Psychologists turning on Donald Trump

Barred since the 1960s from analysing public figures they have not treated, mental health professionals are breaching ethics to speak out about the Republican candidate, says Seth Borenstein

AMATEUR psychoanalysts have put Donald Trump on the couch, calling him a sociopath, unhinged, a narcissist. But one group of people isn’t talking as much: the professionals.

Ethics dictate that psychiatrists and psychologists avoid publicly analysing or diagnosing someone they have never examined, but there is a new, vocal dissension against this gag rule, because of what some of them think they hear and see in Trump. The result is a juggling act of propriety, politics, and ethics.