As a medical student, I immortalized myself with my classmates when I informed a lecturing psychiatry professor that I considered Freud's theories slightly more credible than the nuns' tales about guardian angels. The lecturer ignored my obnoxious comment and continued his lecture. But, Freudians have been on the defensive for the past decade. This trend culminated when the Library of Congress was forced to cancel a tribute to Freud in the name of political correctness. Freud has always been viewed with suspicion by cultural conservatives. Freud rejected the concept of sin and explained abhorrent behavior in terms of unresolved conflicts among competing brain factions — id, ego, and superego — that stemmed from childhood experiences. His treatment was to delve into an individual's childhood and attempt to resolve these conflicts — psychoanalysis. But it wasn't pressure from the religious right that canceled the Library of Congress tribute; rather a combination of feminists and neuropsychiatrists. Freud theorized that unflattering female behavior could be attributed to "penis envy," a verboten concept in the age of political correctness. But what is truly destroying … [Read more...]

A friend of mine, whose husband was dying of a brain tumor, complained to me that she was unable to get him placed into an experimental protocol that entailed inserting radiation plaques into his skull. She knew of another individual with a brain tumor who was receiving this "advanced" treatment. My response to her was that her husband was the lucky one because his death would be much more comfortable. Several months later, when both the afflicted patients had passed away, she told me I was right. A recent study published in JAMA reported that, in spite of numerous legislative efforts, we physicians still continue needlessly to give our patients uncomfortable deaths. The study analyzed the treatment of over 9,000 patients with terminal diseases such as metastatic lung cancer, end-stage emphysema, end-stage heart failure, and coma. The results were discouraging. Fifty percent of doctors did not even know that their patients did not desire cardiopulmonary resuscitation. Thirty-eight percent of patients spent over 10 days in intensive care units, and 30%reported that they were in moderate or severe pain in their final days of life. The study concluded that "to improve … [Read more...]

The most disturbing book published in recent memory is Hitler's Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust, by Daniel Jonah Goldenhagen. With overwhelming evidence and logic, Goldenhagen debunks the myth that the Holocaust was the creation of an evil man who terrorized the German people into "following orders." Rather, he postulates it was the logical endpoint of centuries of German anti-Semitism and intolerance. Goldenhagen reports that Hitler did not need to coerce the Germans into participating in the unspeakable barbarities in what became humanity's darkest hour. There were plenty of volunteers. His thesis has unleashed a raging debate in academe: do humans engage in such barbarism because of conditioning, or is it part of our nature. The answer, sadly, is both. Several decades ago, social scientist Dr. Stanley Milgram performed an interesting experiment. He placed an actor in a booth and hooked him up to a wire. Participants in the experiment were asked to teach the actor a task and administer a shock of increasing intensity when the actor has performed the task inadequately. Of course the actor was receiving no shock, but the participants didn't … [Read more...]