The doctor essentially
objected to two things about both books. First, he thought “We Are ALL
Innocent” delivered the diagnosis of universal insanity too bluntly, believing
we should have delivered this admittedly punch-in-the-gut-line more slowly and
gently. As a still-practicing psychiatrist in his eighties, I can understand
how his life-long approach to treatment—a painstaking and time-consuming (and
very expensive) therapy—would find our message, “The problem with all of us is that
we’re nuts” brutal and insensitive. Then, there is the universal application of
the word “insane,” which more than one person has had issues with, believing
“mental illness” should be reserved for a troubled minority (those incapable of
playing the game like the rest of us). He said, “If I told patients at our
first session they were insane, they’d never come back!”
Perhaps if
he told his first-session patient they were insane just like him and everyone
else on the planet, simply in their own unique way (which is precisely the
message of our books), they might not only stick around, they might experience
some immediate relief from the self-torture of believing they were crazier than
the “normal” majority.
Katie said, "The operative word in our title is INNOCENT not insane." None of us deserve blame and shame.
Katie said, "The operative word in our title is INNOCENT not insane." None of us deserve blame and shame.
Second, he
thought both books gave “too much information.” When he used the word “raw” in
connection with Katie’s “We Are ALL Innocent” (which he read first) I asked,
“Do you mean sex?” “Yes,” he replied. We have heard this before. It is not
enough that “We Are ALL Innocent” delivers a brilliant key to understanding the
mechanics of insane thinking, and logically reveals how to experience compassion
for all dysfunctional human behavior, eminently including our own, the work is
somehow “weakened” by Katie’s forthright sharing about her own sex
life—something glaringly omitted from other works of self-help, psychology, and
philosophy.
My book, of
course, positively drips with “too-much-information.” Sex ruled my life and the
burden of shame I carried because of it, the need to conceal it, pretend it
wasn’t me, made my life a painful sham. Thus when I decided to write my memoir
I vowed to tell the truth, to expose myself in print, to hold back nothing
except when to do so would cause harm to another. Katie is included only because
she gave her full permission. I’m sick to death of compensating in any way for crazy
societal attitudes about sexual morality, imbecilic notions that were the very
cause of fucking me up sexually in the first place. I am hiding no longer. The
only way I found the courage to publish the book, by the way, was by sufficiently
experiencing the truth that my sex-addiction was the result of literal
insanity. When insanity is driving one, you see, there is no “free-will,” there
is no choice but to obey the insane mind—and so there is no blame or shame
attached! I can describe my long-held secrets free of guilt and shame. How much
therapeutic benefit is to be found in that?
