David Reimer Psychology Paper Essay Example

of development. A viing position is the alleged “nature theory” ; that is. the thought that a person’s innate qualities are determined entirely by biological mechanisms. ” Dr. Money basically advocated the position that a feminine individuality could be developed by rise uping a kid as a miss. Money saw this as a perfect experiment. He failed to state the Janet and Ron Reimer that the true purposes of him converting them to make a gender alteration was to turn out that raising. non nature. determined gender individuality.

Therefore for his ain selfish addition he decided to utilize Bruce and Brian ; two twin male childs ( one believing they were a miss ) raised by the same people and treated in the exact same manner. This allowed him to utilize them for his private instance survey to experiment on Bruce while utilizing Brian as control. At the age of 21 months Bruce underwent surgery for emasculation. Bruce was now Brenda. and Janet and Ron Reimer were told to raise her as a female. Money gave rigorous orders that it was out to state anyone including the twins that Bruce was a miss. They proceeded to raise her as a miss and non state her or anyone else about her medical history. The Reimer’s accepted their kid as a girl and continued to give Brenda the hormonal addendums. In malice of their attempts at the age of 7 Brenda began to move in a masculine manner. She rejected all types of plaything. dolls. frocks. She started to mime her father’s actions as opposed to her female parents. She felt more and more like a male child

physically and mentally. and she wasn’t the lone 1 who felt that manner.

Her twin brother Brian stated that “The merely difference between him and Brenda was that she had longer hair” . She continued rejecting the fact that she was a female. Finally she wanted to stand up while urinating and she had no purpose in accepting a feminine individuality. When Brenda was 14 old ages old. she continued rejecting the feminine individuality that was forced upon her. She besides tried multiple self-destruction efforts and her parents had no other determination but to state her the truth. She instantly decided to go a male child once more therefore she cut her hair and named herself David. David wanted to recapture the maleness. So he agreed to undergo a dual mastectomy to take chest that were caused by estrogen. and a series of surgeries to acquire his male heathens back. He besides received injections of testosterone to reconstruct all of his masculine organic structure characteristics. David continued being a teenage male child and he was accepted and had friends and even engaged in immature adult females.

Finally he even got married and had kids. He seemed to be in a good topographic point in his life. In 1997 David decided to travel public with his narrative and Dr. Money would acquire huge unfavorable judgment from the scientific community for the faultless lies he has told. Unfortunately David had suffered from terrible depression. In 2002 Brian ( David’s duplicate brother ) overdosed on drugs to handle for his schizophrenic disorder. It looks like Dr. Money’s therapy Sessionss scarred him for life every bit good. Particularly because of the

fact that at a immature age he was being photographed bare and even Dr. Money acted in a pedophile manner and had the twins involved in sexual activities. Two Old ages subsequently after Brian overdosed. David committed self-destruction and the ground will everlastingly be unknown if it was the consequence of John Money’s experiment “The John/Joan Case Study” . In my sentiment I believe that this subject is of import because this was a major survey that was falsely stated as a success in which happened to be a complete failure.

It besides proves that whatever gender you were born with is you. You may be able to alter that physically to a certain extent but you can non alter you gender wholly. you have the feelings. and traits as your Se ( Schillo. 2011 ) ( Hausman. 2001 ) ( Kate. 2012 ) ten gender would hold. This instance survey was wholly unethical. The Reimer’s were incognizant of the experiment that was traveling on therefore they were deceived by John Money. The Reimer’s candidly thought that a sex alteration was the lone option for Bruce alternatively it was a set up. Although on Money’s behalf they were perfect for the experiment. Although Bruce was a babe he ne'er gave his consent to hold a sex alteration or be involved in Dr. Money’s experiment. This is something that Bruce should hold been a portion of. The changeless determinations of others affected his life.

As a psychologist he should hold been ethical and respected the regulations of moralss and possibly found other ways of carry oning his research instead than making something that was wholly illegal. This didn’t

merely destroy the lives of this whole household but it finally lead to the decease of the twins Bruce ( David ) and Brian. This had to be the most unethical survey in history. I would look into this issue by utilizing person who was born as a intersex and analyzing their gender functions. Although the findings from the gender functions are biologically unconditioned. with nature overturning raising.

Plants Cited

1. Hausman. B. ( 2001 ) . EBSCOHOST. Retrieved from Bellevue College: hypertext transfer protocol: //web. a. ebscohost. com. ezproxy. bellevuecollege. edu/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer? sid=b1aa844a-8347-4385-a6c5-4ca7e48e8bd0 % 40sessionmgr4002 & A ; vid=12 & A ; hid=4109 Kate. S. ( 2012. April 28 ) .
2. David Reimer. Retrieved from Samantha Kate Psychology: hypertext transfer protocol: //samanthakatepsychology. wordpress. com/2012/04/28/david-reimer-possibly-the-most-unethical-study-in-psychological-history/ Schillo. K. ( 2011. November 16 ) .
3. Nature vs Nurture. Retrieved from Science Cases: hypertext transfer protocol: //sciencecases. lib. American bison. edu/cs/files/gender_reassignment. pdf