This week there's no way I can get my head together enough to come up with a column - or, at any rate, a very coherent one. My mind's not only still reeling from last night's effort to complete a 2,500-word essay on Development Psychology , but also rebelling against the thought that I have yet to start another, similar marathon exercise whose deadline is fast approaching.

At moments like this I wonder why I was so crazy as to embark on the two-year counselling course I'm doing. As I dimly recall, I was motivated by the old shrink-industry in-joke that goes: "Neurotics build castles in the air, psychotics live in them, and counsellors collect the rent".

Or, to put it more simply and less cynically I was seeking a professional qualification that might enable me to earn enough money to support my writing habit and other vices.

I also fancied that the process of learning how to help clients clarify their psychological confusions might be of some use to me in my own quest for some semblance of sanity.

In other words, to quote the eminent American psychotherapist Irvin Yalom, of whom I've recently become quite a fan, I was keen to confront the "existential dilemma" facing every human, "a being who searches for meaning and certainty in a universe that has neither".

Heady stuff, huh? And that's just a tiny sample of the massive quantity of confusion and conflicting opinion I've since been confounded by at every turn, from Bowlby's ‘attachment' theory, Erikson's ‘psychosocial' stage theory' and Gottleib's ‘epigenetic psychobiological systems perspective' to Jungian psychoanalysis, Eric Berne's ‘transactional analytic approach' and person-centred ‘Rogerian' therapy.

At moments like this, here and now, today, when it all seems too complex, confusing and all-consuming for words, I wonder how I ever found myself in such a predicament. Naturally I don't blame myself, having become pretty proficient by now at repression, projection and other Freudian defense mechanisms.

The culprit, as I remind her at every opportunity, is the otherwise delightful Louise Kesterson. Having completed this counselling course herself, she urged me to follow suit, confidently assuring me that I'd find it a breeze. And, as Ms K is a trusted work colleague of my wife, and incidentally quite a dish, of course I swallowed her story.

Though, as I say, I love to assuage my assignment-time angst by trying to send her a guilt-trip, I have to confess to being mostly glad I took her advice. I'm enjoying the course immensely, and finding it every bit as illuminating and inspiring as it's intellectually and emotionally challenging.

Pathological liars and raving loonies

It has also given me some meaningful insights into the chronic question as to whether Malaysia's ruling political coalition and its supporters are barking-mad or just plain bad, or possibly both.

But as much as I've recently learned about the twists and turns of the human mind, I still find myself unable to distinguish between the inane and the insane; the pathological liars from the raving loonies.

As a case in point, let's take the item that Wong Chun Wai, chief group editor of The Star , has run for nearly a week at the top of his blog. It recounts a story from that always dubious source, Bernama , about advice from Dr VM Palaniappan, "former professor of ecology at Universiti Malaya" that "among the measures one can take against influenza AH1N1 is to avoid masturbation and homosexual activities".

Such activities, the item goes on to quote the doctor, "caused the body to develop friction heat which in turn produced acid and makes the body hyper-acidised".

Dr P reportedly gave "normal sexual union between adults of opposite sexes" a clean bill of health, but recommended drinking coconut water, which is alkaline, or the consumption of fruits like oranges, lemons and pomelos which contain citric acid.

As Wong comments at the end of his post, "you can either take what the good doctor tells you seriously or laugh over it, but hey, we are living in dangerous times".

Dangerous times indeed. Especially for the MCA, the party that owns The Star , the 'newspaper' that Wong Chun Wai works for. Call me paranoid if you will, but under the current circumstances Wong's blog looks more to me like a diversion of our attention from the manic antics of the participants in the ludicrous MCA power struggle than simply the urge to have a chuckle at the expense of some medical charlatan.

And charlatanism is by no means confined to the field of medicine, to judge by some of the idiotic quotes that Patrick Teo has recently gleaned from The Star for his popular Niamah! blog.

Electoral shock therapy

Talking about the difficulty of distinguishing the inane from the insane and pathological liars from raving lunatics, as I was earlier, how about these for examples:

  • Deputy Prime Minister, Muhyiddin Yassin: "Of late, the opposition parties are creating all sorts of race-based issues and Umno will not compromise in this matter."
  • Minister of Home Affairs, Hishamuddin Hussein: "All parties must refrain from touching on issues concerning the royalty, religion and race during the campaigning period for the Permatang Pasir by-election."
  • Tourism Minister, Ng Yen Yen: "The Selangor government's failure to gazette Little India here as a tourist spot has negated the federal government's efforts to promote the area and fails to recognise Indian traders' contributions to the economy."

Also featured on the Niamah! blog is a fascinating series of criticisms of bloggers by Ng Yen Yen, out of which The Star has repeatedly edited the word ‘bloggers' in a clear attempt to change the meaning and import of what she said.

But with all due respect to the Niamah! blog and the genius of The Star for reporting - and distorting - the remarks of the dangerously deranged, my prize this week goes to Bernama for publishing MACC chief commissioner Ahmad Said Hamdan's statement that: "Everyone investigated by the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission is treated the same, regardless of whether the individual is an ordinary person or a politician."

Given the brazen and blatant political bias of the MACC, and the recent highly suspicious death of a witness in its custody, surely anyone who believes a word of Ahmad Said's mind-boggling disclaimer is clearly in need of electroshock therapy.

Though of course the only ultimate remedy for the insane state of the nation is for the voters to treat BN and its spokespersons to more and more massive doses of electoral shock therapy.