When I mentioned at a symposium today that the American Psychiatric Association (APA), after shutting us down, received windfalls of federal funding and even moved its headquarters to Washington, DC, people were shocked.

Here are its new headquarters:
This was when the Trump administration was massively cutting funds to legitimate science and medicine organizations:
ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/P…
According to the person who sent the picture: “The area is the Wharf. There is an Intercontinental Hotel and a brand new development of very high-level restaurants and shops and bars. So when people in the organization visit from out of town, they can be lavished with perks.”
So why wouldn’t you throw a nation under the bus if the rewards are so handsome for doing an illegitimate president a favor?
@DrJlieberman

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More from @BandyXLee1

23 Jul
“[W]ith the original virus, you would have to be in a closed space within 3 or 4 feet of someone for about 10 minutes to be assured of picking up the infection. With the Delta variant, all you have to be is in contact with them for about one minute.”
al.com/coronavirus/20…
“[I]f you went to your doctor with chest pain. We know what to do for that. We do an EKG. We run some blood tests. This is going to your doctor, except the doctor is a public health official who knows a lot about how epidemics emerge. There isn’t politics in this.”
Same for a mental health pandemic. We know what to do. We apply mental health measures. We study the results. This is going to your doctor, except the doctor is a public mental health expert who knows a lot about how psychic epidemics emerge. There is no politics in this.
Read 6 tweets
7 Jul
I am perhaps the only person to have paid the consequences for breaking “the Goldwater rule.” No member of the APA has been disciplined for breaking it, as far as we know, and no state licensing board is allowed to take it on, as it conflicts with the First Amendment.
Perhaps the most disturbing aspect of the APA was the way it handled debate—or blocked it altogether. When protest letters flooded its ethics committee after its March 2017 opinion, committee members assumed they would be reconvening; no such thing happened.
When its most distinguished life fellows wrote a letter asking for a discussion, the APA refused, stating that a discussion had already been had and there was nothing more to discuss!
Read 7 tweets
6 Jul
We invited Jason Stanley to our major interdisciplinary conferences in 2019 and 2020. Here is a good thread on fascism (combined with the psychological concepts, below, you can have a complete summary of what is happening):
Psychological underpinnings of these political observations:
1. Regression (return to childhood)
2. Delusion (self-deception)
3. Anti-knowledge (denial of reality)
4. Psychotic spiral (further detachment from reality)
5. Domination-submission as the only path to stability
6. Paranoia
7. Projection
8. Lack of insight/self-awareness
9. Envy
10. Idealization of self
Read 4 tweets
1 Jul
When a doctor tells you a large mass is benign, or a small sore is part of metastatic cancer, you feel correspondingly relieved or worried. A doctor’s word has a lot of weight.
If “speak responsibly” were the true goal of “the Goldwater rule,” then it would make a lot of sense. But it was changed nonsensically to suit Donald Trump. t contradicted science. It gagged responsible voices, while elevating irresponsible ones because of the confusion.
How egregious, then, if a psychiatrist not only diagnoses but does so irresponsibly:

Substance Abuse in Donald Trump was eliminated because he “is a teetotaler in reaction to his older brother’s alcoholism.” (Really??)
vice.com/en/article/wjj…
Read 6 tweets
30 Jun
How did the APA force us to violate ethics?
1. In a case of danger, we are supposed to act, not stay silent (in ordinary situations, we could be held legally liable for this).
2. If in any doubt, a mandatory examination was warranted (no exceptions).

We were told to do neither.
What medical ethics support this?
1. The AMA Code tells us we cannot choose to walk away from an emergency. The APA Code tells us we have a responsibility to the public. The Declaration of Geneva prohibits assisting dangerous regimes.
2. A president does not have immunity.
Of note:
1. These are actual laws (and the Declaration of Geneva a worldwide pledge), unlike “the Goldwater rule,” which is an “annotation” and not even policy for the small private association that created it.
2. No immunity holds for both mental health law and natural law.
Read 4 tweets
30 Jun
A friend in Boston said recently: “If [Hillary Clinton] had turned to the fat pig and commanded him to ‘back off, you creep,’ she would have won.”

She is right. When Donald Trump got away with it, it imbued his defects with special powers....
Every time he “got away with it,” his powers grew: his fixation over crowd size, his firing of James Comey, his giving away intelligence to Russian spies, and his “my button is bigger than your button… (to cover only some of the first year).
His deficiencies continued to turn into magical powers, to the point where much of the nation literally came to adore a naked emperor.
Read 4 tweets

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