There has been a lot of surprisingly serious discussion about President Trump's mental health — one congressman, Rep. Ted Lieu (D-Calif.), says he will introduce legislation requiring a psychiatrist at the White House, along with the White House physician. Mental health professionals have even disregarded ethical guidelines against diagnosing somebody from afar for Trump, including a group that wrote a letter to The New York Times published Wednesday, suggesting that Trump is psychologically incapable of being president.
Dr. Allen Frances, professor emeritus of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Duke University Medical College, lightly scolded his colleagues for their New York Times letter in his own Valentine's Day letter to The Times, and he shot down the usual mental malady attributed to Trump. "Most amateur diagnosticians have mislabeled President Trump with the diagnosis of narcissistic personality disorder," he wrote. "I wrote the criteria that define this disorder, and Mr. Trump doesn't meet them." Frances was chairman of the group that wrote the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders IV, or psychiatry's "bible," so he isn't exaggerating. But if it sounds like he is standing up for Trump, he quickly dispelled that notion:
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