Yesterday I received the following tweet from Dr. Huda:
“funnily enough my time availability hasn’t changed in 24 hours. I have however written one more page. Are u ever in UK?”
From which I must conclude, sadly, that the debate, to which I had been so looking forward, seems unlikely to materialize.
For the benefit of readers who might have come late to this interaction, here is a brief summary of what happened.
On August 7, Dr. Huda stated about me in a Twitter conversation: “he hates psychiatry and gets its concepts wrong.”
On August 10, I wrote a short post, pointing out that the word “hate” has connotations of mindless animosity, and that although I am indeed extremely critical of psychiatry, my writing is not characterized by hate. I also invited Dr. Huda to critique any of my writings, and point out my errors, and I promised to respond.
There have been two further exchanges, but there has been no indication of any willingness on the part of Dr. Huda, to apologize for his remarks, or defend them.
And this strikes me as ungentlemanly and unprofessional.
I apologize to my readers for belaboring the point, but it seemed important that the matter be clarified.