American Psychiatric Association Tells Members “Stop Psychoanalyzing President Trump”
The American Psychiatric Association (APA) recently issued a warning to its members “to stop psychoanalyzing U.S. President Donald Trump, as it breaches the organization’s ethics code.” [1]
During the presidential campaign season of 2016, the APA also issued another professional request to its members [2] about Donald Trump, which apparently went unheeded.
According to Sputnik News, February 20, 2017:
However, psychiatric critics of Trump would do well to investigate the Goldwater Rule, and its legal implications. The Goldwater Rule is the informal name given to Section 7.3 of the APA code of ethics, which states it’s unethical for psychiatrists to offer a professional opinion about public figures they have not examined in person, and/or obtained consent from.
It derives from a 1964 libel suit brought by then-Republican Presidential candidate Barry Goldwater, in response to an article in Fact magazine. The title published an article, “1,189 Psychiatrists Say Goldwater is Psychologically Unfit to be President!” based on a poll it had conducted. Goldwater sued, and won US$75,000 (approximately US$579,000 in 2017) in damages. [1]
As a person who believes in fairness and facts to support claims, here are a few questions I hope you don’t mind my asking APA members relative to psychoanalyzing some very prominent members of the geopolitical world:
- What’s your diagnosis of individuals who cannot accept the Constitutional process the USA government has functioned under for centuries, especially with regard to the peaceful change of elected administrations? Would psychiatrists diagnose those types of dissidents as “anarchists”?
- What is your professional diagnosis of a former Nazi sympathizer who led the Nazis to his Hungarian Jewish neighbors to confiscate their possessions and send them off to the camps? [3]
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c1Qr7TnWG74?feature=oembed&w=777&h=437]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c1Qr7TnWG74
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