Bandy X. Lee

Bandy Xenobia Lee is an American psychiatrist with Yale University, and a specialist in violence prevention programs in prisons and in the community who initiated reforms at New York's Rikers Island prison. Her scholarly work includes the writing of a comprehensive textbook on violence.[3]

Bandy Lee
Born
New York City, New York, U.S.
CitizenshipAmerican
EducationYale University School of Medicine, Yale Divinity School
OccupationPsychiatrist
Medical career
InstitutionsYale School of Medicine
Sub-specialtiesViolence prevention
Notable works
  • Violence
  • The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump (editor, contributor)
  • Profile of a Nation: Trump’s Mind, America’s Soul (author)[1]
  • One Group Who Knew All Along How Dangerous Trump Was: Mental Health Experts (co-author)[2]

In 2017, Lee attracted attention for organizing a conference at Yale on professional ethics surrounding the mental health of Donald Trump. She withheld her views at the conference[4] but later prominently criticized the American Psychiatric Association for changing an ethical guideline called the Goldwater rule with the Trump presidency.[5] In March 2017, the association had expanded the rule to restrict not just diagnosis but any comment on the mental health of public figures absent a personal examination, calling it a "reaffirmation." This change alarmed Lee and her colleagues[6] enough to lead to her conference[7] and, later, to co-authoring The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump, a book of essays that warned against the dangers of Trump's mental instability.

Early life and education

Bandy Lee was born and raised in the Bronx, New York. She is of Korean descent. Her mother was Inmyung Lee and her grandfather was Geun-Young Lee, a South Korean physician, who she says inspired her with a belief that practicing medicine also involves social responsibility. As a teenager she volunteered in Harlem as a tutor for homeless African-American children.[8]

Lee received her M.D. from the Yale University School of Medicine in 1994 and a Master of Divinity (M.Div.) from Yale Divinity School in 1995.[9] Lee interned at the Bellevue Hospital Center in New York and she was chief resident at the Massachusetts General Hospital.

Career

Lee studied the anthropology of violence in East Africa as a fellow of the National Institute of Mental Health[10] and has co-authored academic papers on Côte d'Ivoire, Tanzania, and Rwanda. She is a specialist in violence prevention programmes in prisons and in the community[9] and worked for several years in maximum security prisons in the United States[8] where she was instrumental in initiating reforms at New York's Rikers Island jail complex.[9] Since then, she has consulted with five different U.S. states on prison reform.[9] She was director of research for the Center for the Study of Violence and with Kaveh Khoshnood founded Yale University's Violence and Health Study Group.[10] She heads a project group of the Violence Prevention Alliance for the World Health Organization[9] and wrote the textbook, Violence: An Interdisciplinary Approach to Causes, Consequences, and Cures.[3]

Comments on Donald Trump
Further information: Goldwater rule

In April 2017, Lee hosted a meeting at Yale University medical school to discuss the ethics of speaking about the mental health of Donald Trump.[11] The assembled, prominent psychiatrists decided they had a "duty to warn."[12] Lee then stated in an interview with Salon in May 2017 that Trump suffers from mental health issues that amount to a "state of emergency" and that "our survival as a species may be at stake."[13][14] She also discussed her political views, linking what she sees as increasing inequality in the United States to a deterioration in collective mental health.[14] Later in 2017, she was the editor of The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump, a book of essays alleging that Trump suffers from psychological problems that make him dangerous.[15] After the book's publication, she reported receiving thousands of threatening messages by letter, telephone, and on social media that included death threats.[8]

In December 2017 she met 12 members of the United States Congress (11 Democrats, 1 Republican) to give them her opinion on Trump's mental health, in which she reportedly argued that he was "unraveling".[8] In a letter to the New England Journal of Medicine, Jeffrey Lieberman, past president of the APA, argued that while he accepted that Lee and her co-authors were acting in good faith and out of a sense of moral obligation, they were guilty of a "misguided and dangerous morality".[16] Later, Lieberman was reported to have diagnosed Trump, however, the very act he accused Lee and colleagues of committing.[17]

Lee's colleagues argued that the Goldwater Rule has become a "gag rule".[18] Lee emphasized that, when meeting with lawmakers, she was adhering to the American Psychiatric Association's guideline that precedes the Goldwater rule and urges psychiatrists "to serve society by advising and consulting with the executive, legislative, and judiciary branches of the government”.[19] In an interview she also said, "whenever the Goldwater rule is mentioned, we should also refer to the Declaration of Geneva, established by the World Medical Association 25 years earlier, which mandates physicians to speak up if there are humanitarian reasons to do so. This Declaration was created in response to the experience of Nazism."[20]

Two investigative articles[21][22] have since exposed the APA's actions to use the Goldwater rule to protect its federal funding, as its own officer admitted on a previous occasion.[23] Trump's niece Mary L. Trump, who wrote a book arguing that her uncle suffered from severe psychological problems, called the rule "absurd on its face [with] potentially serious consequences for the safety of the American people."[24] Lee stated, "Americans had to learn to do without expertise, just as it has with the pandemic, and the results have been equally devastating."[25] She created a blow-by-blow account[26] that showed mental health experts predicted the mismanagement of a pandemic that is projected to claim a half-million lives by February 2021.[27]

On January 9, 2021, Lee was among World Mental Health Coalition colleagues who called for quick removal of Trump from office,[28] and made recommendations regarding how to enable his loyal followers to withdraw from the effects of his behavior on them.

On January 17, 2021, Lee and Jeffrey D. Sachs authored an opinion, One Group Who Knew All Along How Dangerous Trump Was: Mental Health Experts, in which they proposed changes to the Twenty-fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution in order to "address dangerous psychological disorders, and taking steps to reduce the powers of the presidency so that the nation is not vulnerable to the whims of one mentally unbalanced individual", as well as, changes to the restraining standards imposed on members of the American Psychiatric Association in such circumstances.[29]

Selected publications
  • "Detecting depressive disorder with a 19-item local instrument in Tanzania." International Journal of Social Psychiatry, Vol. 54 (2008), pp. 21–33. (With S.F. Kaaya, J.K. Mbwambo, M.C. Smith-Fawzi, & M.T. Leshabari)
  • "Preventing gender-based violence engendered by conflict: The case of Côte d’Ivoire." Social Science and Medicine, Vol. 146 (2015), pp. 341–347. (With M. Blay-Tofey)
  • "A reflection on the madness in prisons", Stanford Law and Policy Review, Vol. 26 (2015), pp. 253–268. (With M. Prabhu)
  • "Health system re-design following sexual violence during the genocide in Rwanda." International Journal of Public Health, Vol. 61 (2016), pp. 959–960. (With G. Uwizeye & T. Kroll)
  • "Transforming our world: Implementing the 2030 agenda through sustainable development goal indicators." Journal of Public Health Policy, Vol. 37 (2016), pp. 13–31. (With F. Kjaerulf, S. Turner, L. Cohen, P.D. Donnelly, R. Muggah, R. Davis et al.)
  • "Global research priorities for interpersonal violence prevention: A modified Delphi study." Bulletin of the World Health Organization, Vol. 95 (2017), pp. 36–48. (With C.R. Mikton, M. Tanaka, M. Tomlinson, D.L. Streiner, L. Tonmyr, J. Fisher et al.)
  • The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump: 27 Psychiatrists and Mental Health Experts Assess a President. Thomas Dunne Books, 2017. (Editor) ISBN 978-1250179456
  • Violent States and Creative States: From the Global to the Individual. Vol. 1: Structural Violence and Creative Structures. Jessica Kingsley Publishers, 2018. (With J. Adlam & T. Kluttig) ISBN 978-1785925641
  • Violent States and Creative States: From the Global to the Individual. Vol. 2: Human Violence and Creative Humanity. Jessica Kingsley Publishers, 2018. (With J. Adlam & T. Kluttig) ISBN 978-1785925658
  • Violence: An Interdisciplinary Approach to Causes, Consequences, and Cures. Wiley-Blackwell, 2019. ISBN 978-1119240693
  • The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump: 37 Psychiatrists and Mental Health Experts Assess a President. Thomas Dunne Books, 2019. (Editor) ISBN 978-1250212863
  • "Government political structure and gender differences in violent death: A longitudinal analysis of forty-three countries, 1960–2008." Aggression and Violent Behavior, Vol. 46 (2019), pp. 174–179. (With M. Blay-Tofey, P. Marotta, K.K. Schuder & J. Gilligan)
  • "Government political structure and violent death rates: A longitudinal analysis of forty-three countries, 1960–2008." Aggression and Violent Behavior, Vol. 47 (2019), pp. 262–267. (With P. Marotta, M. Blay-Tofey, K.K. Schuder, C.H. Kim, G. Lee & J. Gilligan)
  • "Addressing the elephant in the room: Stories of ethical activism in the age of Trump." Journal of Humanistic Psychology, Vol. 60 (2020), pp. 459–462. (With H. West & S. Wruble)
  • "How we each emerged from isolation, found each other and a common voice." Journal of Humanistic Psychology, Vol. 60(2020), pp. 463–476. (With L.L. Glass & E.B. Fisher).
  • Profile of a Nation: Trump's Mind, America's Soul. World Mental Health Coalition, 2020. ISBN 978-1735553740

See also

References
  1. The ‘Shared Psychosis’ of Donald Trump and His Loyalists, Scientific American, January 11, 2021
  2. , Common Dreams, The Boston Globe, January 17, 2021
  3. Lee, Bandy X. (February 19, 2019). "Violence: An Interdisciplinary Approach to Causes, Consequences, and Cures". Wiley.com.
  4. "Transcript of the Duty to Warn Conference" (PDF).
  5. Lee, Bandy X. (October 11, 2019). "Mental health experts see Trump is dangerous, but our professional gatekeepers protect him". USA Today. Retrieved January 30, 2020.
  6. "Mental Health Experts Claim Their Right to Speak". Psychology Today. May 25, 2018. Retrieved February 2, 2020.
  7. Sharman, Joe (April 25, 2017). "Psychiatrist issues urgent warning over Trump's mental health". The Independent. Retrieved February 2, 2020.
  8. Blakely, Rhys (18 January 2018). "Are Donald Trump's test results fake news?". The Times. Retrieved 21 January 2018.
  9. Bandy X. Lee, MD, M.Div. Archived 2018-01-18 at the Wayback Machine Yale School of Medicine: Psychiatry. Retrieved 21 January 2018.
  10. Bandy Lee, Yale University's Violence and Health Study Group. Archived 2016-04-03 at the Wayback Machine Violence Prevention Alliance, World Health Organization. Retrieved 23 January 2018.
  11. Morris, Alex (November 12, 2018). "What Happens When the Walls Finally Close in on Trump?". Rolling Stone. Retrieved January 21, 2020.
  12. Sheehy, Gail (April 23, 2017). "At Yale, Psychiatrists Cite Their 'Duty to Warn' About an Unfit President". Intelligencer. Retrieved January 21, 2020.
  13. Kalmbacher, Colin (January 21, 2020). "Interview: Law Professor Richard Painter, Psychiatrist Bandy Lee Explain Views on Trump's Trial". lawandcrime.com. Retrieved January 21, 2020.
  14. DeVega, Chauncey (May 25, 2017). "Psychiatrist Bandy Lee: "We have an obligation to speak about Donald Trump's mental health issues. . . . Our survival as a species may be at stake". Salon. Archived from the original on November 6, 2017. Retrieved January 23, 2018.
  15. Sword, Rosemary K.M.; Zimbardo, Philip (28 September 2017). ""The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump": A new book delves into the president's mental health". Psychology Today. Retrieved 21 January 2018.
  16. "Correspondence: Psychiatrists Diagnosing the President — Moral Imperative or Ethical Violation?". New England Journal of Medicine. December 27, 2017. doi:10.1056/NEJMc1716751. Retrieved January 21, 2018.
  17. Bagley, Sharon (June 28, 2018). "Psychiatrists call for rollback of policy banning discussion of public figures' mental health". STAT News. Retrieved 1 July 2018.
  18. Glass, Leonard L. (June 28, 2018). "The Goldwater rule is broken. Here's how to fix it". STAT. Retrieved January 21, 2020.
  19. Lee, Bandy X.; Glass, Leonard L. (January 10, 2018). "We're Psychiatrists. It's Our Duty to Question the President's Mental State". POLITICO Magazine. Retrieved January 21, 2020.
  20. Porter, Tom (December 5, 2019). "350 health professionals sign letter to Congress claiming Trump's mental health is deteriorating dangerously amid impeachment proceedings". Business Insider. Retrieved December 6, 2019.
  21. Kendall, Joshua (April 25, 2020). "Muzzled by Psychiatry in a Time of Crisis". Mad In America. Retrieved November 22, 2020.
  22. Fingar, Courtney (September 22, 2020). "The silencing of psychiatry: is the Goldwater rule doing more harm than good ahead of the US 2020 election?". New Statesman. Retrieved November 22, 2020.
  23. Gersen, Jeannie Suk. "How Anti-Trump Psychiatrists Are Mobilizing Behind the Twenty-Fifth Amendment". The New Yorker. Retrieved November 22, 2020.
  24. Trump, Mary L. (November 22, 2020). "Mary Trump: Psychiatrists know what's wrong with my uncle. Let them tell voters". The Washington Post. Retrieved November 22, 2020.
  25. "The Mental Health Pandemic that Did Not Need to Be". Bioethics.net. Retrieved November 22, 2020.
  26. Lee, Bandy X. (September 29, 2020). "The Trump Mental Health Pandemic". Medium. Retrieved November 22, 2020.
  27. Kelland, Kate (October 23, 2020). "U.S. faces half a million COVID-19 deaths by end-February, study finds". Reuters. Retrieved November 22, 2020.
  28. Lewis, Tanya, The ‘Shared Psychosis’ of Donald Trump and His Loyalists, Scientific American, January 11, 2021
  29. Lee, Bandy X.; Sachs, Jeffrey D, One Group Who Knew All Along How Dangerous Trump Was: Mental Health Experts, Common Dreams, Opinion, The Boston Globe, January 17, 2021
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