This is not a reality show. It's a true story that's been going on for years. No one denies it, neither the psychiatrists nor their patients: Psychiatric drugs are being given to ultra-Orthodox yeshiva students, men, seminary girls and married women at the request of rabbis, yeshiva "supervisors" and marriage counselors. The furor that erupted recently after a psychiatrist prescribed pills to participants on the TV reality show "Big Brother" - apparently to help the production and not the patients - convinced some Haredi patients to come forward with prescriptions and documents attesting to a far broader practice.
Haaretz spoke to psychiatrists and others knowledgeable about psychiatric treatment in the Haredi community, and collected testimonies from half-a-dozen patients and their families. About half of them are Haredi and the others have left the community. Each told a different story, mentioning the names of senior psychiatrists, rabbis and community functionaries.
I wrote to you a some time ago regarding my internal conflict between my own deep personal feelings about masturbation being a positive form of sexuality, and Judaisms very negative attitude, and the mental stress of believing in the Torah and my personal views at the same time.
ReplyDeleteI thank you for your responses.
While I know that haaretz is rather biased, this article makes an important point, very often when people's normal desires and needs clash with Halachah, the religious "experts" will "diagnose" this person with an addiction, and land up causing a lot of damage