On November 29, 2016, three distinguished Professors of Psychiatry from Harvard and The University of California decided to defy “The Goldwater Rule”, publicly diagnose Donald Trump and to warn President Obama and the country about what they saw as his severe personality disorders and mental incapacities.
They shared their letter with me and I posted it in an article here in The Huffington Post, "Is Donald Trump Mentally Ill? 3 Professors Of Psychiatry Ask President Obama To Conduct ‘A Full Medical And Neuropsychiatric Evaluation’"
Yesterday these three professors and two additional professors from Yale and Columbia University felt the need to inform The United States Congress that “The signs of the president's unraveling are stark” and that “The power of the presidency has accentuated Mr. Trump’s failings with devastating effects”.
They urge Congress to “invoke the Constitutional provisions to remove him from office.”
They shared this letter with me and I post it here.
July 11, 2017
To Members of the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives:
Since the election of 2016, each of us has warned against President Trump’s alarming psychological instability, which has been apparent in his repeated failures to distinguish between reality and fantasy and his erratic responses to stress and crisis. We were also concerned about his tendency to become enraged at the slightest criticism. See: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/richard-greene/is-donald-trump-mentally_b_13693174.html
The signs of the president's unraveling are stark, and they are contributing to his inability to govern: his failure to guard against hacking of our elections and related threats to national security, his decimation of the State Department and other vital government agencies, his irrational, unilateral withdrawal from the world’s commitment to prevent catastrophic climate change, his intemperate exploitation of the presidency to enrich himself and his family, his unremitting threats against a free press, his vitriolic verbal assaults against anyone (especially any woman) who questions his actions or state of mind, and his imposition of false narratives whenever the truth casts him in a bad light.
The power of the presidency has accentuated Mr. Trump's failings with devastating effects. His psychological isolation – including his tenuous relationship to reality – has led to the dangerous isolation of the United States from the rest of the world.
Our Constitution has provisions for removing any president who is unable to discharge the duties of office. For the sake of our country and the world, we urge our elected representatives to summon their courage so that lawful steps can be taken to end the Trump presidency.
Judith L. Herman, M.D., Professor of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School
Robert Jay Lifton, M.D., Professor Emeritus, CUNY, and Lecturer in Psychiatry, Columbia University
Nanette Gartrell, M.D., Associate Clinical Professor of Psychiatry, University of California San Francisco (1988-2011)
Dee Mosbacher, M.D., Ph.D., Assistant Clinical Professor, Department of Community Health Systems, University of California, San Francisco (2005-2013)
Bandy X. Lee, M.D., M.Div., Assistant Clinical Professor of Psychiatry, Yale School of Medicine.
Contributors to forthcoming book, The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump