TO THE EDITOR: THE NORTHFIELD NEWS SATIRE CAN BE amusing, until it starts encouraging social stigma and discrimination. Lobotomies - - a well intended but crude surgery removing parts of the brain -- are not funny. They are a hurtful reminder of the experimentation and dehumanizing treatment that was once routine for persons with mental illness.

The positive side of last week’s use of "lobotomy" as part of a pun for a writer’s pseudonym in a Northfield News column is that it gives us all the opportunity for a "teachable moment."

It was once considered acceptable to use racial slurs; we learned better. It was once acceptable to make pejorative ethnic jokes; we learned better. I could give examples, but they wouldn’t be printable today.

We now need to learn better when it comes to the array of still "acceptable" misuses related to psychiatry, whether as the butt of jokes (Did you hear about the nut who...?), based on lack of linguistic knowledge (schizophrenia does not mean split personality), or based upon preconceived misconceptions (persons with pychosis are rarely violent, although one wouldn’t know that from news media reports.)

Being an object of jest is a reinforcement of the stigma that still leads people to hide their illness or feel shame over it. According to the Surgeon General, it is the most significant reason that people who need help are afraid to get it.

Is this just a new wave of "political correctness?" Not when people die because they fear the stigma of getting treatment. Suicide isn't funny; schizophrenia isn't funny; psychosis isn't funny.

ANNE DONAHUE

Northfield