Update | Armchair psychologists wonder about Trump’s mind, but should psychologists or psychiatrists say anything if they think a candidate is “nuts”?
Amateurs call New York billionaire a sociopath, unhinged or a narcissist
Amateur psychoanalysts have put Donald Trump on the couch, calling him a sociopath, unhinged, a narcissist. Amid all this psych-talk, there is one group of people who aren’t talking as much: the professionals. Or at least they’re not supposed to.
Professional ethics dictate that psychiatrists and psychologists avoid publicly analysing or diagnosing someone they’ve never examined, but there is new and unusually vocal dissension against this long-held gag rule because of what some of them think they hear and see in Trump.
Because these professionals tend to be more liberal the result is a juggling act of propriety, politics and ethics.
Armchair psychology has exploded into social media and op-ed columns over the past week, most recently with Trump’s comment Tuesday calling on gun-rights supporters to stop Democratic rival Hillary Clinton.
His political opponents have grabbed hold, with President Barack Obama calling the Republican presidential nominee “unfit” and a Democratic congresswoman starting a petition to force Trump to undergo a mental health evaluation.
Members of the American Psychiatric Association are bound by a 43-year-old ethics rule, called the Goldwater rule because it stems from mistaken public concerns about the mental health of the 1964 Republican presidential nominee, Senator Barry Goldwater. Psychiatrists have been reprimanded and can be booted out of the organisation if they violate that rule.