 25th, 2012 by John M. Becker Today, in a letter to Dr. Ken Zucker obtained exclusively by Truth Wins Out, Dr. Robert Spitzer made an unprecedented apology to the gay community — and victims of reparative therapy in particular — for his infamous, now-repudiated 2001 study that claimed some “highly motivated” homosexuals could go from gay to straight: Several months ago I told you that because of my revised view of my 2001 study of reparative therapy changing sexual orientation, I was considering writing something that would acknowledge that I now judged the major critiques of the study as largely correct. After discussing my revised view of the study with Gabriel Arana, a reporter for American Prospect, and with Malcolm Ritter, an Associated Press science writer, I decided that I had to make public my current thinking about the study. Here it is. Basic Research Question. From the beginning it was: “can some version of reparative therapy enable individuals to change their sexual orientation from homosexual to heterosexual?” Realizing that the study design made it impossible to answer this question, I suggested that the study could be viewed as answering the question, “how do individuals undergoing reparative therapy describe changes in sexual orientation?” – a not very interesting question. The Fatal Flaw in the Study – There was no way to judge the credibility of subject reports of change in sexual orientation. I offered several (unconvincing) reasons why it was reasonable to assume that the subject’s reports of change were credible and not self-deception or outright lying. But the simple fact is that there was no way to determine if the subject’s accounts of change were valid. I believe I owe the gay community an apology for my study making unproven claims of the efficacy of reparative therapy. I also apologize to any gay person who wasted time and energy undergoing some form of reparative therapy because they believed that I had proven that reparative therapy works with some “highly motivated” individuals. Robert Spitzer. M.D. Emeritus Professor of Psychiatry, Columbia University Zucker, to whom Spitzer’s letter is addressed, is the editor of the Archives of Sexual Behavior, the journal in which Spitzer’s study was originally published in 2001. At that time, the study was a surprise that created a media firestorm which captured the nation’s attention. Dr. Spitzer was the last person in America one would have expected to produce a study bolstering the claims of ‘ex-gay’ activists — after all, he had previously led the charge in 1972-73 to remove homosexuality from the list of mental disorders in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM) of the American Psychiatric Association. Earlier this month, Dr. Spitzer dealt “ex-gay” programs a fatal blow by officially renouncing his study in the American Prospect article he mentions in his letter above. That renunciation kicked out the final leg from the stool on which the proponents of ‘ex-gay’ therapy based their already shaky claims of success, or as Arana put it, removed from the ex-gay “fringe movement. . . its only shred of scientific support.” Dr. Spitzer’s apology to the victims of “pray away the gay” therapy and the greater LGBT community marks a watershed moment in the fight against the “ex-gay” myth. We commend him for it, because not only will it solidify his legacy as a respected doctor and significant historical figure, but it will help to greatly hasten the day when the scourge that is reparative therapy is eradicated forever and LGBT people can live openly, honestly, and true to themselves. -- Jack Drescher, MD President Group for the Advancement of Psychiatry