Calling Donald Trump mentally ill insults those with illness: psychiatrist
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As turmoil grows in the White House, a leading psychiatrist said that calling embattled U.S. President Donald Trump mentally ill is an insult to those who actually live with mental illness.Allen Frances, professor emeritus of psychiatry and behavioural sciences at Duke University Medical College, counters a letter written by several industry professionals to the New York Times. The letter, published Feb. 13, reads that Trump “grave emotional instability” that “makes him incapable of serving safely as president.”Although Frances hasn’t examined Trump himself, he said the president does not meet the criteria for narcissistic personality disorder–which Frances should know, because he wrote it. Frances chaired the task force that wrote the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders IV (D.S.M.-IV), published in 1994 and revised in 2000.“He may be a world-class narcissist, but this doesn’t make him mentally ill, because he does not suffer from the distress and impairment required to diagnose mental disorder,” Frances wrote to the Times in response to the earlier letter, signed by 35 mental health professionals.“Mr. Trump causes severe distress rather than experiencing it and has been richly rewarded, rather than punished, for his grandiosity, self-absorption and lack of empathy,” Frances continued in his written response,published Feb. 14. “It is a stigmatizing insult to the mentally ill (who are mostly well behaved and well meaning) to be lumped with Mr. Trump (who is neither).”Suggestions that Trump is mentally ill or otherwise cognitively impaired are not new. In December three U.S. professors of psychiatry wrote a letter to then-U.S. president Barack Obama asking that he ensure Trump receive a full health evaluation.“We strongly recommend that, in preparation for assuming these responsibilities, he receive a full medical and neuropsychiatric evaluation by an impartial team of investigators,” the December letter read.One of the signatories to a petition calling for Trump’s removal due to mental illness explained in a Vox piece that she understands why it is controversial–and outlined the political origins of the position she defied when she signed her name.“My position, along with the others signing onto the petition, is controversial,” Sherry Armenstein wrote. “Since public calls to diagnose Republican presidential candidate Barry Goldwater in the 1960s, the mental health community has stuck to a code: Do not diagnose a person in the public eye, only in a diagnostic setting, no matter how tempting.”
Growing number of politicians ‘openly questioning Donald Trump’s mental health’
A growing number of American politicians are reportedly raising concerns over Donald Trump’s mental health.At least three Democrat officials have publicly questioned the US President’s health, with some calling for specific safeguards to be implemented to consider a leader’s emotional or mental well-being while in office.Oregon Representative Earl Blumenauer called for a review of constitutional procedures to remove a president from office, stating it did not consider the mental or emotional health of a leader.“It’s not normal behaviour. I don’t know anybody in a position of responsibility that doesn’t know if they’re being rained on. And nobody I work with serially offers up verifiably false statements on an ongoing basis,” he told The Hill.Minnesota Senator Al Franken told CNN “a few” Republican colleagues had also expressed their concern as to whether Mr Trump is mentally fit to hold office.California Representative Ted Lieu has announced plans to introduce legislation that would require the presence of a psychiatrist or psychologist in the White House.“I think it is a legitimate issue to raise. I am not a mental health professional, so I don’t know in terms of any sort of medical expertise on this. But I do see and hear the same things that other people see and hear, and a lot of people have concluded that what’s going on is not normal. So what do I do with that as a member of Congress?” he said.“Anyone who can launch 4,000 nuclear weapons in minutes absolutely should be questioned on any matter related to their physical and mental health.”The question mark over Mr Trump’s mental health has divided public, professional and indeed political opinion.Many have suggested Mr Trump could be suffering from narcissistic personality disorder, however one of the professors who wrote the criteria for the disorder discredited this hypothesis as “a stigmatising insult to the mentally ill".“Bad behaviour is rarely a sign of mental illness, and the mentally ill behave badly only rarely. Psychiatric name-calling is a misguided way of countering Mr Trump’s attack on democracy. He can, and should, be appropriately denounced for his ignorance, incompetence, impulsivity and pursuit of dictatorial powers,” Professor Allen Frances wrote in an op-ed for the New York Times.In June, Atlantic published a psychologist’s findings that Mr Trump suffered from "narcissism, disagreeableness, grandiosity".Mr Trump's well-documented "no holds barred" approach to the US presidency has led many to question his diplomatic suitability.Concerns were amplified on Wednesday when in his first solo press conference, Mr Trump made a number of claims that were quickly proven to be untrue.American Psychiatric Association (APA) protocol means medical professionals should not diagnose individuals they have not personally treated.The so-called "Goldwater Rule" was brought in after Barry Goldwater, a Republican presidential candidate in the 1960’s who sued Fact magazine for libel after it asked 12,000 psychiatrists whether he was “psychologically fit” to be president - 1,189 answered “no”.
Psychiatrists warned to 'stop analysing trump' because they risk breaching their own code of ethics
The American Psychiatric Association (APA) has issued a warning to its members to stop psychoanalysingDonald Trump because it breeches the organisation's strict code of ethics.A great deal of armchair psychology has been written to explain Mr Trump’s behaviour, with some commentators confidently claiming he is a psychopath or a sociopath – terms which are often misunderstood and bandied about too casually, according to some practitioners.Some professionals have declared the President is suffering from a personality disorder – with many citing narcissistic personality disorder as one they believe afflicts him.Following his recent press conferences, psychiatrists as well as media commentators have increasingly declared something is not quite “right” with Mr Trump’s psyche, but the APA says this increasingly common trend by psychiatrists to “diagnose” those they haven’t treated must end.“The unique atmosphere of this year’s election cycle may lead some to want to psychoanalyse the candidates,” Maria Oquendo, president of the APA, wrote, “but to do so would not only be unethical, it would be irresponsible.”Of course, Mr Trump is not the first politician whose character has attracted frenzied speculation by the media, the public and mental health professionals. Back in 1964, various psychiatrists decided to analyse Republican Presidential candidate Barry Goldwater.A survey in US magazine Fact questioned more than 12,000 psychiatrists about Mr Goldwater's health. About 2,400 responded, with about half of these declaring him psychologically unfit to be President.After Fact carried the results of the survey as a news story, Mr Goldwater sued for libel – and won.The speculation was so frenzied that it resulted in what is known as the “Goldwater rule”.It states: “On occasion psychiatrists are asked for an opinion about an individual who is in the light of public attention or who has disclosed information about himself or herself through public media.“In such circumstances, a psychiatrist may share with the public his or her expertise about psychiatric issues in general. However, it is unethical for a psychiatrist to offer a professional opinion unless he or she has conducted an examination and has been granted proper authorization for such a statement.”The Goldwater rule has been ignored by the many professionals who have waded into the debate around Mr Trump’s psychology.Jeffrey Flier, a former dean of Harvard Medical School, confidently declared on Twitter: “Narcissistic personality disorder. Trump doesn’t just have it, he defines it. #trumpdiagnosis”.Narcissistic personality disorder. Trump doesn't just have it, he defines it.#trumpdiagnosis twitter.com/ethanjweiss/st…And not content with a snappy 140 character tweet, a professor at Northwestern University published a 9,000 word psychological evaluation of the President – from a distance rather than from the couch – with mainly covered Mr Trump’s perceived narcissism.In the UK, Oxford University Professor Kevin Dutton hit the headlines when he found Mr Trump scored higher than Hitler on the psychopathy scale.Other American politicians to have undergone scrutiny of their mental health include Thomas Eagleton, who in 1972 withdrew as Democrat George McGovern’s running mate after it was revealed he had been hospitalised three times for depression and had undergone electric shock therapy.Both George Bush Senior and his Democratic opponent Michael Dukakis denied in 1988 they had ever undergone psychiatric treatment after the Washington Times reported on rumours related to Mr Dukakis’s mental health.But some psychotherapists claim they feel compelled to break their own code of ethics and speak out about Mr Trump because they believe he poses a danger to the psychological health of many Americans.“As psychotherapists practising in the United States, we are alarmed by the rise of the ideology of Trumpism, which we see as a threat to the well-being of the people we care for and to American democracy itself,” the Citizen Therapists Against Trumpism wrote in their manifesto.“We cannot remain silent as we witness the rise of an American form of fascism. We can leverage this time of crisis to deepen our commitment to American democracy.”
