Is extreme bias a mental illness?
There are proposals afoot to classify 'pathological bias' as an official psychiatric diagnosis. The diagnosis would apply to patients who are 'disabled' by extreme forms of racism, homophobia and other prejudice to the point of not being able to function normally. It's hard to know whether this is a positive development or not.
As doctors increasingly weigh the effects of race and culture on mental illness, some are asking whether pathological bias ought to be an official psychiatric diagnosis ... it could have huge ramifications on clinical practice, employment disputes and the criminal justice system. Perpetrators of hate crimes could become candidates for treatment, and physicians would become arbiters of how to distinguish "ordinary prejudice" from pathological bias."They are delusional," said Alvin F. Poussaint, a professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, who has long advocated such a diagnosis. "They imagine people are going to do all kinds of bad things and hurt them, and feel they have to do something to protect themselves. "When they reach that stage, they are very impaired," he said. "They can't work and function; they can't hold a job. They would benefit from treatment of some type, particularly medication."
Not all psychiatrists agree that bias, even extreme bias, should be clinically pathologized. It raises the prospect of prejudice being 'managed' in the future the same way depression or ADHD are today - with a pill. Doctors in California's prison system have apparently already been treating inmates with racist and homophobic hatred with anti-psychotic drugs, apparently with some degree of 'effectiveness'.
It is tempting in a delicious sort of way to consider whether mass medication of the extreme religious right wing wouldn't be such a bad thing. Certainly it would make an interesting clinical trial with the likes of Falwell, Dobson, Buchanan and some of their followers.
Maybe medication might make sense for some violent and extremely dysfunctional individuals who consent to treatment. But it also makes me wonder whether the treatment isn't worse than the disease. Pathological bias is a manifestation of a mind and soul not at peace with God and the world. Whether triggered or not by a neurophysiological disorder, it would seem that the most effective treatment for bias is not a prescription, but repentance. We are called by Jesus to turn away from our old thinking, to pour new wine into new wineskins, to love God with all our hearts and our fellow human being as ourselves, to be transformed by the renewing of our minds.
It's interesting to observe how society's view of homophobia and homosexuality are following opposite trajectories. Homosexuality has moved from sin to sickness to natural variation. Homophobia has moved in the other direction from acceptance as normal and even healthy, to a sickness. In my view we simply haven't gone far enough. Let's name patholigical hatred for what it is -- sin -- and develop an appropriate spiritual response.