Beware American Christians Bearing PowerPoints

New York Times Article 

"Americans’ Role Seen in Uganda Anti-Gay Push"

OK folks blog post #2, so go easy. That said, I'm swinging for the fences with the chosen topic. Enjoy or recoil, your choice.

According to the above linked NYT article, American evangelical anti-gay activists were influential in Uganda's recent move to make homosexual behavior a capital offense.

Many Christian groups view homosexuality as a movement, even one that recruits. From reading the article it appears that the individuals in question here held views on homosexuality that were in line with that stereotype. My guess is that the Americans who may have "inspired" Uganda's new draconian legislation, do not think homsexuals should be executed, though this appears to be the take home message received in Uganda. This may be a story that  epitomizes an interesting trend in  American religion, namely that political and social impact of the hate the sin but love the sinner philosophy. A trend that allows religious objections to behavior, pregnant with negative social impact, to be couched in a veil of humanistic concern and even empathy. This view certainly has precedence within the Bible texts, and has some potential social adaptiveness associated with it, but pragmatically is often taken by those within religious bodies with a more authoritarian set of views and used to rationalize all sort of horrid social stances on a variety of issues, in this case the treatment of homosexual individuals.

The view that one can abhor the behavior of another yet love the other nevertheless, certainly has some intuitive appeal. I doubt marriages or other long-term human relations could survive long without some similar sentiment being present in heavy doses. The need to distance the behavior from the person has inherent adaptivity in certain social situations. This view also serves to reduced cognitive dissonance, i.e. it's not that I hate someone it's that I hate their behavior - we get to express emotion without having to feel like a bad person. However, the tendency to create in-groups and out-groups and seek to subjugate and oppress members of the out-group so members of the in-group can maintain power is also extremely adaptive. I think the former tendency (as manifested in the views of most Evangelicals to not wish LBGT individuals any ill, but to rebuke their sexual behavior) has been co-opted by adherents to the latter tendency in the Ugandan case. Put simply American Evangelicals' ability to hold in dynamic tension their love of people with their rejection of a specific behavior seems to have (charitably speaking) been hijacked by authoritarian elements of the culture at work in Uganda.

OK so that's my kind-hearted take on the whole thing. If I let the cynicism out (not hard to do in my case) and look for the heart of darkness in the motivations of the Evangelicals involved in this debacle, I'd focus on their beliefs that homosexuality is a "movement", with meetings, recruiting strategies, and some sort of vague aspirations toward world domination. It all begins to sound like an episode of Pinky and the Brain written by a 13 year old boy insecure in his gender identity. So while their viewpoint gives lip service to love the sinner hate the sin sentiment, it also implies that the sinner is a member of a furtive political group seeking to entice otherwise straight men into the pleasures of gay sex. You can't say you love the sinner, but by the way the sinner is trying to topple your society, and still claim any sort of vaguely affectionate stance towards the target group. That's not really separating the person and the behavior. That's like saying, hey my husband is horrible at cleaning the house, but I can recognize that is his behavior, not "who he is"....but I can confidently assert that his untidiness is part of a long-term effort to kill me through exposure to germs...but again he's really a descent person. My point being that once accuse someone of being a member of a group seeking to topple society, there's really no reasonably logical way to step back from that and "love the sinner". These pious individuals who traveled to Africa to share their fears on the homosexual menace should not be surprised when people actually listened and decided they should kill this group of people who are going to steal their children, make them have gay sex, and essentially destroy the country.

My own most recent research, based on the thesis of one of my former students, Crystal Taylor, and written with my old colleague Sheila Mehta suggests that negative attitudes towards homosexuality certainly correlate with Christian religious beliefs, particularly dogmatic and rigid beliefs, but more significantly they correlate with beliefs in authoritarian social attitudes, i.e. that one belongs to the social group that is in power, that one must adhere to and follow the powerful group dictates, that there are out-group members that threaten this power, and that a myriad of aggressive and coercive tactics are warranted to keep out-group members at bay. Authoritarians (as measured by the Right Wing Authoritarianism Scale [yes there is a such thing as Left Wing Authoritarianism according to many researchers]) are deeply concerned about any group that violates social norms, and view such individuals, i.e. homosexuals, as a threat to the social order. Interestingly in our data authoritarianism did not predict the presence of stereotypes about homosexuals, only the presence of condemnation and intolerance of homosexuals, views that homosexuals are immoral and anxiety about contact with homosexuals. Several pieces of research suggest that authoritarianism is a subset of religious fundamentalism and is the primary correlate of prejudicial beliefs among religious individuals (not religious belief in general). This appears to be particularly true for prejudicial attitudes towards homosexuality. Religiosity did predict in our study the presence of stereotypes about gays, likely because stereotype are a form of information storage that may be "downloaded" from religious life. This seems pertinent in the Uganda story. Here religious individuals from the states came armed primarily (again being charitable) with stereotypes about homosexuals, e.g. they recruit, they want to steal your children, they want to "turn" your husband, not necessarily and agenda to murder members of this out-group; but such a message can be leveraged by those with a more authoritarian set of values (Uganda's political powers) to then rationalize extreme solutions.

Interestingly many scholars have argued that authoritarianism is an adaptive necessity, at least as a tendency. Authoritarianism is about being able to commit to and follow a social order, without questioning, and including acting out aggressively against threats to that order. So how is the above any different than what the Greatest Generation did in WWII? The difference, as with many things, is that in the EXTREME authoritarianism inhibits the generation of adaptive behaviors in the face of social stimuli that contradict one's held beliefs. When people came back from WWII they just wanted to live their lives, and repeatedly showed a distaste for pursuing any strident political or social ideologies regardless of their political stripes (though their children showed no lack of thirst for ideology writ large). One can only do more of the same if they are in the extreme authoritarianism camp - adhere more rigorously to the powerful group's ideology, rationalize more and more actions to stymie feared out-group members. Even still, as I used to say to my students, who would you rather live besides Ned Flanders or Homer Simpson....I'm going with Ned. Point being that authoritarianism is potentially a manifestation of social and group bonding necessary for our survival and coexistence.

Synthesis: Even if you are careful to stipulate that your rejection of a certain social group whom you believe is intent on destroying society does not include an endorsement of the eradication of said social group and that members of said group are really "nice people", don't be surprised when many people can't follow your nuanced prejudice....or beware American Evangelicals bearing PowerPoint presentations abroad.


Wikipedia - Right Wing Authoritarianism

The problems with therapy - Times Online

The problems with therapy - Times Online

The discussion in this article is fascinating for an American mental health professional. We have had some level of licensing and regulation by government for most of the century here in mental health. However, as appears to the case in the U.K. we do not have much regulation over "alternative" health care providers, e.g. homeopaths and the like. What's interesting is that despite all or our regulation here, we still chastise ourselves for not consistently utilizing evidence-based practice or not sufficiently worshiping at the altar of empirically validated treatments. Meaning, despite having formal regulatory mechanisms mental health as a field still feels there are too many charlatans among us, particular the psychology end of mental health practice. I'm aware of a great deal of research in the U.K. that would suggest a critical mass of psychotherapists there are equally concerned as to whether they are using proven practices or not. However, when a field is essentially unregulated those conscientious masses of scientifically-oriented practitioners are often drowned out I imagine by the even larger throngs of practitioners who need only their gut and a glint in their eye to determine what a client with a mental or behavioral problem needs. It is this dynamic tension between objectively defined practices and experientially derived practices that seems omnipresent throughout health care providers, but is acutely problematic in the mental health professions.

In the "Counseling" field in the U.S., a mentality that favors subjectivity and experience over research and science is certainly an ongoing phenomenon. While social workers, psychologists and psychiatrists have consistently merged with allied health care professions in terms of their accountability, and adoption of the standards within the market place of health care, counseling, i.e. mental health counseling, as a field has clung to its roots in humanistic psychology. This branch of psychology values subjectivity and lived experience over objectively identified standards or evidence. In my view counseling has done so for two reasons, 1) as matter of intellectual or theoretical integrity - it's what we believe about human beings, and 2) as a means of acting out a deep-seated professional insecurity vis-a-vis the other mental health professions (particularly social work and psychology). So when I read this piece on the move to regulate psychotherapy in the U.K. these same tensions are palpable there.

These tensions exists for very legitimate reasons. First, there is the desire to keep therapy work authentic and free of constraints. The more the government or science intrudes on the individual therapist's style of relating to and collaborating with a patient, the less effective therapy can be. But...alongside that concern is the fear that regulation will require the therapist to substantiate precisely how they make decisions in treating a patient or on what basis the choose one approach over another with each client. As in the U.S. they will face difficulty in balancing the right of the public to fully informed consent when receiving a health care treatment against the legitimate need for a provider to work in a style and manner that is psychologically and interpersonally authentic.

In the end there are two "outs" from the dilemma regulation of therapy poses. First, therapists in the U.K. as many in the states have done, can practice in a manner that they can argue their work is not a "health care" service. In the states this seems to be happening with "life coaching" and other such non-clinical/non-medicalized descriptions of services that mental health professionals or simply untrained lay people are increasingly providing. Doing so avoids legal regulation, at least in the near-term. The alternative route to coping with regulation is to "identify with the aggressor" so to speak, i.e. agree fully to the terms of government (or in the U.S. managed care insurance companies) imposes upon psychotherapy practice. This could mean more didactic and educational services delivered through manuals and workbooks (I almost passed out from boredom writing that last phrase). I think this is, unfortunately, where many agencies have gone in the U.S. over the last two decades to cope with managed care at least. The fact of the matter is that licensure laws and government regulation of psychotherapy has little real impact on the day to day practitioner in the U.S. Given our market driven health care system, insurance companies have a larger impact; and much of their effort is simply to limit or titrate care, not impose some scientific standard on practitioners or a standard that involves careful concern for the public good. The impact of licensure here is mainly that one must attend continuing education. Recent research has shown that con-ed for mental health folks has serious problems in terms of quality in the states. I'm hard pressed to claim that licensure making me attend CEUs makes me a better therapist. In the U.K. government regulation likely poses a more real day-to-day hassle for practitioners, due to the socialized health care system. In the U.K. licensure may mean some sort of actual peer review of your professional practice on a regular basis. That would be interesting; there is no such parallel to that in the states. I plan to see where this heads in the U.K. the process should be interesting to watch.

Well I finally started a blog...

At 35 I figure it's about time I have an online presence, and one that I can feel some investment or, dare I say, pride in. So here we go. I've set this blog up to sync with Facebook. People who've paid any attention to my posts on FB know that I really needed a blog a long time go. Not because I have some amazing wisdom to impart, but due to the amount of scientific and political stories and comments I post on FB - a practice that really is better reserved for a blog.

So what will be the focus of my blog. Having never, and I mean never, kept a journal or diary; I suspect I will not be the best blogger ever. However, while I've never had an inclination to much introspective writing, I am widely noted for my ability to run my mouth about anything that does not involve my inner self. Therefore, this blog will probably be less about who I am, than what I am reading and thinking bout specific subjects.

What will those subjects be.....women's shoes.....no just kidding. I am a counseling psychologist by trade so much of my ramblings and sharing will likely be focused on issues pertaining to psychology, mental health, families, adolescents, generally how to keep one's sanity. This will likely include posting my thoughts on research and projects me and my team at my University are working on as well. So basically this will be a riveting experience for anyone brave enough to partake.

My academic interests are in two broad areas 1) adolescent mental health and juvenile delinquency and 2) the psychology of religion as it pertain to personality traits, altruism and coping. A heavy amount of what I'll likely post will pertain to these two broad areas.

Lastly, I think I'll indulge some discussion of politics, though primarily to the extent they intersect with science in general and psychology in particular. OK who am I kidding that part of the discussion will be any political stories and readings that illustrate the utter absurdity of the political process and particular of political extremism. In that same vein I reserve the right to post things that are just crazy odd or absurd. The ability  to discover such stories is the single most important thing the Internet has brought to my life as an adult. Where would I be if I wasn't able to pick up on every new ridiculous and inexplicable cultural meme or viral phenomenon? Where I ask?! So with that introduction away we go....