[pachyderm]

"...people can and must judge one another -- for example, when they vote, or choose a doctor, or choose a friend. A first answer to the question, "Is there something potentially dangerous about professional judgments of personality?" is that, yes, it can involve some injury or danger. The target of the judgment is another person who likely cares about how he or she is judged. That does not, however, make the judgment necessarily bad.

"Judgments openly made by professionals teach about agreements and disagreements in the field and potentially help to guide the public..."

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/...inherently-bad

[Perna]

Yeah, and McGovern/Eagleton. . . Can't have bipolar depressed people as Vice President, we need those more educated, smarter, good spellers like Dan Quayle.

[madisgram]

jme but i feel that mental health professionals need to be cautious about assessing individuals they do not have as clients/patients. (course the hippa act would squelch that now.)their interpretation of the person's psyche based on general observation can be misleading at best.

as for re ms.dowd, i think ppl will go with whomever's opinion agrees with theirs. it's common nature but can result in a dangerous prescedent. awww i can't spell today. there are way too many opinions and not enough facts being spewed out daily to the population at large. news networks come to mind.

on the other hand, it would have been most helpful had a bunch of'em (mental health folks)expressed their viewpoint on hitler to the press when he appeared on the political scene.