Avoiding a repetition of past mistakes: Response to Gozlan's critique of "Do we want to know?"

Abstract

D'Angelo, the author of "Do We Want To Know" responds to Gozlan's critique of his paper. He argues that Gozlan recruits psychoanalytic elitism to discredit his work, rather than engaging with the paper's central concerns. The first issue that Gozlan avoids addressing is the misuse of academic writing to discredit those with whom we disagree, extensively documented in "Do We Want To Know". The second is the refusal to acknowledge the weak evidence base for gender-affirming interventions for youth increasingly embraced by the prevailing psychoanalytic zeitgeist. D'Angelo suggests that this is a repetition of psychoanalysis' rejection of empirical science, which in the past has led to patient harm and which has contributed to the increasing marginalisation of our profession.