Word: chafetz
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...books draw diametrically opposed conclusions, McNamara advocating Paul Lozano's family's story and Chafetz taking Bean-Bayog's side. When I heard that these two books had been (almost simultaneously) published, I very much looked forward to reading them -- how often does one have the opportunity to hear both sides of the story? Surely, we would finally know what really happened in this sordid case...
According to Chafetz's book, obsession, Bean-Bayog's therapy was innovative and difficult to understand , but not irresponsible or beyond the psychiatric pale. The sexual fantasies that Bean-Bayog wrote (and which Lozano Subsequently stole from her office) were a case of countertransference, in which a therapist attempts to deal with her emotional and psychological reactions to her patient. Lozano was psychotic suicidal, pathological liar whose inevitable suicide was delayed by Bean-Bayog's therapy...
...rather strange assertion to make, especially after he has admitted that both of these books paint rather murky pictures of the story. Why does he resort to accusing one of the authors of bias, even as he is unconvinced by the other author's argument? After all, the Chafetz book is not without its own likely bias; in his preface, Morris Chafetz notes that he was (like Bean-Bayog) a member of the Harvard Medical School department of psychiatry and (like Bean-Bayog) a specialist on alcohol abuse and alcoholism...
Stokes does point out that the Chafetz book is curiously self-indulgent, written as a first-person narrative of one man's odyssey in search of the truth, whereas McNamara strikes a strong pose of journalistic objectivity, with her crisp prose and confident tone. But Stokes is correct--even if both of these books are "biased," only one of them could be said to be "croppled" by it, and that book is McNamara's. And it is croppled largely because of its posture of objectivity...
This is a story that confounds objectivity, partly because of its sheer complexity and partly because of the impossibility of knowing all the facts. One is convinced that Chafetz's story was, at least, pursued in good faith, that he was honestly searching for the truth of the matter. He is forthright about his sympathy for psychiatry, and he liberally admits uncertainty and ignorance when uncertainty and ignorance are warranted. McNamara, on the other hand, is far too certain. She never spoke to Bean-Beyog (whereas Chafetz did) and almost never admits the possibility of her innocence...