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Mary Trump's Book

theprestige said:
Huh. You don't just assume that anyone who voted for Trump has a fetish for unearned confidence?
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I never assume anything about anyone. You know what they say about assumption, I assume. I don't know myself, but I reference it frequently. And giggle in a knowing manner.
 
Bob001 said:
She has observed him extensively and intimately for decades, and she has the education and training to understand and interpret what she sees. She's not treating a patient. She's sharing her knowledge with the community she lives in.

It continues to astonish that you claim that laypeople aren't qualified to assess Trump's fitness, and then that people who are fully qualified should keep their mouths shut. When the Emperor is dancing down the street drunk and naked, who gets to say so?
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Would you agree that clinicians who are closely related to a subject should not practice their clinical judgement on those people? Like, my wife should not be my doctor or prescribe medications for me. Or that cousin who I had a falling out with -and also happens to be a clinical psychologist- maybe shouldn't psychoanalyze me.
 
xjx388 said:
Would you agree that clinicians who are closely related to a subject should not practice their clinical judgement on those people? Like, my wife should not be my doctor or prescribe medications for me. Or that cousin who I had a falling out with -and also happens to be a clinical psychologist- maybe shouldn't psychoanalyze me.
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No, actually I wouldn't. If you thought your chest pains were indigestion and your wife thought they were symptoms of a heart attack, I would expect her to get you to a hospital. If your cousin observed you to display erratic and abusive behavior, I hope he would formally object to you adopting a child or taking on a public service job.

It just doesn't make any sense to claim professionals can't use their expert knowledge to interpret and report what they see in front of them.
 
Bob001 said:
No, actually I wouldn't. If you thought your chest pains were indigestion and your wife thought they were symptoms of a heart attack, I would expect her to get you to a hospital. If your cousin observed you to display erratic and abusive behavior, I hope he would formally object to you adopting a child or taking on a public service job.

It just doesn't make any sense to claim professionals can't use their expert knowledge to interpret and report what they see in front of them.
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In an emergency, yeah, my wife should treat me if she’s the only one around. But that’s not what I asked and that’s not what’s happening here. We have an estranged niece, axe to grind.

My cousin who hates me should not be my psychologist. Would you agree with that?

Actually, it doesn’t matter if you agree or not. It’s against Board rules for family members to treat family. It’s also against ethical rules. The inherent biases for or against a person clouds professional judgement.

My point is that yup, that’s the way a lot of people on this forum think mental health diagnosis should work.
 
Belz... said:
What do you mean "me"? I haven't said anything about this issue. I've clarified what theprestige is saying and why.
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You said this:
Theprestige is right. He's saying that placing your title on a book when that title is irrelevant to the topic of said book is silly.
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We don't know if said credentials were relevant or not because the book wasn't out yet.
 
xjx388 said:
A family member who does not like Donald Trump -who has an axe to grind because of the way DJT treated her father- and happens to be a clinical psychologist will have something authoritative to say about his mental state. Yup, that is perfectly consistent with the way SG and many others think mental health should be practiced.
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So you've read the book then? :rolleyes:
 
Skeptic Ginger said:
So you've read the book then? :rolleyes:
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No, I haven’t. But you said that you might be looking for confirmation of the “Trump is mentally ill,” thread.

You’d agree that Mary Trump, estranged niece of DJT, is not in a position to confirm anything regarding his mental illness?
 
xjx388 said:
No, I haven’t. But you said that you might be looking for confirmation of the “Trump is mentally ill,” thread.

You’d agree that Mary Trump, estranged niece of DJT, is not in a position to confirm anything regarding his mental illness?
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Why would he agree to that?
 
xjx388 said:
.....
My point is that yup, that’s the way a lot of people on this forum think mental health diagnosis should work.
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You insist on confusing diagnosis and treatment. Treatment requires a specific kind of therapeutic relationship that includes a variety of restrictions. Diagnosis is part of treatment, but diagnosis alone means interpreting observable facts in light of expert knowledge and experience. There's no good reason why Mary Trump or the Yale psychiatrists or anyone else can't say "here's what we see in front of us, and in our opinion here's what it means."

They are not treating a patient, any more than a forensic psychiatrist who decides whether a criminal is fit to be executed is treating his "patient." They are serving their community. The community is entitled to know and understand as much as we can about our most powerful public official, especially when his obvious psychiatric disabilities influence his policy judgments.
 
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Bob001 said:
You insist on confusing diagnosis and treatment. Treatment requires a specific kind of therapeutic relationship that includes a variety of restrictions. Diagnosis is part of treatment, but diagnosis alone means interpreting observable facts in light of expert knowledge and experience. There's no good reason why Mary Trump or the Yale psychiatrists or anyone else can't say "here's what we see in front of us, and in our opinion here's what it means."

They are not treating a patient, any more than a forensic psychiatrist who decides whether a criminal is fit to be executed is treating his "patient." They are serving their community. The community is entitled to know and understand as much as we can about our most powerful public official, especially when his obvious psychiatric disabilities influence his policy judgments.
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I’m not confusing anything. A clinician who has a bias against a subject should not be diagnosing or treating that subject. Biases cloud judgement.

It’s hard to think of a clinician who is less qualified, on that basis, to diagnose Donald Trump.

The fact that I’m getting push back on that plain fact says everything that needs to be said.
 
"I’m not confusing anything. A clinician who has a bias against a subject should not be diagnosing or treating that subject."

You just contradicted your first sentence with the second.
 
Susheel said:
"I’m not confusing anything. A clinician who has a bias against a subject should not be diagnosing or treating that subject."

You just contradicted your first sentence with the second.
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Nope, there's no contradiction there.

You are separating diagnosis from treatment; however, both require clinical objectivity which a close relationship threatens. Perhaps a more succinct statement is this: A clinician who has a bias for or against a subject should not be practicing medicine on that subject.

Now, this is completely uncontroversial in medicine. The fact that the idea gets so much flack here, I put down to seeking confirmation of personal biases. If Mary Trump says he's dangerously mentally ill, well by golly, she knows him so she has to be right, right?

ETA: Having not read the book, I would bet that Mary Trump will not directly diagnose Donald Trump even if she skirts around the issue. I would expect her to start with a disclaimer about her lack of objectivity and that she isn't diagnosing anything.
 
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This statement from the book, should tell us all we need to know about Mary Trump's objectivity:

Mary Trump has a simple reason for writing this book.
"Donald, following the lead of my grandfather and with the complicity, silence and inaction of his siblings, destroyed my father. I can’t let him destroy my country.”
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Now, I am NOT saying that she is wrong in her feelings. I think they are well justified from her POV. What I am saying is that those feelings cloud clinical judgement and therefore, you won't find any confirmation of DJT's mental illness in the pages of her book.
 
Skeptic Ginger said:
So you've read the book then? : rolleyes :
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I don't need to read the book to know it's being published as a lay biography, not as an academic work.

You seem pretty committed to the idea that this biography could contain medical scholarship. Do you find that happens a lot, in the biographies you read?

Don't get me wrong. I agree that biographies very often contain a lot of scholarship. Only, it tends to be in the field of history, for obvious reasons. Or journalism, for contemporary subjects.

You'd think there'd be more hype, for this book being one of the rare breed of medical biographies.
 
theprestige said:
I don't need to read the book to know it's being published as a lay biography, not as an academic work.
You seem pretty committed to the idea that this biography could contain medical scholarship. Do you find that happens a lot, in the biographies you read?

Don't get me wrong. I agree that biographies very often contain a lot of scholarship. Only, it tends to be in the field of history, for obvious reasons. Or journalism, for contemporary subjects.

You'd think there'd be more hype, for this book being one of the rare breed of medical biographies.
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So you don't read any autobiographies unless they are written by professional biographers? That must restrict your reading list a bit. :confused:
 
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