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Psychiatrists diagnosing the President smacked down by the APA
Hot Air.com ^ | January 12, 2018 | JAZZ SHAW

Posted on 01/12/2018 7:19:57 PM PST by Kaslin

Not too long ago we talked about Ivy League psychiatrist Dr. Bandy X. Lee, who had briefed members of Congress (read: pretty much entirely Democrats) on President Trump’s mental health. Despite having never even met the President, say nothing of examined him, she apparently had quite a lot to say. Dr. Lee and her colleagues who jumped on the dogpile have been getting some significant pushback since then, with not only members of the press (a few of them, anyway) objecting, but drawing a formal rebuke from the American Psychiatric Association (APA) who called for an end to “armchair psychiatry.” (Legal Insurrection)

Today, the American Psychiatric Association (APA) reiterates its continued and unwavering commitment to the ethical principle known as “The Goldwater Rule.” We at the APA call for an end to psychiatrists providing professional opinions in the media about public figures whom they have not examined, whether it be on cable news appearances, books, or in social media. Armchair psychiatry or the use of psychiatry as a political tool is the misuse of psychiatry and is unacceptable and unethical.

The ethical principle, in place since 1973, guides physician members of the APA to refrain from publicly issuing professional medical opinions about individuals that they have not personally evaluated in a professional setting or context. Doing otherwise undermines the credibility and integrity of the profession and the physician-patient relationship.

As Mike Lachance at Legal Insurrection pointed out yesterday, two Harvard shrinks pushed back on this criticism in the pages of Politico, strangely claiming that diagnosing the President’s mental health from the other side of a television screen wasn’t violating the Goldwater Rule at all. In their opinion, since they aren’t diagnosing Trump “in a specific way” in their various publications and comments, everything is fair game. Also, it’s “not only acceptable but vitally necessary to have a public conversation about the mental state of our nation’s leader.”

Sorry, Doc, but I don’t think that’s going to fly. Take, for example, the idea of me writing a post on our site saying, hey… did you hear what the President said last night? That guy is nuts. That’s commentary, which you can agree with or dispute as you wish. It’s not even particularly useful commentary since the closest I ever came to medical school was shortly after a motorcycle accident in the 80s. But when two Doctors of Psychiatry from Harvard say the same thing, it’s a diagnosis. You don’t need to tell us the specific name of the mental ailment you suspect is plaguing a public official. (I’d wager more than a few of us wouldn’t know what it meant without hitting up Google anyway.) It’s sufficient just to say that something isn’t right.

But, hey… don’t let us stop you. There’s finally all sorts of political and media figures paying attention to you. Enjoy your fifteen minutes while it lasts.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial
KEYWORDS: apa; diognosis; insanity; mentalhealth; presidenttrump; psychiatrist; psychiatry; trump
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1 posted on 01/12/2018 7:19:57 PM PST by Kaslin
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To: Kaslin

Every psychology and psychiatry student/resident should be required to learn how nations like the USSR used the mental health system to lock up political dissidents.


2 posted on 01/12/2018 7:23:00 PM PST by LukeL
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To: Kaslin

Either drum them out of the profession or share their lack of credibility!
This statement is nothing but gas.


3 posted on 01/12/2018 7:24:43 PM PST by TigersEye (0bama. The Legacy is a lie. The lie is the Legacy.)
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To: Kaslin

Hahaha. These unethical, unprofessional , integrity-free losers need to stick their worthless opinions where the sun doesn’t shine. Fools.


4 posted on 01/12/2018 7:24:51 PM PST by hal ogen (First Amendment or Reeducation Camp?)
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To: LukeL

The APA was more than a day late and more than a dollar short with their rebuke; allowing “Dr.” Bandy and her “diagnosis” to circulate in the media for the better part of a week.


5 posted on 01/12/2018 7:27:13 PM PST by Arm_Bears (Hey, Rocky--Watch me pull a rabbit out of my hat!)
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To: Kaslin

These guys didn’t care about Obama floating around like he was maxed out on Xanax?


6 posted on 01/12/2018 7:38:58 PM PST by BenLurkin (The above is not a statement of fact. It is either satire or opinion. Or both.)
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To: TigersEye
This statement is nothing but gas

You are quite wrong.

The APA can't drum anybody out of anything.

The statement is highly significant, because it provides a basis (which has been lacking) for formal complaints to, and action by, three entities with the power to do exactly what you wish.

1) State of New York Office of Professional Medical Conduct.

2) American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology

3) Office of the Dean, Yale University School of Medicine

All of these organizations can and do sanction unethical conduct, which is exactly what the APA accuses Dr. Lee of in their statement. Up until now, a complaint from a member of the public to these three organizations would probably be turned away because the complainant could not produce expert testimony from within the field of psychiatry that, according to their internal standards, a breach had occurred.

Now, they no longer have that out.

7 posted on 01/12/2018 7:39:56 PM PST by Jim Noble (Single payer is coming. Which kind do you like?)
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To: Kaslin

Big deal. Next piece of spaghetti will be thrown at the wall.

Apology? Only racists and homophobes apologize? If we were to apologize it would only prove DJT is a skunk. Are we sorry we broke the rules of our profession? The ends justify the means and the moves.


8 posted on 01/12/2018 7:40:41 PM PST by Attention Surplus Disorder (Apoplectic is where we want them.)
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To: Kaslin

The dirty little secret that they are jealously guarding, is that psychiatry isn’t much more than a pseudo-science. The hard sciences and medical world know that to be true.


9 posted on 01/12/2018 7:41:39 PM PST by DesertRhino (Dog is man's best friend, and moslems hate dogs. Add that up. ....)
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To: LukeL

Schools aren’t even teaching about the gulags and Communist purges, much less the weaponization of psychiatry.


10 posted on 01/12/2018 7:43:09 PM PST by tbw2
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To: LukeL

What makes you think they don’t know?


11 posted on 01/12/2018 7:44:26 PM PST by null and void ( The Martians fought global warming, all the plants died and the surface water froze solid....)
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To: Kaslin

Bkmk


12 posted on 01/12/2018 7:49:41 PM PST by sauropod (I am His and He is mine.)
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To: Kaslin

13 posted on 01/12/2018 7:58:10 PM PST by blam
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To: null and void

Bookmark


14 posted on 01/12/2018 7:58:26 PM PST by publius911 (CBS: "Asking the right questions is 100% of catching sexual abusers")
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To: blam

She looks like a KOOK,


15 posted on 01/12/2018 8:12:06 PM PST by buffyt (Planned Parenthood should be a No Kill facility ...save the dogs, kill the children...)
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To: buffyt
"She looks like a KOOK,"

Aren't most anti-Trumpers?

16 posted on 01/12/2018 8:25:08 PM PST by blam
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To: Kaslin

The enforcement is not in the APA, it is in the court system as Goldwater sued for Libel and won.

Goldwater v. Ginzburg

Court rulings

The court found that the evidence introduced at trial proved the defendants knew they were publishing defamatory statements and “were motivated by actual malice when they published the statements.”

The court found the defendants guilty of libel action based on the article Fact published. The plaintiff demanded $1,000,000 in compensatory and punitive damages but Senator Goldwater was awarded $1 in compensatory damages and $75,000 in punitive damages.

The compensatory damages were against all defendants but the punitive damages were split between the defendants. Ginzburg and Boroson were liable for $25,000 of the $75,000 and Fact Magazine, Inc. was liable for $50,000. The United States Court of Appeals affirmed the award and the Supreme Court denied a petition for certiorari (review).


17 posted on 01/12/2018 8:30:57 PM PST by tired&retired (Blessings)
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To: Jim Noble

“The APA can’t drum anybody out of anything.”

Except out of the APA... They are a voluntary membership professional organization.

However, their ethics guidelines are promulgated as “Standards of Practice” which are then used in the court system when the person is sued.

That’s why the standards were developed. To protect psychiatrists from getting sued for making statements as they did against Goldwater.


18 posted on 01/12/2018 8:35:26 PM PST by tired&retired (Blessings)
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To: Jim Noble

More Important...

The Connecticut Board of Medical Licensing where she also had her license to prescribe medications.

It appears as though she was practicing medicine without a license in CT.


19 posted on 01/12/2018 8:37:12 PM PST by tired&retired (Blessings)
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To: Kaslin
"As Mike Lachance at Legal Insurrection pointed out yesterday, two Harvard shrinks pushed back on this criticism in the pages of Politico, strangely claiming that diagnosing the President’s mental health from the other side of a television screen wasn’t violating the Goldwater Rule at all. In their opinion, since they aren’t diagnosing Trump “in a specific way” in their various publications and comments, everything is fair game."

And behind the link in that text, "By BANDY X. LEE and LEONARD L. GLASS."

Lee headed the political effort against Trump, as shown in some of her maniacal tweets about it ("code red," etc.). Glass might get a few points toward a diagnoses with a personality inventory. Research from the radical left (feminism, homo-activism,...) also often tends to be rather subjectively done.

Harvard... Readers, those are the kind of people at the top in managing government, business and academia in the U.S.A. now. I've said for quite a few years that we need new administrative people in all three categories: technically inclined people with hands-on experience in very necessary technologies (not including software development or use) for realistic perspectives.


20 posted on 01/12/2018 8:37:33 PM PST by familyop ("Welcome to Costco. I love you." --Costco greeter in the movie, "Idiocracy")
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