CyberCypher
Guest
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| Posted: Sun Dec 05, 2004 12:01 pm
Post subject: PEST: A new American political disorder |
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Here's another acronym --- PEST --- to add to your present database,
everyone. It's good for a laugh, at least. From the Boca Raton News:
http://tinyurl.com/4edd2
Florida Kerry supporters meet for group therapy
Voters shout epithets at President Bush during first PEST counseling
session
Published Saturday, December 4, 2004 at 1:00 am
by Sean Salai
Twenty John Kerry supporters met for their first group therapy
session in South Florida Thursday, screaming epithets at President
Bush as they shared their emotions with licensed mental health
counselors.
The first of several free noontime therapy sessions at the American
Health Association in Boca Raton was designed to treat what mental
health counselors have dubbed Post Election Selection Trauma (PEST).
“If I had a cardboard cutout of President Bush, and these people
wanted to throw darts at it, I would let them do it,” Robert J.
Gordon, AHA executive director, told the Boca News after the session.
“It’s no joke. People with PEST were traumatized by the election. If
you even mention religion, their faces turn blister-red as they shout
at Bush.”
Although the meeting was closed to the press, AHA therapists obtained
permission from participants to provide an anonymous transcript to
the Boca Raton News.
“I’m scared,” said one man. “Democracy is at stake and nobody is
rising to protest this president.”
“I want to be a patriot, but it’s impossible to be a patriot in an
immoral war,” said another participant, a woman. “Bush is breaking up
marriages and dividing families by keeping our troops in Iraq.”
Gordon said the participants also granted reluctant permission to
open up next Thursday’s meeting to the general press. Reporters will
be forbidden from taking photographs or using the real names of
patients.
“The media outlets, especially Rush Limbaugh and his ilk on talk
radio, scare our patients to death,” said Gordon, facilitator for the
meetings. “More than anything else, people with PEST tremble
physically.”
Gordon said the Kerry supporters in therapy are predominantly Jewish
and older than 50. Most are registered independents and all live in
Palm Beach County.
“We mostly let them vent during the first session,” Gordon said. “By
the third session, we’ll be doing some meditation exercises to aid
some of their symptoms. We may use visualization and some techniques
designed for bipolar disease and other mental disorders. That might
help them adjust to reality.”
According to AHA officials, symptoms of PEST are similar to post-
traumatic stress disorder. They include nightmares, sleeplessness,
hostility, listlessness, and emotional outbursts including threats to
leave the country.
“There’s an overall sense of emotional helplessness and abandonment,”
said Sheila Cooperman, a licensed AHA psychotherapist from Delray
Beach. “In psychology, we call it ‘learned helplessness.’ After you
zap a caged dog twice, he stops moving because he knows there is no
place to go. That’s what happened with these Kerry voters. They’ve
been zapped so many times that they’re on the verge of giving up on
politics.”
Cooperman, also a practicing psychic, added, “One person today said
he thinks the country is now run by fascists. Another felt personally
threatened by the president’s love for big business. Many believe
Bush is going to draft their grandchildren. The anxiety may not
affect them every day, but it affects their energy level.”
An additional 30 people are signed up for two other AHA election
support groups, which will meet for the remainder of the year and
possibly beyond.
Gordon said his patients’ emotional problems typically started with
the “hanging chad” debacle of 2000.
“First, they need to realize they’re not going to overturn the 2004
election,” Gordon said. “They have to live with it. The problem is
they have no faith because they think the religious right has
hijacked the political system. We try to tell them there is still an
election in 2008. You can’t just give up and be apathetic.”
The AHA, using a holistic approach to health that has been mocked as
new age voodoo by some national talk show hosts, has stressed to
patients that their post-election emotions are normal and deserve to
be taken seriously.
“These people talk about the 2000 election being stolen,” Gordon
said. “They talk about Theresa LePore and the Ohio recount. They feel
it’s the ‘Right House,’ not the White House. They feel the world is
not safe with George W. Bush as president. They spewed out a lot of
anger. They are angry at the Democratic Party for being aimless and
leaderless. They have a right to these feelings.”
The Boca Raton News first reported on Nov. 9 that depressed Florida
Kerry supporters were seeking trauma therapy in the wake of the Nov.
2 presidential election. One Boca psychologist alone, Douglas
Schooler, eventually treated 20 Kerry voters with intense
hypnotherapy – for a sliding fee.
The trauma specialist, whose bills were covered by clients’ insurance
companies, was later accused by some colleagues of unethically
“cashing in” on the misery of Kerry voters. In interviews with the
Boca News, Schooler said many of the Kerry supporters had visited him
for severe mental problems prior to the election.
Unlike Schooler, the AHA is a registered Florida non-profit and its
therapists do not charge for sessions. Conservative talk show hosts
Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh recently offered their own “free
therapy,” irking the AHA counselors.
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Copyright 2004 - Boca Raton News
--
Franke: EFL teacher & medical editor
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