Originally Posted by Ron_Tomkins (Post 12367638)

Hey guys, just dropping by to see how your plan to make a case in this forum that Donald Trump is clinically insane so that then somehow you can go from there to get him impeached, is going.

Originally Posted by Fudbucker (Post 12367639)

I'm holding him to account for his own Trump beliefs.

Originally Posted by Fudbucker (Post 12367641)

It's not going well. The inmates are running the GOP asylum.

Originally Posted by Fudbucker (Post 12367639)

He's an admitted Trump supporter. Whatever thought processes that allowed him to reach the conclusion that Trump should still be supported are deeply flawed.

Originally Posted by Ron_Tomkins (Post 12367638)

Hey guys, just dropping by to see how your plan to make a case in this forum that Donald Trump is clinically insane so that then somehow you can go from there to get him impeached, is going.

Originally Posted by theprestige (Post 12367697)

Not impeached, removed under the 25th Amendment. Something like:

YALE GROUP: He's dangerous, the Cabinet should remove him per the 25th Amendment.

CABINET: Yes, let's do that. Mike Pence is now Acting President.

TRUMP (via Twitter): Nope.

CABINET: Damn, foiled by a simple tweet!

CONGRESS: Hold my beer.

Originally Posted by theprestige (Post 12367702)

You don't even know my own Trump beliefs. You've made some minimal gestures towards finding out, but they've turned out to be empty gestures.

Originally Posted by WilliamSeger (Post 12367817)

Well, making the case that he's mentally ill has been thwarted by an ingenious defense: If you're not a psychiatrist, then you don't know what you're talking about, but if you are, then you're not allowed to talk about it, and if you do that proves you don't know what you're talking about. And furthermore, having a mentally ill president is either not dangerous or it's a danger voters deserve, so the issue is moot anyway.

And yet, everyone here knows why this thread is still alive.

Originally Posted by carlitos (Post 12367631)

We all have issues. Are you offering a diagnosis of Pence here, or just "saying whatever you want," or what exactly?

Originally Posted by Fudbucker (Post 12367641)

It's not going well. The inmates are running the GOP asylum.

Originally Posted by WilliamSeger (Post 12367817)

Well, making the case that he's mentally ill has been thwarted by an ingenious defense: If you're not a psychiatrist, then you don't know what you're talking about, but if you are, then you're not allowed to talk about it, and if you do that proves you don't know what you're talking about. And furthermore, having a mentally ill president is either not dangerous or it's a danger voters deserve, so the issue is moot anyway.

And yet, everyone here knows why this thread is still alive.

Originally Posted by WilliamSeger (Post 12367817)

Well, making the case that he's mentally ill has been thwarted by an ingenious defense: If you're not a psychiatrist, then you don't know what you're talking about, but if you are, then you're not allowed to talk about it, and if you do that proves you don't know what you're talking about. And furthermore, having a mentally ill president is either not dangerous or it's a danger voters deserve, so the issue is moot anyway.



And yet, everyone here knows why this thread is still alive.

Originally Posted by xjx388 (Post 12367834)

Well, the Bigfoot threads are still alive so...


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Originally Posted by WilliamSeger (Post 12367855)

So... what? I don't read those threads; are there zoologists claiming that Bigfeet are a serious threat to the country?

Originally Posted by dasmiller (Post 12367928)

Nah, the issue is that reputable zoologists aren't supposed to speculate about an animal that they haven't actually observed, and the speculations of non-zoologists are simply useless, so . . . who knows?

Originally Posted by theprestige (Post 12367935)

Should a remote diagnosis by a psychiatrist be sufficient justification to remove an elected official from office?

Should psychiatrists publish remote diagnoses with the purpose of removing elected officials from office?

Originally Posted by dasmiller (Post 12367956)

Do you seriously see no middle ground between "Any psychiatrist should be able to have any elected official removed from office based on a quick glance at a newspaper article" and "absent a consensual multi-session series of interviews in a nice comfy office, no observed behavior is sufficient for any mental health professional to speculate about the underlying mental health of an elected official?"

Originally Posted by WilliamSeger (Post 12367855)

So... what? I don't read those threads; are there zoologists claiming that Bigfeet are a serious threat to the country?

Originally Posted by Skeptic Ginger (Post 12367825)

No diagnosis, mental illness isn't the issue with Pence. Just saying Trump will be replaced with a Trump worshiper if he were removed from office.

Originally Posted by theprestige (Post 12367977)

If you see a middle ground between your chosen extremes that answers my questions, then by all means please answer my questions.

Originally Posted by theprestige (Post 12367935)

Should a remote diagnosis by a psychiatrist be sufficient justification to remove an elected official from office?

Originally Posted by theprestige (Post 12362925)

I feel you were going to feel disgusted and contemptuous no matter what I did.

Originally Posted by Leftus (Post 12363215)

I'm not a Trumper, never been a fan. I'm not a fan of people diagnosing mental conditions that also, somehow, coincide with their own personal beliefs.

Originally Posted by theprestige (Post 12363297)

Also, I think they're all, by and large, unfit to be president. My choices were a professionally political, venal and corrupt progressive; versus an amateur, venal and corrupt opportunist.

Originally Posted by theprestige (Post 12363327)

Other evidence besides them breaking with the ethical standards of their profession, you mean? What would you accept as evidence?

Originally Posted by xjx388 (Post 12363850)

That's an uncharitable misreading of my posts.

Originally Posted by carlitos (Post 12364176)

We already have a system that eliminates too many qualified leaders, whether due to lack of pay, lack of interest, or overly-intrusive background vetting. If we start to police "borderline" personality disorders we would only make it worse...

Originally Posted by Leftus (Post 12365012)

Normal? By what standard? I don't see it as dangerous.

I do see what the Yale group is trying to accomplish as dangerous.

Originally Posted by Leftus (Post 12365021)

I'm not saying that it is "normal" as I really have no idea what that means in the context of mental health. What I am saying is that having a diagnoses and then forcing the evidence to fit is not the best way to determine the sanity of a person.

Originally Posted by xjx388 (Post 12365371)

And beyond that, it colors everything. Because I’m not just falling in line, accepting these shrink’s opinions, well, I must be a Trumpkin. That’s not the case at all. But it makes it easier to dismiss my arguments, I guess.

Originally Posted by The Norseman (Post 12368210)

That's really too bad. You could ask me next time. After all, our interactions on the rest of the forum kinda point to the opposite; at least from my POV.







If that was the intent, sure. But it wasn't.











This is an assumption on your part and belies the supposed-neutrality you're trying to present.







Isn't that the precise thing you're doing by dismissing a group of people obviously professionally alarmed at the state of our president? Can you not see even one tiny iota of a possibility that they just might be on to something important?









I feel the exact same way which is why I personally had to look beyond what possible benefit I personally may have gotten to seeing how the rest of the nation (and further down, the rest of the world) could benefit from his whomever was to be the next president.



I'm not a Democrat, btw, nor Republican so I'm very comfortable in saying that Obama provided no "hope" nor "change" except getting worse. Hillary might have kept that trajectory but if there was a way that the country could nose-dive even faster, it was Trump at the helm. And he is proving it, every day.











They don't even belong to that profession as has been said a million times that you claim prevents such pronouncements. So if possible ethics violations are your only criticism and you are totally neutral in your view of this topic then why are you fighting so hard in dismissing the reports?











Well, if nothing else, now you know how we feel.











If that's your complain then how about reducing the OTHER qualifications rather than on mental health first?



"Golly! I had to turn away ANOTHER psychotic today because the mental health standards are just too high! Where are we gonna find another guy that has that high of a credit score AND not a mass murderer?"











Because discovering more antisocial and psychopathic people in high government office is a terrible, terrible thing! Who else will have the capacity to not-declare war on the rest of the planet to force "democracy" down their throats?











I think you're gonna have to come up with some pretty solid evidence that this is true if you want some credibility discussing it.











Just like every psychiatrist who signed the letter are doing it purely for partisan reasons because they all hate Trump, right?

Originally Posted by xjx388 (Post 12368301)

All of your fears and criticism of Trump could be ascertained simply by looking at him. I share those fears -to some extent anyway. However, I see no value in elevating the same kind of criticism that a lot of America is engaging in to some kind of authoritative criticism. We gain nothing by such “professional criticism “ and have a lot to lose. With this precedent, I’m sure we will come to a point when the “professional criticism” applies to a non-GOP candidate. We’ll just have to see if there is some consistency at that point...

Originally Posted by xjx388 (Post 12367980)

The point was that the longevity of a thread says nothing about the validity of the woo in question. In this case, the specific woo is "distant diagnosis." There are parallels between the kinds of arguments made in support of "distant diagnosis" and the arguments made in support of stuff like stage hypnosis, psychics, aliens, etc.

-Look, here are a bunch of experts that agree!
-I myself am an expert and I'm telling you it's real!
-This is just obvious stuff!
-Why are you so dogmatic in your support of science?

Stuff like that can go on forever . . .

Originally Posted by Skeptic Ginger (Post 12368306)

If you recognize Trump has serious problems, and you yourself are not a clinician, why on Earth are you criticizing people who are clinicians?

You can believe their assessments lack any practical or other value. But why do you feel the need to judge said clinicians when you know you lack said clinician skills?

Originally Posted by WilliamSeger (Post 12368307)

In other words, your attempt at an analogy bears no resemblance to this thread. You keep appealing to secret science that you assume exists somewhere but can't produce, while dismissing out of hand experts and studies that say your position is not scientifically founded. If what you're asserting were true, one would expect that the profession would police itself and shred the Yale group on scientific grounds, and I wouldn't think it should be so hard to find that criticism.

Yes, stuff like this can go on forever. Suit yourself, but the "woo in question" is yours.

Originally Posted by xjx388 (Post 12368811)

Psychiatry and psychology should not be weaponized; history has already shown us the harm that comes from that.

Originally Posted by xjx388 (Post 12368811)

.....
In the area of mental health, clinicians' primary responsibility is to help people who have mental illness to feel better and live more productive lives.
.....

Originally Posted by xjx388 (Post 12368824)

The profession has shredded the Yale group . . .but in the way the profession handles such things. You can find plenty of equally prominent psychiatrists and psychologists speaking out against the Yale group's actions.

Look, in the end, this is something the profession itself has to sort out. There are complex issues involved and none of us here are qualified to really argue them. What I'm really saying, in the end, is that until the profession sorts this all out, it's inappropriate to break clear ethical codes and standards of practice.

Originally Posted by xjx388 (Post 12368811)

Excellent questions. I'm going to try to answer without repeating myself too much. Forget ethics codes; forget science (not that those aren't important, but I've made my arguments in regards to that). Medicine is a healing profession. In the area of mental health, clinicians' primary responsibility is to help people who have mental illness to feel better and live more productive lives. In order to do that, patients need to trust that they aren't going to be judged -that's a huge barrier to people seeking help from the mental health professions. When prominent clinicians use mental illness labels in the media in order to say that "The President is dangerously mentally ill; remove him from office," that is the exact kind of stigma that people are seeking to avoid. It only serves to perpetuate the negative stereotypes of "dangerous mental illness." In other words, it only serves to hinder the primary aim of the profession: to help people feel better.

Psychiatry and psychology should not be weaponized; history has already shown us the harm that comes from that.

Originally Posted by LSSBB (Post 12368835)

Assumes that they are employing the technique as a weapon, and not out of genuine concern for the future of America.

Originally Posted by xjx388 (Post 12368824)

The profession has shredded the Yale group . . .but in the way the profession handles such things. You can find plenty of equally prominent psychiatrists and psychologists speaking out against the Yale group's actions.

Look, in the end, this is something the profession itself has to sort out. There are complex issues involved and none of us here are qualified to really argue them. What I'm really saying, in the end, is that until the profession sorts this all out, it's inappropriate to break clear ethical codes and standards of practice.

Originally Posted by WilliamSeger (Post 12368910)

Where are these "equally prominent psychiatrists and psychologists speaking out against the Yale group's actions" on scientific grounds, rather than ethical or political grounds, please?

Originally Posted by xjx388 (Post 12368901)

"Using psychiatry/psychology as a weapon," is a specific action: using mental illness diagnostic labels in order to discredit someone; character assassination, IOW. Someone might employ that weapon out of concern, sure.

My issue is not so much with the motivations of the psychs involved but whether or not such weaponization of mental health professions is appropriate, no matter the justification.

Originally Posted by xjx388 (Post 12368966)

Nobody is arguing this on scientific grounds. I think they are being very careful not to bring the science into it because, as the studies you linked to point out, it seems the foundation of psychiatric evaluation is on pretty shaky ground as it is. There are plenty of pieces about the ethical dilemma, which is important also, but I can't find a single source defending the science of an in-person exam. At the same time, I can't find a single source that defends the science of distant diagnosis.
I will drop it but in doing so, I do have to point out that if the foundation of the profession -evaluating someone for mental illness- has such little support in science, then how can we be sure that any of it has any support at all?

ETA: I should also point out that if lack of scientific support for in-person exams renders it useless, then the exact same thing can be said for distant diagnosis.

Originally Posted by Skeptic Ginger (Post 12369098)

My my my, your expertise in the field of psychiatry is growing by the post.

Originally Posted by xjx388 (Post 12369102)

If you are saying I'm wrong, you are, of course free to show the science backing up distant diagnosis.

Originally Posted by Skeptic Ginger (Post 12369119)

We're on page 11, I've not seen you post any scientific citations yet. You assert that the APA and whomever must have scientific evidence to back up their positions. That is not evidence.