While working as a psychiatrist at UCLA, Miriam Grossman, M.D., grew distressed by the fact that various ideological mandates from her profession and university seriously endangered the youngsters she sought to serve. So she wrote Unprotected: A Campus Psychiatrist Reveals How Political Correctness in Her Profession Endangers Every Student (New York: Sentinel, c. 2006, 2007).
Fearing her career would be compromised, she first published the book anonymously! This was because, as Robert Perloff, a former president of the American Psychiatric Association, confessed in 2004: “‘I lived through the McCarthy era and the Hollywood witch hunts and, as abominable as these were, there was not the insidious sense of intellectual intimidation that currently exists under political correctness’” (p. xxi). In short order, however, Dr. Laura Schlesinger discerned Grossman’s authorial stamp and urged her to publically acknowledge it. With Dr. Laura and her vast radio audience supporting her, emboldened by favorable reviews in numerous publications, Grossman found her message resonating with important segments of the population and began energetically promoting it. That’s because: “You see, I’m a woman with a mission, and one of my goals is the large-scale revision of sexual health education” (p. xii). “Unprotected,” she says, “tells the stories of college students who are casualties of the radical activism in my profession” (p. xxviii).
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On today’s university campuses there’s “a tacit approval of promiscuity and experimentation” (p. xvii) with virtually no recognition of the grave damage such behavior causes. |
On today’s university campuses there’s “a tacit approval of promiscuity and experimentation” (p. xvii) with virtually no recognition of the grave damage such behavior causes. This was on display in one of the women who came to Grossman’s office deeply confused and depressed. Probed to evaluate events in her past, she acknowledged that her relationship with a “friend with benefits” had left her puzzled and sad, wanting more than transient sexual encounters. She sensed, deep in her being, that “we are designed to bond” (p. 8). Another woman asked the doctor why (given all the sexual instruction available on campus) “‘do they tell you how to protect your body—from herpes and pregnancy—but they don’t tell what it does to your heart?’” (p. 3). Nothing was said because it would violate a primary plank of the feminist agenda. “To acknowledge the negative consequences of the anything-goes, hooking-up culture would challenge the notion that womenare just like men, and undermine the premise of ‘safer sex.’
And in our ultra-secular campuses, no belief comes so close as these to being sacred” (p. 5).
In addition to the damage done to the heart, there’s “self-injurious behavior—and there’s loads of it on campus” (p. 13). Young women, especially, are cutting themselves, often as a result of discovering they’ve contracted a STD such as HPV, now virtually an epidemic on campus. They’re rarely told that chlamydia may very well render them incapable of bearing children. Gay men rarely receive accurate information regarding the risks they run when engaging in homosexual activities. Many admonitions stream from health centers regarding the dangers of tobacco, but warnings regarding sexual activity rarely materialize.
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When one of Grossman’s patients discovered her willing to encourage prayer and spiritual endeavors, he was both surprised and relieved. It’s demonstrable that “students who are highly involved in religion report better mental health” (p. 34), but psychiatrists routinely ignore such evidence. |
Similarly absent in campus health centers is any recognition of the importance of religion. When one of Grossman’s patients discovered her willing to encourage prayer and spiritual endeavors, he was both surprised and relieved. It’s demonstrable that “students who are highly involved in religion report better mental health” (p. 34), but psychiatrists routinely ignore such evidence. There will be professional representatives of various ethnic groups on campus, but students “will not find a therapist at the student counseling center with their social values” (p. 39). Personally agnostic or atheistic, mental health specialists often have little regard for traditional religious belief and experience. Thus there is, Grossman declares, an “irrational antagonism that psychology has for religion: theophobia” (p. 45).
Equally politically incorrect on campus is any criticism of abortion. Planned Parenthood activists routinely tell young women there are no psychological consequences to “the removal of ‘tissue’ or of ‘uterine contents’” (p. 101). Yet many of them do in fact feel deeply that they’ve taken the life of their babies, and one of Planned Parenthood’s own studies reveals “that after two years 28 percent of women reported more harm from the abortion than benefit, 19 percent would not make the same decision under the same circumstances, 20 percent were depressed” (p. 83). Feminists may deny there’s trauma in aborting one’s baby, but Grossman deals daily with collegians (men as well as women) refuting the regnant ideology. Abortion, however, receives no serious attention in psychiatric journals or meetings, and virtually all mental health centers uphold the “entrenched dogma: the experience is just not a big deal” (p. 91. To this Grossman asks: “why does psychology, in its quest to identify and counsel every victim of possible child abuse, sexual harassment, or hurricanes, leave no stone unturned, and then go berserk at the suggestion that maybe, maybe, some—not all but some—women and men hurt for a long, long time after abortion, and they too need our help?” (p. 101).
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Grossman asks: “why does psychology, in its quest to identify and counsel every victim of possible child abuse, sexual harassment, or hurricanes, leave no stone unturned, and then go berserk at the suggestion that maybe, maybe, some—not all but some—women and men hurt for a long, long time after abortion, and they too need our help?” |
Most of the students Grossman examined deeply desired to marry and establish families. But Planned Parenthood and its on-campus surrogates neither celebrate nor tell young people anything about marriage and family! In truth, Planned Parenthood has nothing to do with parenthood! Regarding “how a young woman can preserve her fertility and maximize her chances of becoming a mother, Planned Parenthood is silent” (p. 134). Instead, they urge unfettered sexual activities while avoiding pregnancy, fundamentally misleading our young. In sum, Grossman has “one question: Shouldn’t our daughters be warned?” (p. 140). And she’s written a powerful book packed with multiple warnings!
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Gerard Reed is a retired professor of history and philosophy, most recently Point Loma Nazarene University in San Diego. He is the author of three books— "The Liberating Law"; "C.S. Lewis and the Bright Shadow of Holiness"; "C.S. Lewis Esplores Vice & Virtue" - as well as a variety of articles and book reviews.
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