#Evidence-Based Treatment Programs

[preservationofnormalcy]

[I am in a nature preserve in rural Louisiana. A small ranger station-like structure in the middle of the wetlands welcomes me through chain link fences as my driver signals his approach, and as I exit my vehicle, a man steps out of the station.

He is heavy-set, tall, a little overweight but in that working-man sort of way where his strength is evident. He’s wearing a white labcoat over a colorful shirt and jeans, with messy hair and old school mutton chops. I can’t decide if he’s going for a vintage look or just doesn’t want to deal with his facial hair. Huge hands clap together once as I walk up to the building, and he smiles.]

Meghan] Mr McCollough?

Jethro] Please, please ma’am, call me Jethro. Please, come in.

[The first room seems typical of what I would expect a station in the middle of the swamplands to look - a cot, couches, radios and locked long glass-paneled cabinets with guns. A large metal door on one end leads me into the next room, and this one is different. Computers, rows and rows of filing cabinets, and haphazard piles of paperwork on a laboratory benchtop that yield to clean, colored tape-zoned areas holding glassware, boxes of “Vacutainer” tubes, plastic racks. A well-used benchtop centrifuge in the sun-bleached cream and baby blue colors of equipment from the 80s holds tubes of separated liquid – clear on top, a strip of white, and deep red at the bottom. Another metal door on the opposite side leads further into the building. He gestures to a somewhat empty table with a chair on either side.

Jethro’s accent is slight but noticeable, quiet but gregarious. He doesn’t sit yet, but fumbles with a kettle and a hot plate.]

J] Don’t get many visitors out here. Pardon the mess. Tea?

M] Oh. Please, actually.

J] Yes, ma’am. The people above my head tell me you’re here to ask questions.

M] That’s right. I saw the, uh… immunization posters in the Virginia site I toured.

J] Oh, sure. That’s been routine for decades, now. Since they were developed in the 50s. Lots of progress, of course, but always lots to do. Half the issue’s the paperwork, you know. But, uh, yeah.

M] Does everyone get immunized?

J] If I had my way, yes. That’d be the right way to do it. But no, it’s only really required for so-called high risk zones, that’s what they decided.

[He gives me a wry smile over his shoulder.]

J] This here’s a high risk zone, ma’am. But…you won’t be here long enough for it to matter.

M] …here’s hoping. Umm. I had a list of questions.

J] Top of the list is probably “Jesus H, they’re real?”

[He laughs briefly at his own joke.]

M] …my work is more about the efficacy and efficiency of the Office’s divisions, departments, and programs. But yeah, kind of.

[He pours the hot water into two teacups, and hands me one, sitting on the opposite side of the table. His cup looks comically small in his large hands.]

J] Get the feeling you’ll be asking that a lot in the next months.

M] I do too. Let me see… what is the objective of the… Abnormal Virology Department?

J] So our mission statement is about the research, control, and prevention of diseases – viral diseases specifically, but other stuff comes up, but y’know, that’s another story – uh, diseases that fall outside the Office’s definition of “normal,” and our big goals hopefully are curative or preventative treatments for those diseases. It’s a tall order.

M] And… lycanthropy is a virus, like the flu?

J] I mean, as much as any virus is like another. Each one’s unique, even the flu subtypes, but yeah. If I may use some jargon,

[He pauses with a hint of eagerness for affirmation before continuing.]

J] It's a lysogenic virus, so if you get infected, it integrates into the host genome, more like, uh, I guess herpesvirus is one most people would know. Once you get it, you got it for life because it hides in your DNA. Like herpesviruses too, you have lytic phases too, where it becomes active again, it emerges out of the genome based on cues from environmental pressures or host conditions. Like the phase of the moon, you know, which is kind of unique. When it’s not actively causing disease, when it’s just sitting in your genome at these sequence specific integration sites across the chromosomes, it also screws with normal gene regulation. The sites it sits down, you get dysregulation of normal transcription, you start growing more body hair, eyes change color. Where the virus integrates is a little different across host genetic backgrounds, think like ancestries; do you know SNPs?

[He clears his throat.]

Anyway, that lysogenic, passive phase is why we need the boosters, it’s laying low, immune cells don’t see anything to protect against, and it preferentially hides out in memory B cells, some lymphocytes, and that also kind of messes up a normal immune response. Which is why you have the immunoglobulin in the shot too, but that’s getting into the weeds. Because if you don’t have a way for the immune system to stop it quickly when it decides to jump out of the genome again, then, of course, you have the active phase, which… you can guess about that.

M] How successful would you say the treatments are?

J] It’s pretty good, especially given this stuff is almost the same as we were using mid-century. If you have a healthy immune system, if you’re vaccinated at least a few weeks before exposure, so you have your standard immune repertoire ready to go, and then they’re exposed – assuming the inoculum isn’t, you know, that can be pretty high sometimes – then they probably won’t “catch it,” so to speak, it’s neutralized and doesn’t integrate into the genome, so you don’t have a permanent case of it. We can also suppress symptoms with treatments for those with especially bad cases. Treatment’s kinda heavy, with the administration and the side effects; not like you’re just popping a pill under your tongue; but once it’s taken hold, there’s no, uh, no real cure.

[Jethro is quiet for a moment, taking a glance out the window as he drinks.]

J] … listen, ma’am. I’m biased. I got a personal stake in all this. I’m kind of a lab guy, sure, but sometimes I go out there and actually… you know. I’m the boots on the ground here too. And I don’t carry the big guns like the guys in Security do, no, I’m here giving out shots to kids and families. There’s communities in this country, whole towns out in the swamps or up in the hollers that are majority-infected. They live with it, they make do. And they have a chance at that, at life, because of us. Hard to quantify, of course. If you’re looking for hard numbers, I can try and find ‘em–

[He gestures to the filing cabinets.]

J] If you got a week or two.

M] We can… coordinate records later. But we’ve successfully eradicated things like… you know, smallpox. Can we eradicate things like lycanthropy?

[He gives me a strange, wary look and picks up a plastic knife from the table, oddly stirring his drink. I take a sip of mine.]

J] I’d be careful, talking like that. Lotta people don’t just think they’re sick, they- we’re talking about people. People with a condition, sure, but the minute you start talking about eradicating is when we start having camps again.

M] … again?

J] There’s rural areas in this country that the Office hasn’t been in for decades. We aren’t welcome.

M] Can I ask what happened?

[Jethro takes a deep breath.]

J] In ‘55, the United States rolled out its polio vaccine program. Of course, the Office used the infrastructure, hustle and bustle of the whole thing as a cover for our own lycanthropic treatment programs. We, and when I say “we,” I mean the Office in general of course. I wasn’t even a pup then. But a couple Office research groups, the Wagner lab, they’d done deep research into the condition, validated a few hypotheses, and they were ready to pilot the production of a vaccine. They just needed plasma. From infected hosts.

M] … I think I see.

J] Yeah. Yeah, back then infected folks were basically ignored unless they were in legal trouble. Legal personhood hadn't been extended to lycanthropes yet.

M] Legal personhood?

J] Ask Ferd about that when you get back to Virginia. Unfortunately, that plasma was taken from… people who didn’t volunteer. Inmates at first, murderers. But scaling up collection, then it came from people who stole some cows, and then people who were even just accused of things. When the Wagner people showed the shot was actually working, the Office needed a lot more to even think about rolling it out everywhere it was needed, and people weren’t really volunteering, so…

[He sighs.]

J] We shouldn’t have been surprised when a lot of communities then rejected us after that. Word travels fast, and the symbol–

[He taps the OPN crest on his badge.]

J] –became the mark of the Beast. Figuratively. It’s been decades getting to the point where we can help people, and pardon my bragging, ma’am, but it’s people like me who are the reason why we can. Part scientist, part… social worker, I guess.

[The phone rings, and Jethro slides over on his rolling chair to answer it. He seems immediately worried, and after a moment of conversation he hangs up and rubs his face.]

J] Real sorry ma’am, gonna have to cut this short. I know you had a long trip. Maybe I can meet you somewhere that ain’t so out of the way.

M] Oh. That’s okay, Jethro. Um. How’s next Saturday?

[He rolls over to a calendar on the wall. July 2021.]

J] No… no, I’ll be needing a day or two off ‘round then. For the… weather.

M] …I think I see. I’ll call you, we can finish over the phone.

J] Probably for the best, ma’am. If you’ll excuse me, I got an emergency downstate. Small outbreak just confirmed, got some of that social work to do.

M] Should I be worried?

[He grins, throwing his labcoat onto a chair and pulling a dirty jumpsuit out of a pile.]

J] Hell no, ma’am. We’re professionals. Ain’t gonna be any rowdy gators causing any trouble.

M] …gat–

J] I trust you’ll see yourself out, ma’am.

(Buy the poster here!)

[covid-safer-hotties]

Also preserved on our archive

By Lisa Jarvis

We’re still asking people with COVID to jump through far too many hoops to get their hands on Pfizer Inc.’s Paxlovid.

I experienced the barriers first-hand this month after my mother texted to say that this summer’s COVID wave had finally caught up with her. My first thought was to make sure she quickly started taking the antiviral. You’d think she would be an ideal candidate, because she is in her 70s with an underlying health condition. But it took a daylong effort to get her the medicine, one that involved multiple emails, phone calls with three different doctor’s offices, a telehealth visit and a bit of pharmacy-hopping to find one that had the pills in stock.

“That’s not an uncommon story,” says Amesh Adalja, a senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security. “There are a lot of misconceptions out there that have undermined the use [of antivirals] from the very beginning.”

The data bear this out. One small study published in early 2024 by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that 4 out of 5 high-risk patients were not offered an antiviral by their doctors. Worse, one large, community-based study found that Black and Latino patients were far less likely to receive the drug than White patients.

It shouldn’t be that way. And the delay matters: Pfizer’s antiviral only helps if taken within the first five days of symptoms. My mom, feverish and exhausted, told me that if I hadn’t stepped in as her advocate, she would have given up.

Doctors must do better, especially as we continue to live through a wave of infections.

Some health care providers may be worried about managing the interactions between Paxlovid and other medicines (my mom, for example, had to pause her Lipitor while on the antiviral). Others have been dissuaded by reports of rebound infections occurring in people who take Paxlovid — despite evidence that the drug’s benefits outweigh those risks in the most vulnerable patients. And some doctors might be operating under perverse incentives that make it more lucrative to have a sick patient make an appointment to confirm their infection instead of simply calling the prescription into a pharmacy after an at-home test.

There’s also lingering confusion about the right candidates for the drug. Paxlovid was authorized in 2021 based on compelling data showing it could keep high-risk unvaccinated people out of the hospital. Yet some doctors don’t seem aware that vaccinated patients can also benefit from it, particularly if they are higher risk. That’s everyone over age 65, or those who are immunocompromised, pregnant or with an underlying condition. Those groups still are at risk of hospitalization and even of dying, especially if their last exposure or booster is in the distant past.

And that’s a lot of people. Only 1 out of every 3 retirement-age adults got last year’s booster. “From my experience as well as others, pretty much everybody I’ve taken care of hasn’t received a vaccine in the last year or so, even though they might have had them originally,” says Peter Chin-Hong, an infectious disease specialist at the University of California, San Francisco. Since mid-August, COVID deaths in the U.S. have been hovering near 1,000 per week, according to CDC data. Shouldn’t we better deploy the tools that might prevent such losses?

Cost shouldn’t be a barrier. When antivirals transitioned to the commercial market last year, the U.S. government partnered with Pfizer to ensure people with public health insurance or without insurance could still get the drugs for free, and minimize the cost for people with private insurance. Yet infectious disease doctors tell me that months into the rollout, too few patients, prescribers and pharmacists seem aware of the program.

True, Paxlovid isn’t perfect. In people who aren’t high-risk, the data are mixed as to whether it helps much (though anecdotes abound for people who say they have felt better faster after taking it). And while there had been much hope that Paxlovid could prevent long COVID, so far the data supporting that hypothesis are inconclusive.

So there’s a clear need for better anti-COVID drugs. Even for young, healthy people who have been jabbed and infected multiple times, an infection can be extremely disruptive, sidelining us from work or school and ruining our best-laid plans. A drug more akin to Tamiflu — a very safe and tolerable treatment for the flu that allows people to bounce back faster, even if only by a day or two — would be a welcome invention.

Yet better antivirals have been slow to arrive. Pfizer is studying a treatment that works similarly to Paxlovid, but doesn’t interact with other medications. And hopes were dashed last spring when Shionogi’s Ensitrelvir, an antiviral approved in Japan, failed to prove it could alleviate symptoms faster than a placebo.

But even if a drug for the masses eventually made it to market, would it be used? When doctors can’t get it right for the most vulnerable, the prospects seem dim.

[mariacallous]

Introduction

Research and practice over the past several decades have provided evidence about the effectiveness of some interventions that treat mental illnesses and substance use disorders (SUDs). That research has identified elements of treatment, including psychotherapies like cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) and various pharmacotherapies; interventions that combine treatment elements, like relapse prevention for major depression; team-based programs that offer a suite of interventions, such as assertive community treatment (ACT) for severe and persistent mental illnesses; and models that focus on the integration of treatment for depression and anxiety disorders into primary care practices, like the Collaborative Care Model.

Nevertheless, the take up of evidence-based practices has been weak and has stalled in recent years, despite national recognition of the need to address high rates of mental health and substance use disorders. There is a mismatch between the strategies that research suggests are likely to benefit people and the availability of those strategies to people who may benefit from them. The roots of this mismatch may lie in challenges in understanding how to spread effective programs in complex organizational and funding environments, and how to scale the programs, organizational arrangements, and interventions that work. Moreover, though the “technology” for improving mental health and SUD care is understood, there are economic, organizational, and cultural forces that create enormous frictions for efforts aimed at putting knowledge about mental illnesses and SUDs and their treatments to work.  A shaky foundation of behavioral health service access, in which many communities in the U.S. find themselves lacking sufficient behavioral health services, underpins these larger forces.  This is particularly problematic for low-income communities and rural communities, where access issues are large.  And the research itself frequently does not address the impact of the interventions on important populations, including and especially people of color.

In this paper, we focus on four behavioral health policy issue areas that are marked by evidence-based understanding about what works, a need to rely on integration and coordination of effort across multiple sectors of public services, illnesses and circumstances that are highly stigmatized, and a history of institutional designs that create barriers to sustainable programs. These policy issue areas are:

Deploying interventions early in the course of severe conditions, such as psychosis, expected to be persistent and disabling without intervention;

Advancing healthy brain development and behavior in early childhood;

Providing effective and timely response to behavioral health crises; and

Supporting the reentry into communities of formerly incarcerated people with mental health and substance use conditions.

For each of these issue areas, we conducted an environmental scan of the evidence of the issue area’s impact and conducted facilitated interactions with practitioners, experts, and stakeholders.  Across these diverse areas, common challenges and clear strategies to spread and scale evidence-based behavioral health interventions emerged. Tackling these challenges and advancing these strategies create opportunities for philanthropy, governments at all levels, and communities to engage and advance efforts to strengthen evidence-based behavioral health service provision in the U.S. in these four areas.

[lovers-tucked-into-a-quiet-cafe]

Personnel Files [IKYLHT]

Series Masterlist | Next: 141 & Rabbit Headcanons

-

Name: [REDACTED]

Callsign: Highwater (formerly), Rabbit

Rank: Gunnery Sergeant (E-7)

Occupation: Demon Dogs Operative, 0251 MOS Interrogator/Debrief Specialist

Affiliations: United States Marine Corps (formerly), Demon Dogs, Coalition, Task Force 141

Identifiers: 26yr Female, 172cm, ‘Heavily’ Tattooed

Physical Assessment: Determined Fit for Duty: Affirm. 

Note: Physical Examination cut short, patient held overnight in medical ward after severely injuring nurse practitioner. Sudden unprompted hysteria after [REDACTED], patient forcefully restrained. Absence of physical response to constraints- ceased movement and allowed for further restriction of movement in accordance to protocol. Negative emotional response to constraints- immediate increase in hysteria, cowering in expected physical harm, patient proceeded to [REDACTED], refused medical treatment. Evidence of trauma-response based attack. Unknown psychological trigger. Incident Number 9836573.

Psychological Evaluation: Determined Fit for Duty: Affirm. 

Note: Recalled to active duty following brief unauthorized leave of absence after covert operation in [REDACTED], Mexico. Patient requested base transfer upon return, application denied until documentation of post-mission evaluation was received. Patient agreed to undergo aforementioned evaluation, halted after [REDACTED], Incident Number 9836573. Patient attended recommended Cognitive Processing Therapy following incident. Currently attending 1-1 Psychotherapy, prescribed Venlafaxine. Patient granted permission by PhD. Harrison to avoid medical institutions unless warranted by life-threatening illness or injury. 

-

Name: John ‘Johnny’ MacTavish

Callsign: Soap

Rank: Sergeant (E-5)

Occupation: SAS Operative, Sniper and Demolitions Expert

Affiliations: SAS, Coalition, Task Force 141

Identifiers: 26yr Male, 183cm, Medium Brown Hair, Blue Eyes, Various Tattoos on Arms

Physical Assessment: Determined Fit for Duty: Affirm. 

Note: Patient reports noticeable decline in migraine and fatigue following tinnitus treatment, as previously prescribed. Patient was recommended the continuation of such methods- avoiding caffeine and nicotine, limiting salt intake, increasing vitamin B12, and following proper PPE protocols.

Psychological Evaluation: Determined Fit for Duty: Affirm.

Note: - -

-

Name: Simon Riley

Callsign: Ghost

Rank: Lieutenant (O-2)

Occupation: SAS Operative, Sabotage and Infiltration Expert

Affiliations: SAS, Coalition, Task Force 141

Identifiers: 28yr Male, 192cm, Dark Blonde Hair, Brown Eyes, Half-Sleeve Tattoo on Right Forearm, Skull Plate Face Covering [On-Mission], Balaclava Face Covering [Off-Mission On-Base]

Physical Assessment: Determined Fit for Duty: Affirm.

Note: - -

Psychological Evaluation: Determined Fit for Duty: Affirm.

Note: Patient’s routine psychological evaluation is past-due. Clear for active duty, ordered to schedule annual check-up eval at earliest convenience. When questioned, patient admits to decline in attendance of 1-1 Psychotherapy regarding [REDACTED]. Declines request for therapy and/or medication regarding childhood PTSD. Declines request for medication regarding [REDACTED].

-

Name: Kyle Garrick

Callsign: Gaz

Rank: Sergeant (E-5)

Occupation: SAS Operative, Weapons Tactics and Covert Surveillance Expert

Affiliations: British Army (formerly), SAS, SAS Domestic Counter-Terror Program, Coalition, Task Force 141

Identifiers: 24yr Male, 180cm, Dark Brown Hair, Brown Eyes

Physical Assessment: Determined Fit for Duty: Affirm.

Note: Patient reports continued migraine and light sensitivity post-concussion. Prescribed Topiramate to manage temporary symptoms. Screened for excessive bleeding and hemorrhaging, no evidence of prolonged injury post blunt force trauma found. 

Psychological Evaluation: Determined Fit for Duty: Affirm.

Note: - -

-

Name: Jonathan ‘John’ Price

Callsign: Bravo 0-6

Rank: Captain (O-3)

Occupation: 22nd SAS Regiment Captain, Close Quarter Battle Specialist, Seek-and-Strike Expert

Affiliations: British Army (formerly), SAS, Coalition, Task Force 141

Identifiers: 36yr Male, 185cm, Medium Brown Hair, Blue Eyes, Full Beard

Physical Assessment: Determined Fit for Duty: Affirm.

Note: Patient was recommended the use of Cyclobenzaprine for continued back pain and muscle spasms, denied fulfilling prescription due to inability to consume nicotine or alcohol while on medication. 

Psychological Evaluation: Determined Fit for Duty: Affirm.

Note: Patient was recommended the use of Nitrazepam to provide short-term relief from severe anxiety and insomnia while off-duty, denied fulfilling prescription due to sedative properties and possibility of impaired judgment or coordination in the event of an unscheduled call back to base. 

-

Name: Alejandro Vargas

Callsign: N/A

Rank: Colonel (O-6)

Occupation: Mexican Special Forces Operative, Leader of Los Vaqueros

Affiliations: Mexican Army (formerly), Los Vaqueros, Task Force 141

Identifiers: 28yr Male, 186cm, Dark Brown Hair, Brown Eyes, Various Arm Tattoos

Physical Assessment: Determined Fit for Duty: Affirm.

Note: Patient recommended continuation of physical therapy for affected shoulder. 

Psychological Evaluation: Determined Fit for Duty: Affirm.

Note: Patient noted displaying uncharacteristic signs of high stress. Unknown stress trigger. Recommended self-treatment: elimination of nicotine and caffeine from diet, substitution of herbal teas and remedies. Patient admitted as to previously declining aforementioned recommendations, notes having implemented recommendations under the order/care of [REDACTED]. Follow-up advised.

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Name: Rodolfo ‘Rudy’ Parra

Callsign: N/A

Rank: Sergeant Major (E-9)

Occupation: Mexican Special Forces Operative, Los Vaqueros Second-in-Command

Affiliations: Mexican Army (formerly), Los Vaqueros, Task Force 141

Identifiers: 28yr Male, 181cm, Dark Brown Hair, Brown Eyes, Various Arm and Chest Tattoos

Physical Assessment: Determined Fit for Duty: Affirm.

Note: - -

Psychological Evaluation: Determined Fit for Duty: Affirm.

Note: Patient noted displaying signs of high stress, declined additional optional psychological screenings. Recommended time off-duty to mitigate stress, patient denied ability to leave base for extended periods of time.

-

Name: N/A

Callsign: Konig

Rank: Oberfeldwebel [Staff Sergeant, Technical Sergeant]

Occupation: KorTac Operative

Affiliations: Kommando Spezialkräfte (formerly), KorTac

Identifiers: 27yr Male, 198cm, Blue Eyes, Sniper Veil Face Covering

Physical Assessment: Determined Fit for Duty: Affirm.

Note: N/A

Psychological Evaluation: Determined Fit for Duty: Affirm.

Note: N/A

-

Name: Valeria Garza

Callsign: El Sin Nombre

Rank: N/A

Occupation: Leader of Las Almas Cartel, KorTac Operative

Affiliations: Mexican Special Forces (formerly), KorTac

Identifiers: 28yr Female, 168cm, Dark Brown Hair, Brown Eyes, Various Tattoos on Arms

Physical Assessment: N/A

Psychological Evaluation: N/A

-

<3

[saintmeghanmarkle]

Completely made up: Prince Harry allegedly watched The Crown to learn about his own family by u/Maleficent-Trifle940

Completely made up’: Prince Harry allegedly watched The Crown to learn about his own family ‘Completely made up’: Prince Harry allegedly watched The Crown to learn about his own family | Sky News AustraliaA biographer of Queen Elizabeth II has made bombshell new claims about the late monarch’s private outrage over her grandson Prince Harry and his wife Meghan Markle.The Sussexes stepped back from royal duties in January 2020 and later publicly slammed the monarchy in interviews, books and the couple’s Netflix series.Author Craig Brown believes Elizabeth II, who died in September 2022, would be mortified by Harry and Meghan’s efforts to continually undermine the royal family and cash in on their royal titles.“The Queen was quite disapproving of their drift towards celebrity,” he told SkyNews.com.au.“She gave Harry and Meghan sort of short thrift, Harry in his memoir was quite irritated by her, when he wanted to see his grandmother before leaving she would only see him with a lot of other people in the room.”Mr Brown is the author of the new book A Voyage Around the Queen, which combines biography, essays, cultural history, dream diaries, travelogue and satire to reveal a new side to the iconic monarch.While Elizabeth II remained diplomatic towards the Sussexes during her lifetime, Mr Brown believes the Queen left clues, including the famous “recollections may vary” statement after the Sussexes’ Oprah Winfrey interview.“That’s one where you could discern what she meant: ‘you’re lying really’,” he said.Earlier this week, the Sussexes’ released a new teaser for Harry’s Netflix series Polo the day after Princess Catherine confirmed she had completed chemotherapy treatment for cancer.The stunt was the latest in a mysterious pattern of announcements by the Sussexes which coincided with royal occasions.Mr Brown said he was wary not to “speak for” the late monarch but believes based on her lifelong commitment to duty that she would be displeased about Harry’s new celebrity lifestyle in California.“I guess the Queen would find that vulgar,” he said.“But she was good at ignoring what she didn’t want to think about.”The author also revealed a new theory that Harry may be relying on fictional programs like Netflix’s The Crown for “information” on his own family.“The Crown devoted a lot of time to the Queen being jealous of Princess Margaret, but that was completely made up,” he said.  “I’ve read everything and there’s no suggestion that the Queen was ever envious of her sister.”Mysteriously, Harry mentioned the debunked story of Elizabeth II’s supposed jealously towards Margaret in his best-selling memoir Spare."As I grew older, it struck me that Aunt Margo and I should've been friends,” he wrote.“Her relationship with Granny wasn't an exact analog of mine with Willy, but pretty close."The simmering rivalry, the intense competition (driven largely by the older sibling), it all looked familiar."Mr Brown suspects the Duke of Sussex, or Harry’s ghostwriter, lifted the story straight from The Crown and believes it is evidence Harry has watched the fictional series to learn about Elizabeth II.Meanwhile, the author claimed Prince William is looking to the smaller and less scandal-prone monarchies in Denmark, Norway and Sweden, and will likely use the Scandinavians as a model for his reign.“William is more like the Scandinavian royal families, they will scale down and place less emphasis on pomp,” he said.  post link: https://ift.tt/rnv9kY5 author: Maleficent-Trifle940 submitted: September 14, 2024 at 08:48AM via SaintMeghanMarkle on Reddit disclaimer: all views + opinions expressed by the author of this post, as well as any comments and reblogs, are solely the author's own; they do not necessarily reflect the views of the administrator of this Tumblr blog. For entertainment only.

[coochiequeens]

Abusers know what they are doing.

Summary: A new study contests the belief that aggression stems from poor self-control. Instead, it suggests that aggression is often a deliberate, controlled act, inflicted to maximize retribution.

This finding, based on meta-analysis of multiple psychology and neurology studies, contradicts the traditional approach of treating violent tendencies by boosting self-control. It implies that such interventions may even enable some people to better execute their aggressive instincts.

Key Facts:

Aggression does not necessarily arise from poor self-control. Instead, it can be a calculated act of retribution, requiring self-discipline to carry out effectively.

Evidence suggests that self-control training programs do not necessarily reduce violent tendencies.

Research indicates that the brain’s prefrontal cortex, a center of self-control, shows increased activity during aggression, further debunking the association between poor self-control and aggression.

Source: Virginia Commonwealth University

A new study by a Virginia Commonwealth University researcher has found that aggression is not always the product of poor self-control but, instead, often can be the product of successful self-control in order to inflict greater retribution.

The new paper, “Aggression As Successful Self-Control,” by corresponding author David Chester, Ph.D., an associate professor of social psychology in the Department of Psychology at VCU’s College of Humanities and Sciences, was published by the journal Social and Personality Psychology Compass and uses meta-analysis to summarize evidence from dozens of existing studies in psychology and neurology.

“Typically, people explain violence as the product of poor self-control,” Chester said. “In the heat of the moment, we often fail to inhibit our worst, most aggressive impulses. But that is only one side of the story.”

Indeed, Chester’s study found that the most aggressive people do not have personalities characterized by poor self-discipline and that training programs that boost self-control have not proved effective in reducing violent tendencies. Instead, the study found ample evidence that aggression can arise from successful self-control.

“Vengeful people tend to exhibit greater premeditation of their behavior and self-control, enabling them to delay the gratification of sweet revenge and bide their time to inflict maximum retribution upon those who they believe have wronged them,” Chester said. “Even psychopathic people, who comprise the majority of people who commit violent offenses, often exhibit robust development of inhibitory self-control over their teenage years.”

Aggressive behavior is reliably linked to increased – not just decreased – activity in the brain’s prefrontal cortex, a biological substrate of self-control, Chester found. The findings make it clear that the argument that aggression is primarily the product of poor self-control is weaker than previously thought.

“This paper pushes back against a decades-long dominant narrative in aggression research, which is that violence starts when self-control stops,” Chester said. “Instead, it argues for a more balanced, nuanced view in which self-control can both constrain and facilitate aggression, depending on the person and the situation.”

The findings also argue for more caution in the implementation of treatments, therapies and interventions that seek to reduce violence by improving self-control, Chester said.

“Many interventions seek to teach people to inhibit their impulses, but this new approach to aggression suggests that although this may reduce aggression for some people, it is also likely to increase aggression for others,” he said. “Indeed, we may be teaching some people how best to implement their aggressive tendencies.”

The findings surprised Chester, a psychologist whose team frequently studies the causes of human aggression.

“Over the years, much of our research was guided by the field’s assumption that aggression is an impulsive behavior characterized by poor self-control,” he said. “But as we started to investigate the psychological characteristics of vengeful and psychopathic people, we quickly realized that such aggressive individuals do not just have self-regulatory deficits; they have many psychological adaptations and skills that enable them to hurt others by using self-control.”

Chester and his team plan to continue exploring questions around aggression and self-control based on the study’s findings.

“Our research going forward is now guided by this new paradigm shift in thinking: that aggression is often the product of sophisticated and complex mental processes and not just uninhibited impulses,” Chester said.

Funding: This research was supported by a grant from the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, part of the National Institutes of Health.

About this psychology and aggression research news

Author: Mary Brogan Source: Virginia Commonwealth University Contact: Mary Brogan -Virginia Commonwealth University Image: The image is credited to Neuroscience News

[ganondorf]

out of genuine curiosity, why does RAMCOA not exist? i know you mentioned its linked to satanic panic but abuse at the hands of cults are very real and it feels more like that? idk

like you said here, the source of RAMCOA is linked to satanic panic, NWO shit, which both are inherently antisemitic. cult abuse, religious abuse, trafficking, and organized abuse are very real things, obviously. ritual abuse, as in abuse that occurs in a ritualized manner (ie a kid being assaulted on the same day every month), is even a viable concept, although there's been no actual documentation of that happening (but theoretically not impossible to have doled out). RAMCOA is not

for further context RAMCOA is literally just the re-branded name for SRA (satanic ritual abuse). there is no separating RAMCOA from that no matter how much people try to insist otherwise. the very basis of RAMCOA's existence is satanic panic and antisemitism. the foundation of both RAMCOA and SRA are found within antisemitic illuminati books and have no clinical or legal evidence to back their claims. the chairman of RAMCOA SIG is literally a conspiracy theorist and believed preschools were building underground tunnels for satanic cults. a majority of patients treated by RAMCOA therapists have sued for medical malpractice and abuse done to them by these therapists, and many therapists who propose ritual abuse as a key part to their treatment of dissociative and trauma-based disorders have been disbarred for their actions

so for starters, "mind control" is a hazy concept. there's no proof of it actually being a thing that exists. as another example, one of the biggest criticisms of the BITE model is its reliance on the idea of "mind control." and what i've seen other people describe as "mind control" is just gaslighting + conditioning, which ARE very real things. but what RAMCOA refers to as mind control is literally just like MKUltra type shit

there is genuinely no evidence for the existence of "programming." the human brain is not a computer, it is too complex and people are too varied to be able to manipulate so precisely. conditioning is real, but programming is not. as far as i've been able to find all the programming stuff comes from straight up conspiracy theories

moreover, there has yet to be a single case of RAMCOA that ended up having any ground in reality. like not even "yea the cult existed but they didn't do that" like i mean absolutely zero evidence of these cults ever existing in the first place

now i do think that people BELIEVE they went through RAMCOA because they were actively coached to believe in it. but ultimately it just ends up being gaslighting and conditioning mixed with religious fervor. and i think some of it is also just delusion, as someone who is schizophrenic

[iatrophilosophos]

Hey, do you have any info or tips on diy medicine? I've always been interested but haven't found much success

Medicine is just problem solving. IME it's important to take nothing for granted and get as granular as possible with what you're trying to achieve, because that opens more doors.

Re: that point, diy med is being a medical researcher. Very rarely is work done for you, so there's a lot of fucking around and finding out--how much risk you chose to take is up to you in experimenting; but I'm pretty gung ho and I can still count on one hand the number of times I've tried something that carried more risk than over-the-counter acetaminophen.

Read voraciously--coming from someone who can only get thru about three books a year. It's fucking hard but it is so beyond worth it to work at it, however much you can. Read until you know enough to have questions and then read to find the answer to those questions and/or figure out how to determine an answer for yourself.

Bad sources can be just as educational as good ones--western medicine has a bunch of fuckshit in it and having strong, grounded analysis of why you think an approach, treatment, whatever is bullshit will help you in finding something better.

Anecdotal evidence is useful as FUCK. Western medical practice is regulated formally and informally by legal anxiety and profit motives (ergo an unwillingness to produce anything under a certain statistical bar of effectiveness) but for a LOT of anecdotal home remedies and experimental treatments, risk factors are p minimal and if you feel comfortable trying it based on a realistic risk assessment...you can just try it, lol.

I really want to stress that diy med doesn't just have to be about trying to get a sub-par approximation of western med. Sometimes what we can do for ourselves is limited or less effective, sure--but we are also capable of doing better. There's pros and cons, right, but autonomous medicine gives the opportunity to try something that a doctor never would--sometimes because of risk, but more usually it's about legal anxiety and state restrictions. I remember hearing someone I knew who worked in drug development talk about how stupid it was that their team was having to reinvent the wheel instead of using THC in a drug; even though there exists documentation that THC has the property they were after, their program got federal funding so no marijuana.

Personally my entry point was herbalism and it's not a bad route to go. It can do a LOT, it's very accessible, and unlike a lot of medicine it's less gatekept & there's a significant population of writers creating resources specifically for laypeople with a focus on autonomy and self practice; plus rad community spaces exist and ofc like any scene they're full of bullshit (transmisogyny and gender essentialism in lefty alt health is a huge current, unfortunately), but they can be a good place to like. Network until you actually find the other ppl on the fringes of the scene who you might actually click with. An herbal background also gives you a LOT of directional freedom--lots of sources will combine western medical information on top of traditional and anecdotal practices, which cumulates in a lot of lenses you can apply to try to solve a problem; plus a lot of drugs are or can be plant-derived and having a skillset to identify/grow, harvest and process plants is really useful even if western medicine is the primary lens you want to use (tbh ur basic herbal preparations are often the first step in more exact drug isolation procedures). It's also just essential imo to have more than a western medical perspective--take time to read less immediately practical texts about medical history, other medical systems, and other conceptualizations of illness and the human body. One of my hotter takes? Miasma theory is still relevant and useful. There's a lot of fuckshit everywhere, both within and outside of western medicine--treat no source as authoritative and every claim as a thought experiment! But seriously, take the time to see what's out there. Accumulate as much raw information as possible to build your toolkit.

Some herbal resources I like for beginners (all books on LibGen.is)

Rjwhelan.co.nz -- aoteroa based medical herbalist who presents a really wide range of info from historical/traditional to western scientific. He's got some interesting (read: bad) takes but is a solid writer and information aggregator.

The herbal medicine makers handbook by James green -- good intro to herbal preparation with a range of procedures from simple folk methods to more measurement and chemistry heavy. Also got some weird opinions. That's just kinda how it be.

Wild remedies by rosalee de foret and Emily han -- cute basic introduction to herbalism

The psychopharmacology of herbal medicines by Marcello spinella -- says it right on the tin. useful reference.

The Earthwise herbal (vol 1 and vol 2) by Matthew wood -- listen. I fucking hate this man. I kind of hate these books (organized alphabetically by latin name...come the fuck on) BUT. It is still a pretty ok reference book with a similar approach to Richard Whelan's work and it has herbs that I've had trouble finding in other texts.

On working with others and sharing information: it's important to not play doctor. I strongly encourage folks to help out other people, but in an assistive capscity--not a prescriptive one. Share your sources, explain your opinions! The goal is to offer as much information as possible for someone else to make their own decisions. If you're in the US, this is a pretty good rundown of the legal positionality of herbalists (/health consultants generally) but I strongly advocate for going further than the law in this case on ideological autonomy-focused grounds.

Finally: medicine is not a solitary undertaking. Having a group of friends or even just acquaintances with different needs, priorities and viewpoints will get you much further in a few months than you could on your own in years. And it's slow going at first. It really is. You'll fuck up, you'll go around believing something for years to suddenly realize it's bullshit, you will grow and change. But you'll get there.

[creature-wizard]

On the topic of literature that alleged conspiracies would have to produce if they really existed, the monarch programming/alter programming conspiracy theory is another one of those things that would require mountains of literature if it was actually real.

(For those who haven't heard, this conspiracy theory was basically invented by far right conspiracy theorists like Fritz Springmeier, and it exploits people with real mental struggles by convincing them that they were abused by this conspiratorial cult. See also my posts Hypnosis is unreliable for memory recovery, and this is one way we know and False past life memories among the starseed movement, if you want definitive evidence that people can be brought to "remember" shit that absolutely never happened.)

A practice like alter programming would require a ton of literature. There would need to be literature outlining the process and detailing all of the steps, describing how to safely administer mind-altering drugs to small children, how to recognize signs of overdose and other medical emergencies, how to administer emergency treatment, etc. Literally everyone who supposedly programs alters into people would need to be in possession of this literature.

There would also be a ton of literature criticizing bad techniques and describing supposed improvements. There would be tons of experimentation logs. There would be documents proposing new techniques to experiment with. There would be all kinds of notes and memos.

This also goes for the newer versions of the conspiracy theory, which assert that alter programming isn't being orchestrated by a global conspiracy, but is actually the work of unconnected individuals. There is simply no way that a large number of supposedly unconnected individuals would all independently realize they could intentionally program alters and all come upon the same techniques for doing it. There would have to be actual literature passed around between these people, and lots of it, based on number of people who believe themselves to have been programmed this way.

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

By: Madeleine Rowley

Published: Jun 18, 2024

Mandatory ideological training has now come to the drugstore. In California, pharmacists and pharmacy technicians, in order to keep their license, must study the latest in gender identity, colonialism, and white privilege. Such “cultural competency” courses are required by a state law that went into effect this year.

When the bill was introduced, Democratic Assemblyman Christopher Ward, the lead sponsor, said that the continuing education class would help “ensure pharmacists are looking out for the well-being of LGBTQ+ individuals.” 

Like many licensed professionals, pharmacists are required to take continuing education courses, usually with titles like “Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disorder (COPD)” and “Trimming Trends: Unveiling the Latest in Weight Management Guidelines.” Though this new training requires only an hour of the pharmacist’s time every two years, it’s another demonstration of compelling people to passively accept dubious assertions and assumptions, or risk losing their livelihoods.

One such course, titled Caring for All: The Pharmacy Professional’s Role in LGBTQ+ Health and Equity comes from the California Pharmacists Association (CPhA). The outline, obtained by The Free Press, features many charts that are hard to square with the duties of a pharmacist. There is a chart illustrating many “systems of oppression.” These include “sexism,” “cis-sexism,” “heterosexism,” and “adultism.” 

Another chart describes “effects of colonialism and colonization on pre-colonial ways of being.” It states: “Racism creates race: otherness and whiteness.” Some of the pre-colonial ways of being pharmacists are taught include “two-spirit,” the term used by Native Americans to describe someone who has “both a masculine and feminine spirit.” 

The training also suggests that pharmacists introduce a question about a customer’s gender at their first interaction. The course gives this prompt: “Hello, my name is Jay. I use they/them and he/him pronouns. How would you like me to address you?”

Click here to see a slide show of the training.

What does any of this have to do with being a pharmacist? Not much, said several pharmacists The Free Press spoke to.

Lisa Marino, 54, a hospital pharmacist in Los Angeles County, says the new cultural competency course provides nothing that relates to her job. “Our role is to aid in providing safe and appropriate use of medication for all people, regardless of culture, and with a respect for everyone’s privacy and dignity,” said Marino. “This feels like indoctrination.”

Joe, 50, who asked The Free Press not to use his last name, worked as a pharmacist for 25 years and owns an independent pharmacy in Los Angeles County. He says that respecting all customers, no matter their race or sexual orientation, is a given.

“To be a competent pharmacist, you need to know about medications, professional ethics, and the law,” said Joe. “That’s it.” 

Dr. Carrie Mendoza is an emergency medicine physician and the recently appointed director of Genspect USA, an organization that seeks evidence-based treatments for people with gender distress. She says people are taught to be so hyper-sensitive to avoid offending people, especially to those in a designated “marginalized” group, that pharmacists may be afraid to bring up legitimate concerns. “A pharmacist might not raise medication safety concerns such as adverse effects [or] inappropriate dosing. . . out of fear they will be called discriminatory,” said Mendoza. “Political trainings like this undermine safety for all patients and should be immediately removed from our healthcare system.”

But one of the three CPhA cultural competency course authors, Dr. Tam Phan, an assistant professor of clinical pharmacy at the University of Southern California—and the clinical pharmacy program coordinator at the Los Angeles LGBT Center—told The Free Press in an email that a pharmacist’s role has expanded beyond quick interactions at the prescription counter. 

“Pharmacist prescriptive authority in California has expanded to immunizations, hormonal contraceptives, travel medicine, nicotine replacement products, and HIV. . . treatments,” he wrote. “For pharmacists who are not interacting with patients directly, LGBTQ+ cultural sensitivity is still important since pharmacists should be knowledgeable of potential drug interactions between hormones being used in gender affirmation with the patient’s other medications.”

==

This has nothing to do with "well-being." The point is to proselytize and indoctrinate at any and every available opportunity, to embed their particular ideological commitments as deeply into society as possible.

[sophieinwonderland]

The Haunted Self is citing multiple studies as evidence for that paragraph about the different types of dissociative parts. All of them are authored by abusive people and/or conspiracy theorists. As we know the first one is by who I'm assuming is Suzette Boon and Onno Van der Hart, and we know Van der Hart is a sexual abuser. 1/?

To the last question, you are. And you aren't.

It's a pattern I've been noticing.

I have a ton of asks, and don't have the time to get to all of them quickly. I had already planned on addressing the issues you raised in more depth. But I wanted to get that out there.

These accusations required me to do research. And when researching these things, naturally, the top Google results were to the Satanic Temple's Grey Faction, where you obviously got these from.

It was their talking points. Their arguments. Their attacks on doctors and attempts to use these to disprove the existence of dissociative identity disorder as a whole.

Your goal here is ultimately to respond to reports of experiences in DID that have been recorded by professionals by trying to cast doubt on the sources through personal attacks and red herrings.

I've gone over this exact tactic in my anti-endo playbook.

And in my opinion, the criticisms here are pretty weak all things considered. I'll concede that there have been many accusations against Ross that at least appear to be valid.

At the same time, even you have to realize how far you're stretching with Putnam and Kluft.

Putnam's statements as an expert witness for the defense of a woman and child he had never met or treated, based entirely on documents he read about the case, doesn't seem particularly relevant to me. Putnam stated Jude's communication was independent. Other sources say it was facilitated. Did Putnam intentionally misrepresent the facts, did he misunderstand the documents, or did the documents he reviewed actually suggest the communication was independent and he was merely basing his testimony on them to the best of his ability?

I don't know and neither do you.

Charlatan Lucian Greaves obviously has his narrative that he's trying to sell with this. He found one inaccurate statement Putnam has said over his decades-long career and used it as an ad hominem to attack dissociative identity disorder.

In that very article, Lucien Greaves falsely states multiple times that DID isn't even a real condition.

Jude was 7 years old when Florida-based “trauma therapist” Carol Crow diagnosed him with Multiple Personality Disorder (more recently known as Dissociative Identity Disorder [DID]). It’s a diagnosis that is problematic even in ideal therapeutic settings, as the condition enjoys no scientific validation and is largely viewed as discredited. 

The facts are these: an 8-year old autistic boy was diagnosed with a debunked psychiatric disorder.

Greaves has his issues with the ISSTD and the diagnosis of dissociative identity disorder. And it's obvious that he's using the murder of this child to fuel his own campaign.

This testimony, as far as I'm concerned, is completely irrelevant to questions of Putnam's credibility in reports of his experiences with his own patients.

As for Kluft's lawsuits, it's funny how you toss out that he was sued three times, and forget to mention that one of those was dismissed.

From the Grey Faction page that you most definitely used as your source:

Kluft has been the subject of at least three malpractice lawsuits. The first is under gag order and little is known about it, and another was quickly dismissed. The patient in the remaining suit had been diagnosed with MPD by Kluft, who initiated a program of treatment in the form of recovered memory therapy utilizing drugs and hypnosis. She alleged in 1996 that she was ultimately coerced into the false belief that she had suffered childhood sexual abuse at the hands of her father and encouraged to break ties with her parents.

Oh, and the first one, they apparently have no details on!

One dismissed lawsuit, another under gag order with nothing known about it.

That leaves us with one malpractice lawsuit where a woman alleged that memories were implanted. This lawsuit was settled and never went before a judge or jury.

One thing I want to say here is that I'm very skeptical of retractors.

I've talked about how our host's mom was a CSA victim. I try to not talk too much about details. But sometimes I feel it's necessary as it affects our understanding of abuse and the behavior of abusers.

When it came out, reports of the abuse were spread around everywhere and even in newspapers. Her abuser went to prison, but was out soon after. The state failed and sent her back to live with her abuser, who then made her claim she lied about the whole thing. This is what these people do to protect their own reputations. And yes, this was a girl who was a minor at the time and beholden to her parents, but the same thing can still happen to adult abuse victims. Just because they aren't your legal guardians anymore doesn't mean they no longer have power or sway over you in other ways.

With this in mind, based on our own understanding of how abusers tend to operate, I have my doubts that these retractions and claims of false memories are actually genuine.

Also, just a reminder: "Recovered Memory Therapy" isn't a real practice. It's a buzzword made up by the False Memory Syndrome Foundation.

Hey, what were we talking about again?

Oh yeah, you had me chasing so many red herrings, I forgot this whole thing was started because you were trying to discredit reports of alters with different races existing in DID patients!

Funny how that happened, isn't it?

Like, this whole thing began with me responding to someone who claimed alters of other races don't exist in "real" DID by posting a quote from The Haunted Self, the book that created the theory of structural dissociation.

And what followed was an attempt to discredit a whole slew of psychiatrists by parroting the talking points of a hack religious leader who is actively trying to discredit dissociative identity disorder.

[crossdreamers]

The World Professional Association for Transgender Health Attacks the Republican Anti-transgender Policies

The World Professional Association for Transgender Health has released a letter from WPATH President, Dr. Marci Bowers, addressing the attacks on gender affirming care throughout the United States. Read it. This is important!

Here’s the letter:

//Dear Colleagues,

In the United States, 2023 has been a difficult year thus far for trans rights, to say the least. Although anti-trans sentiment has simmered for years, the exponential rise in TGD [Transgender and gender diverse] identification among adolescents has triggered unprecedented attacks against all things trans. 

American anti-trans legislation

More than 400 anti-transgender bills, particularly in conservative states, see anti-trans messaging as a winning political posture for some. Eleven (11) states alone have already banned or restricted gender affirming care for gender diverse adolescents. 

Last week, Missouri became the first state to attempt gender enforcement on adult populations when attorney general, Andrew Bailey, issued an 'emergency declaration' that added draconian new hurdles for adult trans care to its adolescent ban. 

It is already probable that gender affirming care will be a wedge issue in the 2024 US election cycle.

Cherry-picking arguments

Globally, many of the arguments used here in the US to ban transgender care have been cherry-picked or use narrowly excerpted language for restrictions that have been implemented in gender services policies in Sweden and the UK---'lack of evidence', 'experimental' and 'focus on mental health'. They also ignore European countries where access to trans care has recently expanded (Spain, Portugal, and France). 

And unlike Swedish and British restrictions---which do not end treatment but rather, make research participation compulsory in order to answer remaining questions---conservative US policy makers have no interest in research on TGD medical therapy; they only care about shutting it down. 

Rather than safeguard young people by outlawing automatic weapons and high capacity munitions, conservatives feel that banning trans care and removing LGBTQ-themed books will better protect society.

Anguish and despair

Caught in the middle are TGD individuals, providers, and families, who are now in anguish here in US-affected states. WPATH membership continues to receive stories of growing despair, clinics closing, families moving or seeking healthcare out of state [see link]. Suicidality and desperation are again, needlessly in play.

Telemedicine and the emergence of sanctuary US states (California, Minnesota, and Colorado) that have chosen to defend access to trans care, provide some hope. But real progress on the road back will be difficult until the flow of anti-trans legislation slows and then stops. If there is one reductionist word that WPATH does not deserve, it is advocacy--all scientific organizations participate in some form of advocacy.

Scientific and biological arguments

Photo of Dr., Eli Coleman, American sexologist. He is the director of the Program in Human Sexuality at the University of Minnesota, and a professor in the Department of Family Medicine and Community Health. (Photo from RO)

That said, the scientific and biological arguments can all be won and should continue to be argued. In a recent interview, Dr. Eli Coleman responded 

"WPATH followed a rigorous, multi-year process and was based on the best available scientific evidence and weighing all risks and benefits to arrive at the recommendations in our Standards of Care 8 guidelines. Our multi-step methodology is clearly set forth in the guidelines themselves. 

“When you compare the process we followed, the SOC8 has by far the more robust methodology than any other trans health related guidelines. We had 119 experts from around the world involved, developed PICO questions which formed the basis of systematic reviews, used a consensus-based approach (Delphi) involving all committee members to arrive at our conclusions and then graded the strength of our recommendations. 

“We had an extensive period of public comment on a draft of the SOC8 and this input was checked against the available evidence resulting in the final version of the SOC8. The rationale for our recommendations is clearly explicated in the SOC8 referencing the extant research. WPATH stands behind our process and conclusions."

The recent New York Times opinion piece, "What Decades of Providing Trans Care Have Taught Me", was my take on the situation and can be read here.

Make the suffering visible

The first step on the road back, in my opinion, will be to allow the public to hear the anguish and the stories of those in pain as a direct result of anti-trans legislation, difficult as this will be to watch---and to pin this pain upon those legislators and policy makers who have inflicted the agony. 

In my interview with CBS Evening News to be aired any day, I called it 'legislative cruelty'. The moment we are in reminds me of San Francisco's Harvey Milk and his plea to gay persons to come out. We need to be heard-trans persons, allies, parents, families, politicians, clergy---those who have been hurt and those who know us.

Intersectionality

The second step on the road back will be to unite disparate causes in our fight against a common foe. An attack on trans care is an attack on women. It is an attack on black people, brown people, and Asian people. It is an attack on Jewish, Muslim, Hindi, Sikh, and trut Christian communities. It is an attack on diversity and all of the ideals that diversity holds. It is an attack on us all. 

A majority of Americans favor access to adolescent trans care (see link to NPR-Marist poll) but the support is regional and it is thin. We need to better explain what adolescent TGD care looks like, why it is effective and indicated and who these patients really are. 

Anti-trans legislation needs to be fought with every voice, every thought, every inclination by all who know it. We need to make anti-trans legislation a losing political issue.

A need for sex education

Already lost in this debate is the deplorable state of health and sex education throughout the Southern US. Furthering this ignorance, books are now banned, especially and specifically those with LGBTQI themes. It is of little surprise to many that persistent rates of new HIV infection, incest, and STDs remain highest where sex education is lowest, most in states where anti-trans legislation has been proposed.

What is a woman?

And finally, 'What is a Woman?', the title to a trite and condescending 2022 American movie produced by conservative Matt Walsh, whose edits left out any answer to the question, as though the answer was obvious. 

What was cut from the piece was reality; that nature lacks a definitive answer to the question. Because there is no biological measure----not chromosomes, not hormones, not anatomy nor any of the six other biological markers of sex---a woman is what society sees based upon the gender identity the individual projects. No measure in biology gets it right every time. For every rule, there is an exception. 

Sex and gender are complicated and diverse---but let us explain the phenomena, not allow the issues to be put back in the societal closet. 

Ultimately, what terrifies conservatives most is that gender diversity is a force of nature that can no longer be contained by religious conscription or enforcement of a gender binary.

Killarney, Ireland and EPATH [The European Professional Association for Transgender Health] will again surely exceed expectations as we meet April 26-28, 2023.

Until we all dance once more.

Marci L Bowers, MD//

Dated April 21, 2023

Subsection headlines added by Transgender World.

Source: Erin Reed and WPATH.

Marci Bowers, M.D. of Burlingame, California, is acknowledged as a pioneer in the field of Gender Affirmation Surgery and is the first woman worldwide to hold a personal transgender history while performing transgender surgery. (Source: MarciBowers.com Photo: Drew Bird.)

Top photo: Tero Vesalainen

[calabria-mediterranea]

The Story Of Natuzza Evolo: Calabrian Mystic

Natuzza was a Calabrian mystic who acted as a medium and healer, showed evidence of stigmata, and could “bi-locate” — be in two different places at once. She is also connected with “hemography,” which is when blood stains miraculously transform into symbols, shapes, and even words, particularly Christian ones like crosses.

Natuzza was born in 1924 in Paravati, a tiny hamlet near Mileto in Calabria. Her given name is Fortunata, from which the diminutive “Natuzza” comes. Natuzza’s father had left for Argentina a few months before she was born, and he never returned, leaving Natuzza’s mother alone to care for her newborn as well as her other children.

Natuzza never learned to read or write and helped support her mother and siblings by working for local families. She allegedly began having her first visions as a small child — Jesus, it is said, appeared to her as a boy who played with her and one of her brothers — but her brushes with the dead didn’t become popular knowledge around town until she began experiencing them as a young teen at work.

And it wasn’t just apparitions with Natuzza, even as a child. At her First Holy Communion, her mouth reportedly filled with blood when the wafer symbolizing the body of Christ was placed inside. At her Confirmation, a large stain of blood in the form of a cross formed on the back of her shirt.

Because of Natuzza’s experiences with the paranormal, as a young woman she was closed in an asylum with a diagnosis of "hysterical syndrome" for a few months by the local priest and was not permitted to enter a convent to become a nun.

Natuzza became known for the appearance on her body of blood-coloured images and words around the time of Easter and these caused her great psychological and physical pain. Some of the words were found to be Hebrew and Aramaic which was strange because she could not read or write, even in her native Italian. For decades devout Catholics from Calabria, then the rest of Italy and other parts of the world, began coming to her to ask for advice and prayers and to ask her for information about the souls of their relatives.

In addition to seeing Jesus, Natuzza also claimed to have also seen and communicated with the Virgin Mary, angels, and the dead, particularly souls in purgatory, throughout her life.

Natuzza was also considered a healer, credited with being able to look at a person and tell them what was ailing them, physically — using formal, medical terminology — as well as suggest treatments. She could also see the future and sometimes spoke in languages she didn’t know (remember, again, she was illiterate). In fact, some of her blood stains even transformed into phrases in foreign languages.

However, Natuzza never accepted money for what she did or was accused of participating in anything fraudulent based on her abilities, which, in the eyes and hearts of many, lend credence to her and her followers’ claims.

"It's a question of removing the suggestive religious context from the event. It doesn't allow rational reading since it cloaks it in mythology and unprovable hypotheses," says the Italian Committee for the Checking of Pseudoscientific Claims, or CICAP.

The group believes the so-called stigmata cases are really examples of Gardner-Diamond syndrome, "a skin condition that, although rare, is well documented in medical literature." The syndrome gives rise to a series of periodic, painful and bleeding bruises of unclear origin, combined with psychiatric disorders such as self-harm.

Although she’s relatively unknown internationally, Italians have been fascinated by Natuzza for generations as she has been a popular subject of books and various Italian television programs.

After Natuzza passed away on All Saints’ Day in 2009, about 30,000 people traveled from all over Italy and beyond for her funeral in rural Calabria. One-hundred priests and six Italian bishops were also in attendance.

Follow us on Instagram, @calabria_mediterranea

[world-of-wales]

∘₊✧ 𝙾𝙵𝙵𝙸𝙲𝙴 𝙾𝙵 𝚃𝙷𝙴 𝙿𝚁𝙸𝙽𝙲𝙴𝚂𝚂 𝙾𝙵 𝚆𝙰𝙻𝙴𝚂 ✧₊∘

⋆ Anna Freud National Centre For Children and Families

The Anna Freud Centre for Children and Families was established in 1952. It is an institution that is dedicated to advancing research, training, and treatment in the field of child psychology and mental health. Named after and set up by Anna Freud - a prominent figure in the field of psychoanalysis and the daughter of Sigmund Freud, the center is based in London.

The Princess of Wales has been the patron of the Anna Freud Centre since February 2016, and during her tenure as a royal has paid a number of visits to them and also supported a number of their campaigns.

The Center focuses on promoting the emotional wellbeing of young individuals and families. Through their rigorous research, evidence-based training programs, and effective clinical services, it aims to address the complex problems faced by children and adolescents.

By integrating theory into practical applications, the Center contributes to enhancing mental health support for those in need. With its emphasis on advocacy and awareness, it strives to create a more compassionate and informed society that recognizes the importance of early intervention and support for children's mental health.

The Anna Freud Centre for Children and Families stands as a beacon of excellence in the field of child psychology and mental health. Through its dedication to research, training, clinical services, and advocacy, it makes significant contributions to enhancing the emotional well-being of children, young people, and their families. By upholding the legacy of Anna Freud and her pioneering work, the center continues to positively impact countless lives and shape the future of mental health care.

[beardedmrbean]

Liberty University has agreed to pay an unprecedented $14 million fine for the Christian school's failure to disclose information about crimes on its campus and for its treatment of sexual assault survivors, the U.S. Department of Education announced Tuesday.

The fine is by far the largest ever levied under the Clery Act, a law that requires colleges and universities that receive federal funding to collect data on campus crime and notify students of threats. Schools must disseminate an annual security report that includes crime reports and information on efforts to improve campus safety.

Liberty has marketed itself for years as having one of the nation’s safest campuses, with more than 15,000 students enrolled at the school in Lynchburg, Virginia. But its police department had a single officer with minimal oversight for investigating crimes during most of the time period reviewed by federal investigators, 2016 to 2023.

The U.S. Department of Education said it identified numerous cases that resulted in the misclassification or underreporting of crimes. And there were several incidents that the university determined to be unfounded, without evidence the initial report was false.

“This was especially common with respect to sexually based offenses, including rape and fondling cases,” according to the department's Final Program Review Determination.

Federal investigators cited a case in which a woman reported being raped, with the attacker telling her he had a knife, the final program review stated.

Liberty's investigator "unfounded this case based on a claim that the ‘victim indicates that she consented to the sexual act,'” the final program review stated. “In point of fact, the victim’s own statement merely indicated that she ‘gave in’ in an attempt to get away from the perpetrator.”

That episode was ultimately counted in the crime statistics, the final program review stated, after Liberty’s Clery compliance officer realized the case was “mishandled at several points in the process."

Many victims of sexual crimes feared reporting because of concerns of reprisal, the final program review stated. Several were punished for violating the student code of conduct known as "The Liberty Way," while their assailants were left unpunished.

“Consequently, victims of sexual assault often felt dissuaded by Liberty administration’s reputation for punishing sexual assault survivors rather than helping them," the final program review said. “Such fears created a culture of silence where sexual assaults commonly went unreported.”

The university said in a statement Tuesday that it is “fully committed to maintaining the safety and security of students and staff without exception.”

The school said it would continue to cooperate with the U.S. Department of Education. And it noted that it has made more than $10 million in significant improvements since 2022 toward complying with the Clery Act and other laws, including in educational programming, new leadership and staffing.

Liberty also acknowledged past problems, including “incorrect statistical reports as well as necessary timely warnings and emergency notifications that were not sent.” But the university also said the U.S. Department of Education used methods and calculations that were “drastically different from their historic treatment of other universities.”

“Liberty disagrees with this approach and maintains that we have repeatedly endured selective and unfair treatment by the department,” the school said.

But Dustin Wahl, co-founder of Save71, an alumni-led organization that advocates for changes, said Liberty is trying to shift the blame.

“Liberty should be apologizing to the students who have been harmed over the years and demonstrating a commitment to change," he said. "Not because they are being dragged along by the government, but because they genuinely want to be transparent and fix the problems.”

Before Tuesday, the largest Clery Act fine in history was $4.5 million against Michigan State in 2019, according to a February report from the Congressional Research Service. Federal investigators said Michigan State failed to adequately respond to sexual assault complaints against Larry Nassar, a campus sports doctor who molested elite gymnasts and other female athletes.

In 2016, Pennsylvania State University was hit with a then-record fine of $2.4 million in the wake of child sexual-abuse complaints against former assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky.

The $14 million fine against Liberty University appears to be a small fraction of its total operating revenues, which were $1.2 billion without donor restrictions in fiscal year 2022, according to an annual report. The school’s net assets were $3.5 billion.

But Clery Act violations are “bigger than just the fines,” said Abigail Boyer, associate executive director at the Pennsylvania-based Clery Center, which provides training and assistance to campuses.

“Hand in hand with the fines is institutions navigating how they’re now being perceived publicly as a campus that may or may not be focusing on the safety and well being of students,” Boyer told The Associated Press.

Liberty has become one of the world’s largest Christian schools since its 1971 co-founding by religious broadcaster Jerry Falwell Sr. In 2022, the school said it hit a record of 115,000 students pursuing degrees online, beyond the more than 15,000 on campus.

The Clery Act investigation became public knowledge in 2022 in the wake of litigation over its handling of sex assault cases.

Lawsuits by former students and employees have accused the school of botching sexual assault reports or failing to investigate allegations of rape. The litigation was filed under under Title IX, the federal law that protects against sex discrimination in education and often overlaps with Clery.

Liberty settled a civil lawsuit filed by 12 women in 2022 after they accused the school of fostering an unsafe environment and mishandling cases of sexual assault and harassment.

The lawsuit said the university had a “tacit policy” of weighting investigations in favor of accused male students, and it said the university retaliated against women who did make such reports.

The terms of that lawsuit’s settlement were not disclosed. But at the time, Liberty outlined a number of changes it undertook to improve campus security and review how it responds to incidents of sexual harassment or violence.

Tuesday’s announcement comes three years after Liberty’s acrimonious split with former president Jerry Falwell Jr., whose exit followed his posting of a provocative photo of himself online as well as revelations of his wife’s extramarital affair. Falwell and the university have since filed lawsuits against each other over his departure.

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