Since the election of President Trump in 2016 psychiatrists have come forward violating The Goldwater Rule, not personally interviewing the president, and diagnosing him as having a mental disorder. Given this, the first question an intelligent, free-thinking individual must ask himself/herself is, "Is psychiatry really science?"

The problem psychiatry suffers from is it relies on subjective views of psychology to make a diagnosis. There are 300 mental disorders outlined in the Psychiatric Association's Fifth Edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. These disorders are based on subjective opinions and none are based on objective data drawn from double-blind, placebo-controlled studies. There are no biological tests substantiating that these so-called conditions exist. Lacking independent diagnostic tests, testable hypotheses, and cures for mental disorder; psychiatrists cannot accurately and reliably predict dangerousness, violence, or any other type of human behavior. In the absence of biological test, psychiatrists have proclaimed themselves "expert witnesses" in this pseudo-science. Conspiring with the media, they push the myth of the "dangerous mental patient" stereotype.

Because they voted for the president, a psychiatrist has determined that 63 million voters have a mental disorder. Think about that for a moment; Americans are mentally disturbed for exercising their civic duty?

Earnest Rutherford, a renowned British physicist, stated that "all science is physics or stamp collecting. Psychiatry seems is at best a stamp-collecting activity. ... Any attempt to manipulate behavior seems about as far from applied science as breeding plants with no concept of genetics."

ELVIS DUNN, Jackson

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Letter to the Editor: The mental disorder theory (11/21/19) - Southeast Missourian