EP, Ted Millon, and Prisoners

• Welcome to the BOL Forum on Evolutionary Psychology by John Grohol, 3/19/97
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    • Clinical Psychology and EP by Laljit Sidhu, MA, 3/18/98
      
      

Millon's contributions to personality disorders are well-known but of doubtful permanence. He's taken some steps towards evolutionary thinking; my impression, however, is that he's tried to use evolution to redecorate his existing nomenclature. Detroit used to get away with the same thing. I'm more comfortable with abolishing the cake layer known as "personality disorder" in favor of an adaptationist model. We can no longer justify global labels for a client. See my comments under Psych Adaptations and under ADHD for further explanation.

Religion ... I live in a almost exclusively Christian community and in a small town. My beliefs are open and my practice thrives even without health insurance. You may have hegemony and intolerance in prison settings by, for example, the Muslim group. My friend Howard Bloom has encountered any number of threats to himself and to his publishers because of his observations that Mohammed was very likely epileptic and paranoid.

Justifying their criminal actions ... only if you believe in cartoon Darwinism. If so, spend some time with de Waal's latest book on "Good Natured." If you buy the notion of psych adaptations, then you are likely to accept the notion of altruism, succorance, charity, empathy, and grieving as adaptations that have as much a genetic foundation as a social learning one. You will perhaps see your clientele as fractionated people that are missing some adaptations for maintaining reciprocal altruism and constructive alliances. Given a strongly genetic but absent base for sensing hurt, feeling empathy, and sensing even physiological pain, treatment may depend heavily on medications and on careful environmental engineering ... helping them find spots in our culture wherein their liabilities (lying, stealing, assault) become assets. Certainly, the traditional verbal interventions have done no restorative function.

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