<\/a>The candidacy of Donald Trump poses a real question about the mental health of a political figure and who can try to analyze it. His presence on the top of the Republican ticket requires us to ask whether those of us who are not trained in psychology or psychiatry have the right to try to diagnose whatever mental illness that Trump might or might not have. The question of diagnosing even extends to the professionals who spend their days making assessments, but only of patients who they have personally met.<\/p>\n

One of the big questions for those who find Trump\u2019s behavior to be far outside the lines of what we consider normal political conduct is whether or not it is fair to call Trump \u201ccrazy.\u201d Former Congressman Patrick Kennedy recently penned an op-ed<\/a> in the Washington Post tilled, \u201cStop calling Trump \u2018crazy.\u2019 It demeans those with mental illness.\u201d Kennedy says:<\/p>\n

Is Donald Trump experiencing a mental illness?\u00a0That\u2019s one question making the rounds these days. The answer\u00a0is: I don\u2019t know. And\u00a0neither do\u00a0the commentators,\u00a0tweeters and\u00a0psychiatrists \u2014 both licensed and armchair \u2014 who\u2019ve diagnosed him as \u201ccrazy<\/a>,\u201d a \u201cpsychopath<\/a>,\u201d not \u201csane<\/a>,\u201d having \u201cnarcissistic personality disorder<\/a>\u201d and a \u201cscrew loose<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

What I do know is that we ought to stop casually throwing\u00a0around terms like \u201ccrazy\u201d in\u00a0this campaign and our daily lives. The president of the American Psychiatric Association has said<\/a> that even for professionals, these sorts of diagnoses, made from afar, are \u201cunethical\u201d and \u201cirresponsible.\u201d And they only serve to demean and undercut people.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

<\/a>He goes on to state:<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cCrazy\u201d is never uttered with compassion. I have never heard it used in the context of\u00a0trying to get someone the treatment they need. When that language is commonplace, it becomes that much harder for those experiencing mental illness to openly seek treatment that works. It discriminates, in subtle and overt ways, and extends its reach into schools, workplaces and the health-care system, where we still don\u2019t provide routine mental health exams. When we use that word the way we have, we perpetuate the dangerous, \u201cseparate and unequal<\/a>\u201d treatment of these illnesses, and continue to pretend that the brain isn\u2019t part of the body.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Mr. Kennedy\u2019s words are important; they cause us all to stop and think about the risks of being loose with our language about someone\u2019s who\u2019s mental health we might question. But we need to be careful to not become so non-judgmental of public figures that we cannot intelligently discuss a candidate\u2019s fitness for office in areas other than positions on issues or previous experience.<\/p>\n

Even Trump supporters say that he is a candidate unlike any other that we have previously had in American history. He is unpredictable, eccentric, contradictory, confusing, belligerent, insensitive, unapologetic, myopic \u2013 and these are all words that are acceptable to say. At some point we are required as stakeholders in our democracy to assess whether or not this man is fit to be president. If it is off-bounds to evaluate his mental health (and Patrick Kennedy makes a very good argument for this), then we must use other terms. These include his temperament, his wisdom, his critical thinking skills, his social skills, his \u201cgrace under pressure\u201d (a term used by Patrick Kennedy\u2019s uncle, John F. Kennedy, to describe courage).<\/p>\n

It is Republicans who usually rail against being politically correct. Yet somewhat at their insistence, we are discouraged from questioning Trump\u2019s state of mind. Republicans also do not like us wondering whether George W. Bush, Dan Quayle or Sarah Palin had the intelligence to hold the highest office in the land. Yet these are vital questions. If David Halberstam made a sound case in his book The Best and the Brightest<\/a> that at one particular time in our history those who seemed to be the smartest among us failed keeping the U.S. out of a preventable war in the 1960s, it does not mean that we cannot question the mental and psychological bona fides<\/em> of candidates for office.<\/p>\n

Patrick Kennedy is certainly right that it is not for us to make diagnoses or to use pejorative terms like \u201ccrazy.\u201d However, we must retain the freedom to state that someone is not intellectually or temperamentally fit to be in office. If someone asks us \u201cwhy,\u201d we don\u2019t have to respond with a diagnosis. We simply need to point out the behavior that raises our concerns. Fortunately, Mr. Trump has made that easy for us.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The candidacy of Donald Trump poses a real question about the mental health of a political figure and who can try to analyze it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2119,162,1683,16,1929],"tags":[2459,1610,2720],"yoast_head":"\n