Political
Attention Deficit Disorder – New Psychiatric Condition
By Joel S. Hirschhorn
25 June, 2007
Countercurrents.org
According
to a report not yet released, the Council on Science and Public Health
of the American Medical Association has recommended that a chronic and
widespread affliction of Americans be officially declared a psychiatric
disorder. It has been named the Political Attention Deficit Disorder
(PADD). It is recommended that the disorder be included in a widely
used mental illness manual created and published by the American Psychiatric
Association. The current manual was published in 1994; the next edition
is to be completed in 2012. The benefit to people of an official classification
is coverage by health insurance.
“The symptoms of PADD
are all around us and treating it professionally can do more for our
country than any election,” said Dr. Mable Wank in the report’s
introduction; she is chairwoman of the Council and a professor at UCLA.
Here are the Council’s
main findings on PADD:
Nearly 80 percent of adult
American citizens are unable to pay sustained attention to issues and
problems associated with their government. They are unable to accept
their responsibility as citizens, including their obligation to vote,
read in-depth articles and books on political issues, become active
members of politically oriented groups, and initiate discussions on
current events with friends and family. “The decades-old decline
in voter turnout is a direct result of a national epidemic of PADD,”
said the report.
The chief cause of PADD is
the desire to avoid the very real pain of cognitive dissonance, the
difference between what Americans want to believe about the greatness
of their country and the disturbing reality that their government and
country are in terrible shape, which is a constant reminder when there
is normal, healthy political attention. Such pain suppression, however,
is counterproductive and was found through careful studies at several
universities, including the Harvard Medical College, to correlate with
depression and anxiety disorders, as well as a heightened level of cynicism
and despair. According to the report, many suicides and possibly many
criminal acts result from PADD.
Another consequence of PADD
is that people devote more of their time, energy and money to pleasure-seeking
distractions. PADD is correlated with profound statistical significance
to clinical symptoms such as obesity, alcoholism, drug addiction, video
game addiction, Internet addiction, sexual promiscuity, excessive shopping,
gambling addiction, and other harmful behaviors.
The report profiles a person
severely afflicted by PADD. The psychiatrists unanimously concluded
that George W. Bush is a PADD victim. Symptoms include no desire to
pursue major and contentious policy issues through in-depth reading,
discussion and analysis; a clear dependence on others for policy decisions,
particularly Vice President Cheney; an inability to maintain sustained
focus on diverse policy issues simultaneously; and an inability to articulate
policy. The widespread public perception that Bush is unintelligent,
uninformed and dogmatic stems from his PADD, concluded the Council.
“He needs immediate, emergency therapy for his PADD; that might
help get us out of Iraq,” said Dr. Wank.
Reached by phone, Dr. Aaron
Gestaltstein, a Council member and psychiatrist with the Michigan Institute
for the Study of Individual and Societal Health, said the AMA proposal
will help raise awareness and called it “the right thing to do
if the United States is ever to regain effective government and equitable
public policies.” “Sick Americans deserve compassionate
treatment if our country is to survive – PADD is no joke,”
he added.
“I saw a college-educated man last month who was so depressed
about the Bush Administration – yet he could no longer read newspapers,
watch cable news shows or visit news and commentary websites. He was
spending virtually all of his non-work time visiting pornography websites
and eating at Chinese buffets,” Gestaltstein said. “He is
a terrible mess and swears he will never vote again.”
The challenge for psychiatrists
treating PADD patients, as noted in the Council’s report, is to
help Americans fully integrate political attention into their lives.
Their discomfort and hopelessness must be changed into positive behaviors.
Friends and relatives of PADD victims are urged to get them to join
public interest groups working for the betterment of American government
and society, such as Friends of the Article V Convention at www.foavc.org.
[Joel S. Hirschhorn's new
book is Delusional Democracy www.delusionaldemocracy.com; he is a founder
of Friends of the Article V Convention www.foavc.org.]
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