On Tuesday, STAT magazine leaked an email that the American Psychoanalytic Association sent to members clarifying that it "does not consider political commentary by its individual members an ethical matter." The document has been seen as permission to speculate about President Donald Trump's mental health and a rebuke of the American Psychiatric Association's 1973 "Goldwater Rule," which prohibits that separate organization's members from making such judgments about individuals they haven't personally evaluated — a rule for which the organization reaffirmed its support in March of 2017.
While Trump is already in office, the rule was actually a response to unscientific speculation about whether a Republican presidential candidate was up to the job in the first place — which led to a high-profile lawsuit.
When Arizona Senator Barry Goldwater ran for president in 1964, a damning May 1964 Good Housekeeping feature came out—and a Dec. 1959 Pageant magazine resurfaced—both alleging that Goldwater's wife and other family members said he had suffered two nervous breakdowns from burnout, or "overwork" in the 1930s. Goldwater's mental health was a talking point in the election, thanks to his drastic stance on nuclear weapons — he said the U.S. should "lob one into the men’s room at the Kremlin," and suggested giving NATO field commanders more discretion about when to use them. Such comments inspired the famous "Daisy" ad, as well as a parody of his "In your heart, you know he's right" slogan: "In your guts, you know he's nuts."
And, about a month before the 1964 presidential election, a special issue of the now-defunct Fact magazine came out, boasting the cover line, "1,189 PSYCHIATRISTS SAY GOLDWATER IS PSYCHOLOGICALLY UNFIT TO BE PRESIDENT!" (Ads for the issue also appeared in the New York Times, Philadelphia Inquirer and San Francisco News-Call Bulletin.)
That number came from a survey in which the magazine’s publisher, Ralph Ginzburg, had asked 12,356 psychiatrists one question: “Do you believe Barry Goldwater is psychologically fit to serve as President of the United States?”
He got 2,417 responses, in which 657 thought he was fit, and 571 wouldn’t take a position. Two-thirds were willing to have their names printed alongside their responses, such as Dr. Randolph Leigh Jr. of Cincinnati who thought that Goldwater’s “public utterances strongly suggest the megalomania of a paranoid personality.”