We all know Jonathan Holmes, mental health social worker and still writer for Destructoid (recently retired as Editor in Chief) has been in a spiral this year with all his aGG crap, but I never thought he would be this unethical. On Twitter, Jonathan Holmes went from arguing with a friend about game violence to publicly claiming the friend had psychosis.
It went from this:
"Crying at a non-gaming day job about Iwata's passing reminds me of how most adults still don't get how much video games can affect your life" -@TronKnotts
"@TronKnotts We mean games don't cause violence or sexism, not that we aren't effected by the art or the artists.Thought of you when I heard." - Friend
to this:
"You really think this is professional behavior as a social worker? Saying your friends have been psychotic before?" - Friend
"thanks for the concern. I didn't diagnosis you though. I just know you've been psychotic before. No big deal." - @TronKnotts
(Some of the tweets appear to have been deleted, but he left some of the accusations.)
"Jon, I have never been to a psychiatrist and you are not my doctor. Whatever you think is psychotic, qi gong, anger, is not." - Friend
"I know you think that." - @TronKnotts
(Apparently Jonathan thinks qi gong meditation and anger are psychotic? I have friends who do qi gong. Mantak Chia is pretty neat. It's part of traditional Chinese medicine.)
"Jon, I don't have a psychiatrist. Never have. You can't identify psychosis just by judging your friends.This is why we are done." - Friend
So apparently, Jonathan Holmes thought he could win the argument by claiming on twitter that his friend is psychotic, even though he had never been diagnosed as such. Convoluted. I don't know, but it seems pretty fucking unethical not just from a journalist, but from a mental health professional, if you ask me. It's pretty despicable to argue about gamergate as a mental health professional and use accusations of psychosis.
It's against the Code of Ethics of the National Association of Social Workers to break confidentiality with clients. I assume it's also frowned upon, if not just as unethical, when a social worker publicly claims someone who's never been diagnosed with psychosis, and has never been his client, has been psychotic. It could ruin someone's life for a mental health professional to claim on twitter that he knows a person is or has been psychotic, just to win a debate about game violence.
Check out the whole argument starting here.
https://twitter.com/TronKnotts/status/620930014247317505
Maybe he should be reported to his employer, which is easy to find with a google search of Jonathan Holmes Social Worker.
Here is the Code of Ethics of the National Association of Social Workers.
https://www.socialworkers.org/pubs/code/code.asp
Imagine being one of this guy's patients. If he can do that, then obviously he shouldn't be trusted to report symptoms at his job. Does this guy have any ethics at all?