Group Therapy 'Screaming Epithets' at Bush
A group therapy session for those still having angst that the democratic process selected George Bush and not John Kerry this past Nov. 2 has turned into a hate fest aimed at President Bush.
According to the Boca Raton News, Bush's victory has triggered psychological disorders in this tony South Florida Democratic community.
The paper reported last week that when some 20 Kerry voters met for their first therapy session Thursday at Boca's American Heath Association (AHA), the group's rage became uncontrollable.
Members of the group opened their session by "screaming epithets" at President Bush for "breaking up marriages and dividing families," as one victim put it.
The group shared their shattered emotions with licensed mental health counselors.
The distraught Kerry voters came to the first of the free noontime sessions offered by the association for treatment of the newly diagnosed and possibly contagious "post-election selection trauma" (PEST), which causes victims to suffer from symptoms similar to post-traumatic stress disorder.
According to AHA officials, they include nightmares, sleeplessness, hostility, listlessness and emotional outbursts including threats to leave the country.
"If I had a cardboard cutout of President Bush and these people wanted to throw darts at it, I would let them do it," Robert J. Gordon, AHA executive director, told the Boca News after the session. "It's no joke. People with PEST were traumatized by the election. If you even mention religion, their faces turn blister-red as they shout at Bush."
Although the meeting was closed to the press, AHA therapists obtained permission from participants to provide an anonymous transcript to the Boca Raton News.
"I'm scared," said one man. "Democracy is at stake and nobody is rising to protest this president."
"I want to be a patriot, but it's impossible to be a patriot in an immoral war," said another participant, a woman. "Bush is breaking up marriages and dividing families by keeping our troops in Iraq."
And it's not just President Bush who frightens the PEST victims. Rush Limbaugh, for one, is also a bogeyman panicking them.
"The media outlets, especially Rush Limbaugh and his ilk on talk radio, scare our patients to death," said Gordon, facilitator for the meetings. "More than anything else, people with PEST tremble physically."
He added that the Kerry supporters in therapy are predominantly Jewish and older than 50. Most are registered independents and all live in Palm Beach County.
"We mostly let them vent during the first session," Gordon said. "By the third session, we'll be doing some meditation exercises to aid some of their symptoms. We may use visualization and some techniques designed for bipolar disease and other mental disorders. That might help them adjust to reality."
"There's an overall sense of emotional helplessness and abandonment," Sheila Cooperman, a licensed AHA psychotherapist and a practicing psychic from Delray Beach, told the News. "In psychology, we call it 'learned helplessness.' After you zap a caged dog twice, he stops moving because he knows there is no place to go. That's what happened with these Kerry voters. They've been zapped so many times that they're on the verge of giving up on politics."
Cooperman added: "One person today said he thinks the country is now run by fascists. Another felt personally threatened by the president's love for big business. Many believe Bush is going to draft their grandchildren. The anxiety may not affect them every day, but it affects their energy level."
The PEST epidemic seems to be spreading, with 30 more trembling victims signed up for two other AHA election support groups that will meet for the remainder of the year and possibly beyond. Gordon said his patients' emotional problems typically started with the "hanging chad" debacle of 2000.
"First, they need to realize they're not going to overturn the 2004 election," Gordon said. "They have to live with it. The problem is they have no faith because they think the religious right has hijacked the political system. We try to tell them there is still an election in 2008. You can't just give up and be apathetic."
The AHA, using what the News described as "a holistic approach to health that has been mocked as new age voodoo by some national talk show hosts," assures patients that their post-election emotions are normal and deserve to be taken seriously.
"These people talk about the 2000 election being stolen," Gordon said. "They talk about Theresa LePore and the Ohio recount. They feel it's the 'Right House,' not the White House. They feel the world is not safe with George W. Bush as president. They spewed out a lot of anger. They are angry at the Democratic Party for being aimless and leaderless. They have a right to these feelings."
AHA is not the only one offering to deal with PEST, the News disclosed, citing one Boca psychologist, Douglas Schooler, who alone treated 20 Kerry voters with intense hypnotherapy - for a sliding fee covered by his clients' insurance companies.
The News reported that some of his colleagues accused him of unethically "cashing in" on the misery of Kerry voters. In interviews with the Boca News, however, Schooler revealed that many of the Kerry supporters had visited him for severe mental problems prior to the election, perhaps an indication of why they backed Kerry in the first place.
Others outside angst-ridden Boca Raton have also offered their services to PEST victims, the News said, citing conservative talk show hosts Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh, who have generously offered their own "free therapy," to the dismay of the AHA counselors.
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