Cod Psychology

Children’s books have had a long history of being a means to bring moral instruction to the young. Some do it well, but others are so bad that they beggar belief. A case in point is Alfie’s Home, written by Richard A. Cohen and self-published by his woefully misnamed (at least going by the evidence of this book) organisation: the International Healing Foundation.

 

The book was originally published back in 1993, but the content has only recently appeared on the internet, with the result that lots of people are now realising just how ridiculous and misconceived the book is. It attempts to deal with a serious issue, childhood sexual abuse, but does so in a totally inadequate way. What’s worse, it posits the false theory that this is what causes a person to be gay. It’s a favourite theory of organisations that seek to turn gay people straight. Some of the people involved in such organisations appear to believe, against all evidence, that all gay people have been sexually abused, and this is the primary cause of their being gay. Needless to say, this is cod psychology at its worst.