I am currently attending the Indianapolis Comic Con, and I’m in a rare good mood. The fans are great, my books are selling. Everything is great, which means I’m in no spirit to do the mental tailspin I have to embrace when talking about Trump.
So I’m going to do something different this week. I’m going to recommend a book to you. It’s called “The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump: 27 Psychiatrists and Mental Health Experts Assess a President.”
Now you must understand that modern psychiatry is bound by something called the Goldwater Rule. The requirement of this rule is that psychiatrists will not write psychological profiles of public figures if they had not had a chance to examine them personally.
Doctor Brandy Lee, the book’s editor, argues rather convincingly that psychiatrists have another duty that takes precedence: to warn the public when there is an individual whose actions and thinking provides–with all respect to Oliver Wendell Holmes–a clear and present danger. The psychiatrists who contributed to this book are convinced that Trump meets that criteria.
I am currently in the process of reading it, and it’s fascinating. When you or I claim that Trump is a dangerous narcissist, those are the opinions of laymen with some fundamental psychological knowledge garnered from reading. When psychiatrists are saying it, that gives the diagnosis far greater weight.
I will be writing a full review of this book by next Friday. I will then throw it open for discussion. If you want to join in, grab a copy and start reading. It will both fascinate and terrify you.
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Update !!
The Government ARE putting a gag order on this book ! And changing the law / Goldwater rule
Be a tad late for that. The book came out in September or October of last year. Be kind of like closing the barn door after all the horses left, had little horses of their own, and eventually died of old age.
The Goldwater rule is an ethical precept not federal law. Neither Congress nor the Executive Branch have any authority over it. It falls under the American Psychiatric Association’s Principles of Medical Ethics
“Update !!
The Government ARE putting a gag order on this book ! ”
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And Obama is coming to take your guns!!!
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See what I did there? Three exclamation points. So that means I win, right?
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Except beyond the frantic hyperbole, I’ve got actual facts. First of which is, as Andrew Laubacher noted, the “Goldwater Rule” isn’t a law. So there’s no “changing of the law” the government can do.
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Second, it’s still easily available from Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Dangerous-Case-Donald-Trump-Psychiatrists/dp/1250179459.
And from Barnes & Noble: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-dangerous-case-of-donald-trump-bandy-x-lee/1126565787#/
And several other smaller stores you could find with less than five minutes of effort.