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ok read this: from - behaviorism and mental health by philip hickey ;phd
According to the American Psychiatric Association, until 1974 ****sexuality was a mental illness. Freud had alluded to ****sexuality numerous times in his writings, and had concluded that paranoia and ****sexuality were inseparable. Other psychiatrists wrote copiously on the subject, and ****sexuality was “treated” on a wide basis. There was little or no suggestion within the psychiatric community that ****sexuality might be conceptualized as anything other than a mental illness that needed to be treated. And, of course, ****sexuality was listed as a mental illness in DSM-II. (The DSM – Diagnostic and Statistical Manual – is the APA’s standard classification of their so-called mental disorders, and is used by many mental health workers in the USA and other countries.)
Then in 1970 gay activists protested against the APA convention in San Francisco. These scenes were repeated in 1971, and as people came out of the “closet” and felt empowered politically and socially, the APA directorate became increasingly uncomfortable with their stance. In 1973 the APA’s nomenclature task force recommended that ****sexuality be declared normal. The trustees were not prepared to go that far, but they did vote to remove ****sexuality from the list of mental illnesses by a vote of 13 to 0, with 2 abstentions. This decision was confirmed by a vote of the APA membership, and ****sexuality was no longer listed in the seventh edition of DSM-II, which was issued in 1974.
What’s noteworthy about this is that the removal of ****sexuality from the list of mental illnesses was not triggered by some scientific breakthrough. There was no new fact or set of facts that stimulated this major change. Rather, it was the simple reality that gay people started to kick up a fuss. They gained a voice and began to make themselves heard. And the APA reacted with truly astonishing speed. And with good reason. They realized intuitively that a protracted battle would have drawn increasing attention to the spurious nature of their entire taxonomy. So they quickly “cut loose” the gay community and forestalled any radical scrutiny of the DSM system generally.
According to the American Psychiatric Association, until 1974 ****sexuality was a mental illness. Freud had alluded to ****sexuality numerous times in his writings, and had concluded that paranoia and ****sexuality were inseparable. Other psychiatrists wrote copiously on the subject, and ****sexuality was “treated” on a wide basis. There was little or no suggestion within the psychiatric community that ****sexuality might be conceptualized as anything other than a mental illness that needed to be treated. And, of course, ****sexuality was listed as a mental illness in DSM-II. (The DSM – Diagnostic and Statistical Manual – is the APA’s standard classification of their so-called mental disorders, and is used by many mental health workers in the USA and other countries.)
Then in 1970 gay activists protested against the APA convention in San Francisco. These scenes were repeated in 1971, and as people came out of the “closet” and felt empowered politically and socially, the APA directorate became increasingly uncomfortable with their stance. In 1973 the APA’s nomenclature task force recommended that ****sexuality be declared normal. The trustees were not prepared to go that far, but they did vote to remove ****sexuality from the list of mental illnesses by a vote of 13 to 0, with 2 abstentions. This decision was confirmed by a vote of the APA membership, and ****sexuality was no longer listed in the seventh edition of DSM-II, which was issued in 1974.
What’s noteworthy about this is that the removal of ****sexuality from the list of mental illnesses was not triggered by some scientific breakthrough. There was no new fact or set of facts that stimulated this major change. Rather, it was the simple reality that gay people started to kick up a fuss. They gained a voice and began to make themselves heard. And the APA reacted with truly astonishing speed. And with good reason. They realized intuitively that a protracted battle would have drawn increasing attention to the spurious nature of their entire taxonomy. So they quickly “cut loose” the gay community and forestalled any radical scrutiny of the DSM system generally.
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