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In a recent piece in the Huffington Post (September 29, 2017), Dr. Lloyd Sederer, chief medical officer of the New York State Office of Mental Health, wrote,
Psychiatrists are trained to observe and report on human behavior. Some are very good at it, as are journalists, fiction and non-fiction writers, and many others. Psychiatrists … can thoughtfully comment on behaviors observed in person or through media channels. A vocal public debate on what we see and hear is a great privilege we enjoy in this country. But that is not the same as offering a diagnosis. Not only is there little (or anything) to be gained from offering a diagnosis, it can undermine the credibility of the author who is looking from a distance, and, once again, it generally is not a reliable predictor of capacity and functioning.
This, of course, takes us back to the now hotly debated Goldwater Rule, which was not the focus of the special event held at the New York Psychoanalytic Society and Institute (NYPSI) on October 24, 2017. Rather, the focus of the event was the political dynamics of populism and what might be learned from a distinctly psychoanalytic perspective on populist leaders in general and those they set out to lead.
Why, then, cite Dr. Sederer's comment? In part, because of the growing number of books with titles like Twilight of American Sanity (Frances, 2017); The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump: 27 Psychiatrists and Mental Health Experts Assess a President (Lee, 2017); and Theresa May Ruin
Us: A Look at Theresa May and Her Dangerous Politics (Wilcox, 2017). In part, because people in the United States, the UK, and other nations are seeking to understand—often by the application of diagnostic labels—the tidal wave of change that has swept over much of the world. Drs. Coline Covington and Leon Hoffman were invited to NYPSI not to consider the psyche of any individual, but to consider the sense of vulnerability that may be lodged deeply within a given group, and the role played by the