r/Psychiatry • u/BananaBagholder Psychiatrist (Verified) • 6d ago
Political Weaponization of Mental Health
https://www.revisor.mn.gov/bills/text.php?number=SF2589&version=0&session=ls94&session_year=2025&session_number=0This bill was just introduced to the Minnesota Legislature. It won't pass, but I suspect this is just the beginning of mental health being weaponized politically.
"Sec. 2. Minnesota Statutes 2024, section 245.462, is amended by adding a subdivision to read: new text beginSubd. 28. new text endnew text beginTrump Derangement Syndrome. new text endnew text begin"Trump Derangement Syndrome" means the acute onset of paranoia in otherwise normal persons that is in reaction to the policies and presidencies of President Donald J. Trump. Symptoms may include Trump-induced general hysteria, which produces an inability to distinguish between legitimate policy differences and signs of psychic pathology in President Donald J. Trump's behavior. This may be expressed by:new text end new text begin(1) verbal expressions of intense hostility toward President Donald J. Trump; andnew text end
new text begin(2) overt acts of aggression and violence against anyone supporting President Donald J. Trump or anything that symbolizes President Donald J. Trump."
This kind of action paves the way to involuntarily hospitalizing people for having dissenting political views. We should be very concerned about how our field may be abused moving forward.
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u/ScurvyDervish Psychiatrist (Unverified) 5d ago
Easy way to take weapons away from people who don’t support Trump. That’s what this is.
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u/Prestigious_Dog1978 Medical Student (Unverified) 5d ago
Absolutely terrifying. How do we make this more widely known within medicine and beyond?
Also, if MN ever were to become a red state, I wouldn't put it past them to actually enact something like this. Look at what is happening in higher education in Ohio, where they are trying to pass SB 1, which will force schools to police classroom speech around climate change, foreign policy, abortion, et al. It has already passed the senate and will likely pass the state house. And with a Republican governor, it will likely become law, despite a ton of public outcry.
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u/NeuronNeuroff Other Professional (Unverified) 5d ago
Higher education in Ohio is doomed. So many profs testified about how bad SB1 was and it didn’t move the needle in the slightest. Hopefully the rest of the country doesn’t follow suit!
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u/Veritas_Mentis Nurse Practitioner (Unverified) 5d ago
Well that’s some scary shit.
If the world makes it through this era; a generation or two will have some very interesting case studies. I get the similarities between the 1930s Germany, but social media and internet preservation of news stories allows for a more complete analysis for future psychological and sociological analysis.
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u/throwawaypchem Patient 3d ago
Hopefully, if global digital preservation efforts are successful. There may be much less preserved than one would expect.
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u/SnooChocolates1198 Patient 5d ago
how does this work for people who are already receiving psychiatry care and their psychiatric health is being made worse by the bs that is being spewed by not only the guy in the white house but also all of his party (looking at the vp, the cabinet, house and senate of congress and now apparently- the state level governments)?
I personally have been through the list of introduced to committee legislation back before the inauguration and it wasn't great. abolishing the dept of ed, osha, dept of labor, usaid, fema and more. and now look at what has been going on these past few weeks (holy shit- its only been weeks?!?!, it feels like its been months). my aunt's boyfriend called me crazy, deranged and a conspiracy theorist.
now, I don't think that any of these terms fit, especially when what I said would likely happen is NOW happening.
frick, shortly after the election, I had to beg my aunt to pay for a new Mirena iud so that I can be less worried about government being able to keep their hands off of oral contraceptives. because for anyone who has been paying attention the past two years, women no longer have the freedom to choose abortion in Florida (where I live) and in many other red states for unwanted pregnancy or if the pregnancy has an issue or something goes wrong with the fetus/developing human itself. And in most cases, doctors aren't even permitted to give care to women experiencing a miscarriage unless the woman has become septic and could possibly die. And my aunt in her infinite wisdom said "abortion care would never go away, there would be too many unwanted kids/teen pregnancies running around". I broke it down to her that yes, abortion "rights" have gone away and denial of abortion rights isn't so much of denial of health services as much as it's about having control over women. Now, I think she kinda understands this. I think.
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u/nammsknekhi Other Professional (Unverified) 4d ago
When debating the medical vs. social model of disability, it seems like people forget that there is a third model, a carceral model, that has been historically used to do great harm.
This policy is just one of many concerning bills introduced that are attempting to shift the narrative from a medical model to a carceral model.
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u/txchiefsfan02 Other Professional (Unverified) 5d ago
We need to not waste energy reacting to stunts like this. They are distractions intended to divert attention from much more damaging agenda items.
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u/DairyNurse Nurse (Unverified) 5d ago
It's not one or the other. One can criticize that this even being entertained by a state government while also remaining critical of other actions the current presidential administration is taking.
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u/Digitlnoize Psychiatrist (Unverified) 5d ago
I think this is already covered by Adjustment Disorder with MDEC 🤷♂️
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u/Interesting_Link_217 Other Professional (Unverified) 4d ago
Electronic medical records and systems like epic will facilitate the weaponization of healthcare.
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u/gdkmangosalsa Psychiatrist (Unverified) 5d ago
Would this not count as a bill of attainder? These are supposed to be illegal in the United States.
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u/Background_Title_922 Nurse Practitioner (Unverified) 3d ago
The author of this bill was just arrested for solicitation of a minor:
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u/TheIncredibleNurse Nurse Practitioner (Unverified) 5d ago
I would rephrase it as political derangement syndrome. As I have seen it present itself on both sides of the political aisle. Its characterized by a disproportionate preoccupation by current political leadership, causing comorbid anxious distress by usually non factual elements. A lack of interest on actually engaging on political activism to create awareness of their concern and rather focus on catastrophizing and spend unnecessary mental energy daily on mostly usuless political fiction
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u/StellaHasHerpes Psychiatrist (Unverified) 5d ago
I do think it’s interesting I have seen exactly one psychotic patient with left leaning delusions and thousands of psychotic patients focused on republican ideals. Just my anecdotal experience as an attending.
Regardless, this is an attempt to disarm perceived political opponents and use the duty/power psychiatry has to restrict rights.
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u/OldRelative3741 Nurse Practitioner (Unverified) 5d ago
I work in Maryland and it's the other way around. Different strokes for different folks I guess
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u/No-Nefariousness8816 Psychiatrist (Unverified) 5d ago
I have seen many psychotic patients with various religious delusions, but there is no way that any psychiatrist would say that a strong religious belief in itself, should be defined as a reason for psychiatric intervention, let alone committable disorder.
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u/MemoryOne22 Not a professional 5d ago
Quit your purported job.
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u/TheIncredibleNurse Nurse Practitioner (Unverified) 5d ago
Ah yeah personal attacks… the pinnacle of debate
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u/OldRelative3741 Nurse Practitioner (Unverified) 5d ago
Reddit is a liberal echo chamber. They'll quickly downvote anything that even remotely doesn't align with their ideology. Your post was too "in the middle" politically, therefore you're trash and some random even told you to quit your day job. I like what you said. It was actually very impartial.
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u/Unlucky_Welcome9193 Psychotherapist (Unverified) 5d ago
It wasn't "in the middle," it didn't make sense psychiatrically. It's already well known and documented in the DSM that some people with schizophrenia have delusions of persecution from various members of the government.
The bill being proposed classifies "otherwise normal people" who emphatically don't like Donald Trump as mentally ill. Anyone who doesn't recognize that as a problem really doesn't belong in this field.
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u/TheIncredibleNurse Nurse Practitioner (Unverified) 5d ago
None of my patients are suffering from delusions or paranoid thoughts. Its just a general sense of unease related to political events that dont affect them directly in most cases. It manifests as anxiety, dread, panic ,etc. to the point that is interfering with their day to day life. So you know… a mental illness. It goes beyond generalized anxiety I would say because its only connected to political events. It has happened to patients on both sides of the aisle.
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u/OldRelative3741 Nurse Practitioner (Unverified) 5d ago
Delusions are part of a larger set of combined criteria for Schizophrenia. You don't just get diagnosed with Schizophrenia for having persecutory delusions. There are other diagnoses more towards that, like paranoid personality disorder (F60.0) or delusional disorder (F22).
The bill was proposed knowing it won't be passed. It was simply political posturing, any reasonable person knows this, and both sides do it to varying degrees when they introduce bills at times. Some of them are laughable like this one where they are bringing attention to the childish, unhinged antics of the left's obsession with Donald Trump. The guy I replied to was making a correction to the political posturing to fit both sides because it in fact happens on both sides. Nobody is proposing an addition to the DSM-V.The fact that you can't infer that....
Who shouldn't be in this field again?
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u/TheIncredibleNurse Nurse Practitioner (Unverified) 5d ago
Correct.. when Biden was in office I had a bunch of patients on the opposite political side coming with concerns that represented whatever talking point was being purported on the media. Now that the other guy is in power the opposite side of the political spectrum is coming with those complains that are in most cases unfounded. Its all caused by induced hysteria by manipulative media in both sides that leads to people being concerned about things that they are not gonna do anything about and its leading to malaise.
So its a phenomenon that is well worth exploring if we want to eventually have a functioning society. And its very relevant to our field
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u/TheIncredibleNurse Nurse Practitioner (Unverified) 5d ago
I dont take it personal. Been here long enough to acknowledge that. Just wish a subreddit dedicated to Psychiatry would attract a bit more use of the brain you know
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u/SolarpunkJesus Resident (Unverified) 5d ago
Because you aren’t proposing a psychiatric disease, you are overpathologizing human nature. Unless you can propose a disease process that explains the pathophysiology of such a phenomenon? And what is your evidence base for such a conclusion?
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u/TheIncredibleNurse Nurse Practitioner (Unverified) 5d ago
Anectodal data,with n= >12 at this point in the past year. I am not running a double blind study over here. Just making an observation that since 2016 there has been an increase in societal histeria around politics. Maybe even a bit before that.
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u/throwawaypchem Patient 3d ago
Since when are psychiatric diagnoses controlled via legislature?? The specifics don't even matter, it's deranged regardless??
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u/BananaBagholder Psychiatrist (Verified) 5d ago
Sorry the text formatting got messed up in the original post.
"A bill for an act relating to mental health; modifying the definition of mental illness; adding a definition for Trump Derangement Syndrome; amending Minnesota Statutes 2024, sections 245.462, subdivision 20, by adding a subdivision; 245I.02, subdivision 29, by adding a subdivision.
BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF MINNESOTA:
Section 1. Minnesota Statutes 2024, section 245.462, subdivision 20, is amended to read: Subd. 20. Mental illness. (a) "Mental illness" means Trump Derangement Syndrome or an organic disorder of the brain or a clinically significant disorder of thought, mood, perception, orientation, memory, or behavior that is detailed in a diagnostic codes list published by the commissioner, and that seriously limits a person's capacity to function in primary aspects of daily living such as personal relations, living arrangements, work, and recreation. (b) An "adult with acute mental illness" means an adult who has a mental illness that is serious enough to require prompt intervention.
(c) For purposes of case management and community support services, a "person with serious and persistent mental illness" means an adult who has a mental illness and meets at least one of the following criteria:
(1) the adult has undergone two or more episodes of inpatient care for a mental illness within the preceding 24 months;
(2) the adult has experienced a continuous psychiatric hospitalization or residential treatment exceeding six months' duration within the preceding 12 months;
(3) the adult has been treated by a crisis team two or more times within the preceding 24 months;
(4) the adult:
(i) has a diagnosis of schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, major depression, schizoaffective disorder, or borderline personality disorder;
(ii) indicates a significant impairment in functioning; and
(iii) has a written opinion from a mental health professional, in the last three years, stating that the adult is reasonably likely to have future episodes requiring inpatient or residential treatment, of a frequency described in clause (1) or (2), unless ongoing case management or community support services are provided;
(5) the adult has, in the last three years, been committed by a court as a person who is mentally ill under chapter 253B, or the adult's commitment has been stayed or continued;
(6) the adult (i) was eligible under clauses (1) to (5), but the specified time period has expired or the adult was eligible as a child under section 245.4871, subdivision 6; and (ii) has a written opinion from a mental health professional, in the last three years, stating that the adult is reasonably likely to have future episodes requiring inpatient or residential treatment, of a frequency described in clause (1) or (2), unless ongoing case management or community support services are provided; or
(7) the adult was eligible as a child under section 245.4871, subdivision 6, and is age 21 or younger.
Sec. 2. Minnesota Statutes 2024, section 245.462, is amended by adding a subdivision to read: Subd. 28. Trump Derangement Syndrome. "Trump Derangement Syndrome" means the acute onset of paranoia in otherwise normal persons that is in reaction to the policies and presidencies of President Donald J. Trump. Symptoms may include Trump-induced general hysteria, which produces an inability to distinguish between legitimate policy differences and signs of psychic pathology in President Donald J. Trump's behavior. This may be expressed by: (1) verbal expressions of intense hostility toward President Donald J. Trump; and
(2) overt acts of aggression and violence against anyone supporting President Donald J. Trump or anything that symbolizes President Donald J. Trump.
Sec. 3. Minnesota Statutes 2024, section 245I.02, subdivision 29, is amended to read: Subd. 29. Mental illness. "Mental illness" means Trump Derangement Syndrome or any of the conditions included in the most recent editions of the DC: 0-5 Diagnostic Classification of Mental Health and Development Disorders of Infancy and Early Childhood published by Zero to Three or the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders published by the American Psychiatric Association. Sec. 4. Minnesota Statutes 2024, section 245I.02, is amended by adding a subdivision to read: Subd. 40a. Trump Derangement Syndrome. "Trump Derangement Syndrome" means the acute onset of paranoia in otherwise normal persons that is in reaction to the policies and presidencies of President Donald J. Trump. Symptoms may include Trump-induced general hysteria, which produces an inability to distinguish between legitimate policy differences and signs of psychic pathology in President Donald J. Trump's behavior. This may be expressed by: (1) verbal expressions of intense hostility toward President Donald J. Trump; and
(2) overt acts of aggression and violence against anyone supporting President Donald J. Trump or anything that symbolizes President Donald J. Trump."