Tag: Goldwater Rule

I have been involved in hundreds of commitment hearings in which psychiatric diagnoses were crucial. In that context, I have never witnessed the presence of all three factors: (1) the transparent (honest) use of diagnostic labels (which includes the acknowledgment of the inherent biases built into the labels as well as their limited validity), (2) allowing full voice to and full acknowledgment of the labeled person’s view of reality, and (3) using the labels in a manner that produced a useful understanding, which in standard mental health practice would require that the understanding be significantly more beneficial to the labeled person rather than the labeler.

For psychiatrists, psychologists, social workers, and other therapists to claim that they are essential for warning people that Trump is dangerous is to claim special expertise and insight to which they are not entitled, and it simultaneously demeans the judgment of nonprofessionals and helps strengthen the power of their guilds.

In this blog post for Bioethics.net, Dr. Brandy X. Lee, editor of The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump: 27 Psychiatrists and Mental Health Experts Assess a...

From The Hill: A group of more than 100 psychologists and mental health professionals marched through the streets of New York on Saturday calling for President...

From The New Yorker: In a new book, The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump, a group of mental health experts warn the public of Donald Trump's...

From Alternet: A new book, The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump, written by 27 psychiatrists, psychologists, and mental health experts to warn the public of President Trump's...

Recently the American Psychoanalytic Association reaffirmed its members’ right to pronounce on the mental health of public figures—in particular, the controversial Donald Trump. Like the many objectors to the Goldwater Rule in the APA, our psychoanalysts act as if they’re above such a trivial restriction. They are not.