# Great article from Psychology Today on the psychological damage of circ.



## perspective (Nov 3, 2007)

Lots of great stuff in here for evidence based discussions (with citations!!) if you find yourself needing solid information on the harm circumcision causes. Great for talking about the often avoided psychological side of all this:

https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/moral-landscapes/201501/circumcision-s-psychological-damage

Comparing to PTSD:

"Using an adapted version of a clinically established PTSD interview rating scale, the study's authors determined that 51 percent of these boys met the full diagnostic criteria for PTSD and noted that other variables such as age at circumcision (pre-adolescence versus adolescence) and time elapsed since the procedure (months versus years) were not predictive of a PTSD diagnosis (Ramos & Boyle, 2000). As a point of comparison, the rate of PTSD among veterans of the Iraq war is approximately 20 percent (NIH, 2009). "

Debunking the African AIDS studies and the CDC guidelines:

"As psychologists, we are deeply concerned by the recently announced CDC guidelines promoting circumcision for all males, and in particular children. The CDC guidelines are based on a sharply criticized 2012 policy statement by the American Academy of Pediatrics. The 2012 statement was condemned by a large group of physicians, medical organizations, and ethicists from European, Scandinavian, and Commonwealth countries as "culturally biased" and "different from [the conclusions] reached by physicians in other parts of the Western world, including Europe, Canada and Australia" (Frisch et al., 2013).

The new CDC guidelines highlight methodologically flawed studies from Africa that have no relevance to the United States. They chose to ignore studies that were conducted in the United States and show no link between circumcision and the risk of sexually transmitted diseases, including HIV (Thomas et al., 2004). "


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## hakunangovi (Feb 15, 2002)

Great article!

This aspect of circumcision rarely seems to be addressed by the medical profession, even though it is becoming more widely recognized that childhood trauma leaves an imprint on the brain for life.


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## Greg B (Mar 18, 2006)

*Thank you*

Thanks for posting that link. Very compelling article.

Regards


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