President Trump:Diagnosis and, if Necessary Therapy: Doing it Ethically

An excellent article written by physician-ethicist  Joseph J. Fins inHarvard Medical Journal  and it is my reading that he suggests when it comes to the psychiatric fitness of Donald Trump to be the United States President, it should not be a psychiatric diagnosis (such as " sociopathy " ) from afar but should be the education of the public in a clinical non-partisan fashion by the psychiatrists of the symptoms of disease and it will be the public and their government to prescribe and carry out the appropriate treatment. In Dr. Fin ' s words:In the context of the president ’s personality, it is not an outright diagnosis that is needed per se but a public appreciation of what sociopathy is that can help inform a response. Medical diagnosis demands a high evidentiary standard. In the public sphere, mere knowledge of what sociopathy entails may enable the requisite sci entific literacy for the citizenry to decide if observed behaviors fit a discernable pattern of psychiatric diagnosis that has a bearing on an ability to govern. This knowledge is especially important in sociopathy, which by its nature can obscure and seduce the observer. Human nature is drawn to so ciopathy and vulnerable to its charm. Public awareness of sociopathy’s existence and nature is thus vital to deliberative democracy. This knowledge becomes a component of basic scientific literacy for deliberative democracy. Having said this, this knowledge need not require understandi...
Source: Bioethics Discussion Blog - Category: Medical Ethics Source Type: blogs