[nchelluri]

> He's a complete cunt. Men like him did very great harm to their patients.

This is an interesting viewpoint. I didn't get that at all from the reading but the truth is I know very little of psychiatry. It seemed to me to be about empowering people to make good decisions. It's funny how quickly I was to make my own judgement: "This guy knows what he's talking about! Life can be better!"

But then I read your comment and the other one critizing ths guy, thought some more, and wondered if it were possible I was missing some stuff. I know for one I was a little off-put by the reference to 'illegitimate children are wrong' and perhaps he was off-base in this "... would never actually kill himself" thing too. But again, I really have no point of reference. I just know that I am incapable of making a proper assessment of this piece or of the author. I swear the more I read and learn the more difficult it can be for me to actually understand anything.

Anyway, I did some reading on the good ol' Wikipedia and read his talk page.

> What we have here is a pseudoscientist (Dalrymple) making claims in a range of specialist (social-)scientific areas such as addiction, narcissism, and rationalisation/excuse-making without apparent knowledge of the state of the field and in a manner incompatible with the field. He has been mostly ignored by scholars in these areas (source: Google scholar search) and when referred to is criticised. It violates neutrality that he is portrayed without any criticism and with the appearance of scholarly credibility.

Take that as you will... but you made me think, at least. Thanks for that.