Thirty-four percent of students at Amherst College are registered as having a disability and thus entitled to one or more “accommodations,” including being allowed more time on tests and being granted various other forms of lowered academic standards. The corresponding figure at Stanford is 40 percent. The average for four-year colleges and universities nationwide is 21 percent. The figure for two-year community colleges is 4 percent. The more prestigious the institution, the greater the percentage of students with “disabilities.” Fascinating.
For the most part, we’re not talking about 4 out of 10 students at Stanford rolling from class to class in wheelchairs or suffering from uncontrollable seizure disorders. Almost all of these “disabilities” have been certified by mental health professionals—psychologists, mostly. In 2 out of 3 cases, the supposed “disability” is ADHD, but there’s also PTSD, chronic fatigue syndrome, episodic acute depression, bipolar disorder, test anxiety, and neurodivergence, and that’s the short list.
From this point on, please keep two things in mind: two things I’ve said in previous installments of this Substack:
Reliable, peer-reviewed studies consistently find that psychologists cannot reliably differentiate between people who are faking psychological disorders and those who are not. That means psychologists should not be allowed to serve as expert witnesses (unless they are testifying to the bogus nature of psychological testing, diagnoses, and “treatment”). It also means psychologists should not be allowed to certify “disorders.”
Psychological diagnoses are inherently bogus because they are based largely, if not completely, on self-report. An individual is diagnosed with acute depression because he tells a psychologist he feels sad and worthless and is having suicidal thoughts. Another individual is diagnosed with adult ADHD because he tells a psychologist he is easily distracted and does not meet deadlines.
In short, psychological diagnoses are impossible to verify. Depression, ADHD, et cetera, do not show up in X-Rays, MRIs, EEGs, blood tests, biopsies, or urine samples. Psychological diagnoses are nothing but VERBAL CONSTRUCTS…nothing but WORDS. The point is, because they lack any objective means of validation and are based largely on self-report, disability diagnoses have ZERO scientific credibility (true of EVERY psychological diagnosis, actually) and ARE EASY-PEASY TO OBTAIN.
If someone tells a psychologist he has symptoms of [pick a psychological diagnosis] there is almost 100 percent likelihood the psychologist will assign him that diagnosis. In effect, one obtains a psychological diagnosis by paying a psychologist to write a report saying he “has” whatever “it” is. That evaluation and report cost may be twenty-five hundred dollars in Red Oak, Iowa, and ten thousand in Des Moines.
Even though they have zero scientific validity, psychological diagnoses are included under the Americans with Disabilities Act; thus, schools and employers MUST extend “accommodations” to those who obtain them. The bottom line: Anyone who can memorize the defining symptoms of a psychological diagnosis (found in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual) and has enough money to pay a psychologist his fee can obtain a “disability.”
In a college setting these accommodations include taking tests only in the late morning hours (when said individual says he’s most alert), taking tests alone (social and test anxiety), taking “dumbed-down” versions of tests (learning disability), having more time to take dumbed-down tests in otherwise empty rooms in the late morning (ADHD, et cetera), and being able to take any test two or three times until a grade of B or better is obtained (ADHD and episodes of crippling depression due to chronic feelings of low self-worth).
After using “accommodations” to graduate from college with honors, a psychologically “disabled” person is not required to reveal his “disability” (aka, sociopathy) to a potential employer. After being hired, he simply gives the psychologist’s bogus report to the HR director. At that point, said individual cannot be terminated for any reason pertinent to his “disability” and must be given workplace accommodations. He ends up doing half the work he was hired to do, cannot be terminated for that reason, and makes the same amount of money he’d make if he did what he was hired to do. In the alternative diagnostic handbook I’ve authored, which describes Phony Baloney Scamya Disorder (PBSD), which I will verify in anyone who pays me twenty-five thousand dollars in unmarked, non-sequential bills of twenty dollars or less.
Not everyone with a psychological diagnosis is a sociopath, but my educated guess is that most people who use psychological diagnoses to obtain accommodations at school or in the workplace do so qualify. They know they’re scamming the system; they know their scams put other people at an unfair disadvantage; and they don’t care. That’s a description of sociopathy. It’s also a description of “perpetrating fraud,” which is a crime. That means psychologists who give these bogus diagnoses (and believe me, they know what they’re doing) are aiding and abetting criminality.
In fact, I believe the entire profession of psychology is a criminal enterprise. (And let me remind the reader, until I voluntarily surrendered my license in 2022, I HAD BEEN A PSYCHOLOGIST SINCE 1979!) Psychologists routinely engage in deceptive business practices, an accusation I’m willing to defend in a public forum (see last paragraph).
I’m also willing to provide consultation and testimony, FREE, to any state attorney general who desires to prosecute his state’s psychology board for violations of the RICO Act and perpetrating fraud on the general public.
All psychology boards should be dismantled, all psychologists should be de-licensed (i.e., stop letting psychology boards create arbitrary monopolies and let the free market do its thing), and ALL “accommodations” for psychological diagnoses should be eliminated.
Any psychologist who wants to debate me in person on any of the above can simply send an email to john@rosemond.com. My only caveat: I (and only I) get to invite media, including Mark Levin, Megyn Kelly, and Joe Rogan.