Sunday Psychiatric Wrap-Up

It's been this reporter's opinion at least since he lost his own mind that only those who haven't been lulled into
an ovine state of submission, to use a favorite comparison, can possibly live in this world of shit & pain that surrounds us w/o further numbing/forgetting, often through chemistry. Generally starting w/ the chemicals in booze or pills, btw.

Apparently the idea came to us from Dr. Joel Fort, who was permanently 86'd from our sorry society almost two months ago at the age of 86.

Courtesy Of The Family per SFGATE.

A skeptic about standard mental health treatment, Fort liked to call himself a "sociatrist" — an activist who tried to help troubled individuals by effecting social change.

[...]

Traditional ideas of disease were subjected to Fort's skeptical eye. He was outraged at the then-popular notion that homosexuality required a "cure." And he saw addiction not as a character failing but as a symptom of deep societal malaise.

[...]

"... he was the first to advance the heretical thesis that youthful drug-takers could not be viewed apart from an entire society conditioned to seek a chemical solution for every problem.

"He pointed out that young people who saw the law being violated by both individuals and government every day were not likely to get deterred by arguments that drug use was illegal."

Humanizing Factoids:

Fort's survivors include Maria, his wife of 64 years; sister Elodee Portigal; son Titan; daughters Parcae Lockman and Gita Paquette; and three grandchildren.

In his later years, he took classes at the Graduate Theological Union and helped run salon-style discussion groups in Berkeley. He was a lover of chess, opera and Marx Brothers movies.

A representation of Dr. Fort speaking w/ one of the pioneers of confrontational tee vee hosting, Joe Pyne: