Mystery surrounds the identity of a psychiatrist friendly with the liberals who provided the Abbott election strategy team with a “crucial weapon in psychological warfare” by diagnosing then Prime Minister Kevin Rudd with Grandiose Narcissism.
This tidy bit of “psychobabble” used in the service of partisan political machinations is a clear misuse of power and a betrayal of the psychiatric profession, says one expert in ethics and psychiatry, suggesting Mr Rudd has grounds to bring the doctor before the Medical Board of Australia.
As the dust settles after the federal election, the news that a psychiatrist produced a psychological dirt sheet to help bring down a sitting prime minister has angered many Australian psychiatrists.
The document given to the liberal strategy team on an informal basis, but not shown to then Opposition Leader Tony Abbott, offered a “snapshot of the enemy” by linking symptoms and behavioural patterns of a personality disorder to Rudd’s own personality and proposing tactics to undo their political rival, according to the report in the Australian Financial Review.
“Rudd was held together by one key strut: an absolute conviction of intellectual superiority over everyone else. ‘Kick out the strut and he will collapse’,” read the document leaked to the AFR’s Pamela Williams.
The article was published after the election that saw the Coalition roundly beat Labor to form a new federal government, but news stories laced with the same psychiatric rhetoric popped up in the News Ltd press during the weeks leading up to election, hinting that the document may have been leaked to the media beforehand.
“It’s a misuse of power,” said Clinical Associate Professor Michael Robertson at the Centre for Values, Ethics and Law in Medicine, University of Sydney.
“Using psychiatric opinion for a partisan political process steps well beyond the core role of psychiatrists, which is using your clinical expertise for the recognition and treatment of mental illness,” he said.
But does Rudd have grounds to complain to the Medical Board of Australia?
“Yes, there are grounds for a complaint of professional misconduct,” Dr Robertson said.
“I don’t think the test of professional conduct regarding using one’s skills and knowledge for a common good could be met by someone providing a psychiatric diagnosis to the Liberal Party in order to traduce a public figure for political expediency,” he said.
The RANZCP’s code of ethics states “psychiatrists shall not misuse their professional knowledge and skills”. Though vague, Dr Robertson argues the psychiatrist in question is in breach of the code.
“It comes down to professional ethics that defines our profession as a group possessed of a certain set of skill and knowledge who are given status and autonomy because we use those skills for the common good. This psychiatrist was not using it for good so by definition it is unprofessional,” he said.
The code of ethics also states that psychiatrists shall uphold the integrity of the medical profession.
“But the “psychobabble” used to label Rudd a “grandiose narcissist” does just that - “trivialising and diminishing the profession through facile, unnecessary and inappropriate commentary, Dr Robertson said. The Goldwater Rule: psychiatry meddling in politics
The case has shades of a curious chapter in US politics where more than 20,000 psychiatrists were asked by a magazine if they thought the 1964 presidential candidate Senator Barry Goldwater was psychologically fit to be president.
The vast majority of those who responded agreed Goldwater was psychiatrically unsuitable to be president and Goldwater successfully sued the publication after he lost the presidential race, claiming “political bias ... wrapped up in pseudo-technical flagellation”.
In its wake, the Goldwater Rule, established by the American Psychiatric Association, stipulates it is unethical for a psychiatrist to offer a professional opinion about a public figure without having conducted a proper examination and unless granted the proper authorisation.
“The Goldwater rule serves as a foil to psychiatrists’ misusing their power for personal or political ends,” writes University of Sydney psychiatrists Clinical Associate Professor Michael Robertson and Professor Garry Walter in their new book ‘A New Ethics for Psychiatry: the patients, the profession and the community’. Psychobabble and arm’s length psychiatry
“It gives us all a bad name,” said one psychiatrist on Twitter in response to queries about the identity of the Australian psychiatrist friendly with the liberals.
“It does the profession no credit,” said another, “but a handful couldn’t resist agreeing with the author of the dirt sheet, suggesting it didn’t take a formal clinical assessment to diagnose the former prime minister with a personality disorder. The exchange hints at a broader issue.
Arm’s-length diagnoses by psychiatrists pepper media reports about public fingers of all stripes. In the past few years we’ve seen Silvio Berlusconi and Dominique Strauss Kahn diagnosed with sex addiction, Anders Behring Breivik with psychopathy, the Aurora massacre killer with psychosis and Amanda Bynes with what seems like half the disorders in the DSM-5.
“It trivialises and politicises the profession which is already struggling for credibility,” Dr Robertson said.
“We continually see psychiatrists in the media prosecuting a particular political agenda.”
But there is a distinct difference between a psychiatrist “loading the gun” for a political campaign and advocating for a cause in a politically charged public debate, he argues.
Australian psychiatrists have led the charge along a number of political battlelines, from so-called “rock star” psychiatrists Professors Patrick McGorry and Ian Hickie championing early intervention, psychiatrists signing a senate inquiry submission by “Doctors for the Family” decrying the mental health effects marriage equality, and the stoush between Dr Doron Samuell and Professor Louise Newman over asylum seekers held in mandatory detention.
“We have a fairly robust method to criticise this behaviour,’ said Dr Robertson.
Its a method that hinges on two questions: Are these psychiatrists serving a political or personal agenda? Or does the evidence support their decision to expose the psychologically damaging effects of public policy?
