Comments on: What I Don’t Like http://www.myhusbandbetty.com/2006/08/06/what-i-dont-like/ helen boyd's journal of gender & trans issues Wed, 08 Feb 2012 01:17:33 -0500 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.1.3 By: jadecath http://www.myhusbandbetty.com/2006/08/06/what-i-dont-like/comment-page-1/#comment-2896 jadecath Sun, 06 Aug 2006 19:21:43 +0000 http://www.myhusbandbetty.com/?p=934#comment-2896 Amen. "My beliefs about what goes on inside *your* head are more legitimate than your beliefs." Can there be a more arrogant statement than that? Amen.

“My beliefs about what goes on inside *your* head are more legitimate than your beliefs.” Can there be a more arrogant statement than that?

]]> By: Donna http://www.myhusbandbetty.com/2006/08/06/what-i-dont-like/comment-page-1/#comment-2895 Donna Sun, 06 Aug 2006 18:34:23 +0000 http://www.myhusbandbetty.com/?p=934#comment-2895 I think some people's eagerness to label others' assertion that they're "X" as "denial" that they're really "Y" is simply the "pop culture" version of the same kind of attitude, and style of argument, that's long been present in certain psychiatrists and psychoanalysts -- for example, the idea that if you say you're gay, you're gay, and if you say you aren't, that proves you are. It's childish, in addition to all the characterizations you give it. I've recently been re-reading some of Havelock Ellis, and he had something very similar to say nearly 80 years ago: "There are some psychoanalysts who when they see acknowledged signs of homosexuality, accept them, as most other people do, as the signs of homosexuality. But when they see the reverse, even a strong antipathy, they accept that also as a sign of homosexuality, the reaction of a suppressed wish. 'Heads, I win,' they seem to say; 'tails, you lose.' This is rather too youthful a method of conducting mental analysis." Donna I think some people’s eagerness to label others’ assertion that they’re “X” as “denial” that they’re really “Y” is simply the “pop culture” version of the same kind of attitude, and style of argument, that’s long been present in certain psychiatrists and psychoanalysts — for example, the idea that if you say you’re gay, you’re gay, and if you say you aren’t, that proves you are. It’s childish, in addition to all the characterizations you give it. I’ve recently been re-reading some of Havelock Ellis, and he had something very similar to say nearly 80 years ago:

“There are some psychoanalysts who when they see acknowledged signs of homosexuality, accept them, as most other people do, as the signs of homosexuality. But when they see the reverse, even a strong antipathy, they accept that also as a sign of homosexuality, the reaction of a suppressed wish. ‘Heads, I win,’ they seem to say; ‘tails, you lose.’ This is rather too youthful a method of conducting mental analysis.”

Donna

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