Mental health professionals must speak out against 'Trumpism', says psychologist
As the U.S. Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump routinely shocks, awes, and mystifies with his behaviour and pronouncements, many observers are requesting Trump needs a proper psychiatric assessment.
But according to Maria A. Oquendo, president of the American Psychiatric Association, it's very dangerous although sometimes tempting to proffer a diagnosis from afar.
"The reason we have ethical rules against it is that until you do a proper physical examination, including blood work and a physical, you really can't know what is causing the behaviour, or whether the person has a psychiatric diagnosis or another kind of diagnosis," Oquendo tells The Current's Robyn Bresnahan. She points to high blood sugar as prompting abnormal or even bizarre behaviour, as an example.
The American Psychiatric Association has warned members during this election campaign that it's against their own rules of conduct to psychoanalyze presidential candidates whom they've never met, no matter how exceptional this election cycle may seem.
Psychologist William Doherty agrees it's "not appropriate to be using formal psychiatric diagnostic categories to refer to public figures whose private lives we know nothing about."
However, he feels it's important for concerned mental health professional therapists to speak up about Trump's public behaviour because he says Trump is "destructive to the public and mental health of our country and to our democracy."
"I see 'Trumpism' as an American brand of fascism," says Doherty.
Doherty has posted an online manifesto, Citizen Therapists Against Trumpism, that 2,500 other mental health professional have already signed. He explains to Bresnahan that he is not recommending professionals make a diagnosis but rather "describing, characterizing, critiquing the public behavior that we all have access to."
"For example, the hyper masculinity that Donald Trump presents, the 'I'm always right the other people who disagree with me are stupid or ill intended", the scapegoating of whole groups of immigrants — these sorts of things are quite troubling to many Americans and others are fair game for commentary by mental health professionals," says Doherty.
Oquendo understands why people want to have a deeper insight into the cause and origin of Trump's behaviour before Americans cast their vote, but argues voters have what they need to make their decision.
"[Voters] need to look at the behavior that's being exhibited today regardless of its cause. And think about whether that is a behavior that they feel comfortable with in a president."
Doherty hopes his manifesto will continue to add to the public critique of Trump's behaviour and motivate other professionals to speak up as Americans citizens.
"We are clinicians who work with people in private, in confidentiality, but we are also citizens of a country. And I wish that lawyers were speaking out. I wish that that physicians were speaking out and teachers were speaking out."
Listen to the full conversation at the top of this post.
This segment was produced by The Current's Idella Sturino, Kristin Nelson and John Chipman.