We thank Leventhal for clarifying an important issue. As he correctly notes, it is likely that the contribution of medications to the outcomes was considerably less than the widely reported 67 percent remission statistic would indicate.

2 Comments

1. 1. ModemWarrior 12:23 AM 2/10/08

   I was disturbed by the conclusion by David Pizarro that "Utilitarianism may, in the end, be the right moral theory." The decision whether to push one man onto a train track to save 5 men further down the tracks, is a deeper question than he apparently assumes. A person making such a decision is not deciding simply if 5 is greater than 1. He is deciding how bad will he feel if 5 die versus how bad he will feel if he pushes one man to his death. Now, this 'feeling' he is weighing is more than just some squishy sentimentalism. Pushing that one man is deciding to push the whole of human trust on the tracks. It is the fabric of human society which is being spent here to save those 5 workmen. After all, how could we function if we had to always watch our backs so as not to be sacrificed? These 'feelings' are there for a good purpose -- evolved from a system of trust and respect for each other which allows us to function successfully as a society.
   This whole VMPFC brain damage theory, I believe though, has offered a possible explanation why some people would prefer the good of the group over the individual in many political areas of our lives.
   
   David Butler
   Mission Viejo, CA

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2. 2. sperph 06:39 PM 10/25/09

   
   
   Although Richard McNally's book, "Remembering Trauma", has in no way prevented me from seeking therapy, it is an irritant to be told I don't exist!
   
   Today, because I am at a point of great sadness over my crumbling facade of "happy childhood", Dr McNally's stupidity particularly irked me and I wrote this on Amazon.com .............
   
   I have yet to decide whether Richard McNally ,although well educated,is congenitally stupid or an environmentally mediated victim of fullblown denial (hanging out too long with the FMSF crowd).
   His arguments appear cogent and appealing, "common sense wise". However, arguing that 100,000s of people don't exist, does not make them cease to be !
   
   Quote............
   In 1977, scientists diving on the Gal�pagos Rift in Alvin made a discovery that shook the foundations of biology. They found oases of animals thriving in the sunless depths around hydrothermal vents. Instead of photosynthetic plants, chemosynthetic microbes comprise the base of the food chain at vents. They obtain energy from chemical-rich fluids generated by volcanic processes on mid-ocean ridges, the 50,000-mile (80,000-kilometer) undersea mountain chain that encircles the globe and marks the edges of Earth's tectonic plates.
   
   Unquote
   
   I wonder that Dr McNally spends SO much energy arguing that chemosynthetic microbes don't exist. They're actually just therapy- deluded photosynthetic plants.......... (although in real life, as opposed to his ivory tower world, memories returned BEFORE therapy in the majority of cases and it was the memories which caused the therapy, not vice versa).
   
   Actually, A genius (tested at actual genius level of 180 IQ), Ron Davis "The Gift of Dyslexia" graphically depicted traumatic memory as a bell curve, with memory
   on the vertical axis and stress /arousal on the horizontal. As stress levels rose, memory encoding improved ,right up to the top of the 'bell' ,but with increasing arousal
   the organism was overcome and could no longer process what was happening..........memory encoding fell away and amnesia progressively resulted.
   So simple yet so easy to comprehend and so "common sense" true for we who have experienced amnesia of abuse.
   
   Ron observed the "black hole" (loss of memory) out there among the stars and tried to describe/understand it. Richard can't even see the "black hole", because he doesn't
   look through a radio telescope, but spends books trying to explain why black holes don't exist.
   Just by the way, he gives ammunition to those accused of molesting children that their victims are mendacious.

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