Democratic presidential hopeful Marianne Williamson on Friday said she is “pro medicine” and “pro science,” after she had defended her past comments about antidepressants and said there’s a difference between “normal” human despair and going through grief.
“So let’s state it again. I’m pro medicine. I’m pro science. I’ve never told anyone not to take medicine. I’ve never fat-shamed anyone. And today there’s a new one: no I don’t support Scientology. The machinery of mischaracterization is in high gear now. Gee, did I upset someone?” the author and self-help expert said on Twitter.
In an interview with CNN on Thursday, Ms. Williamson said it wouldn’t be a good message to tell a seriously depressed person that if they take an antidepressant, then they’re going to be numb.
“When it comes to people who are suicidal, I have a 35-year career working with people in despair,” she said.
In 2013, Ms. Williamson had tweeted: “Feds say 1 in 10 Americans on anti-depressants. Not a good sign. This is not a time in American history for any of us to be numbing our pain”
Host Anderson Cooper asked whether people on antidepressants are trying to “numb” their pain or “feel again.”
“Well, some people would argue that, some people not,” she said. “But the issue for me is the difference between normal human despair, and if you are going through something like grief, for instance.”
Ms. Williamson said she has talked about a “normal spectrum of human despair” that had traditionally been the purview of spirituality and religion.
“And with the advent of modern psychotherapy, a lot of the baton sort of passed from religion and spirituality to modern psychotherapy, which was an interesting transition,” she said. “And then, over the last few years, very, very quickly, the baton was passed again to psychopharmacology. And so, a nuanced conversation was lost regarding the nature of human despair.”
Ms. Williamson turned heads with her performance in Tuesday’s presidential debate with her comments on the Flint water crisis and reparations for slavery, and was the most-searched candidate during the debate, according to Google Trends.
She had also warned of a “dark psychic force” she said President Trump was helping perpetuate.
• David Sherfinski can be reached at dsherfinski@washingtontimes.com.
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