As President Donald Trump continues to behave bizarrely and erratically--attacking his own attorney general, launching into a political tirade during a speech to Boy Scouts, bringing his 11-year-old son into the burgeoning Russia controversy--a professional association of psychoanalysts is telling its members to drop the so-called Goldwater Rule and comment publicly on the president's state of mind if they find reason to do so.

The Goldwater Rule was formally included in the American Psychiatric Association's "Principles of Medical Ethics" following the 1964 presidential campaign, during which a magazine editor was sued for running an article in which mental health professionals gave their opinions on [Republican] presidential candidate Barry Goldwater's psychiatric state. The rule deems public comments by psychiatrists on the mental health of public officials without consent "unethical".

In a recent email to its 3,500 members, the American Psychoanalytic Association "told its members they should not feel bound by" the Goldwater Rule, which some have characterized as a "gag rule", STAT's Sharon Begley reports.