OPINION:
Yale psychiatrist Bandy X. Lee, in an interview with Salon, called on House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to “submit” President Donald Trump “to an involuntary evaluation” — giving Americans, in one fell swoop, one big weighty reason to regard the entire field of mental health therapy with at least a modicum of suspicion.
Another reason is that psychiatrists, since Donald Trump’s political rise, have been diagnosing him long-distance as unfit for office.
Anther reason is that dozens of psychiatrists and mental health experts banded together to pen a book, with Lee, about the supposed dangers of a Donald Trump presidency.
Another reason — well, you get the picture. Lee’s just taking the reputation of therapists as infected with Trump Derangement Syndrome and running with it.
“As a coworker,” Lee said to Salon, of the Pelosi-Trump relationship, “she has the right to have him submit to an involuntary evaluation, but she has not. Anyone can call 911 to report someone who seems dangerous, and family members are the most typical ones to do so. But so can coworkers, and even passersby on the street. The law dictates who can determine right to treatment, or civil commitment, and in all 50 U.S. states this includes a psychiatrist.”
Lee then went on to say that Pelosi’s delay in sending the articles of impeachment to the Senate could very well lead to — get this — Trump’s mental breakdown.
“I am beginning to believe that a mental health hold, which we have tried to avoid, will become inevitable,” Lee told Salon.
Oh. My. Gosh.
Lee’s the face of a Captain Crunch cereal box prize college degree.
Where does she get her diagnosis?
From reading Trump’s six-page letter to Pelosi and from his Twitter feed.
“I started ’translating’ Trump’s tweets as a public service sometime in the summer,” she said, “because I could see his negative influence as he tries to reform others’ thoughts. … [Insert dribble here] … [Insert psycho-babble here] … [Blah blah, blah blah blah] … [Trump sucks, I hate Trump, Trump is eeevil] … Some people will dispute the ethics of disclosing what I see, and my response is: danger.”
And not the silly old Will Robinson kind. The stranger kind. The really, weally, scawwy stranger danger kind.
“We are legally bound to break patient confidentiality for safety reasons,” Lee said in Salon, “and a president is not even a patient.”
Lee is one of those psychiatrists who would fiddle around with the brains of mentally disabled children, cutting here to see what would happen, shocking there to see the reaction, if only those dastardly Republicans and Christians — spit, spit — with their freaking ethics and morals would let her.
And she’d do it with or without anesthetic.
And she’d do it all the while expecting gratitude for the sufferings she endured in the name of science that came by way of the loud, painful, pesky, cries of her patients. Her ears; her poor ears!
Not saying she’s heartless. That would be difficult, after all, to diagnose long-distance.
Just saying: by all appearances, if appearances mean anything, if looks aren’t deceiving — the woman is bad for business.
Lee is a terrible face and voice for the field of psychiatry.
• Cheryl Chumley can be reached at cchumley@washingtontimes.com or on Twitter, @ckchumley. Listen to her podcast “Bold and Blunt” by clicking HERE. And never miss her column; subscribe to her newsletter by clicking HERE.
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