Is it ethical to have a debate on ‘diagnosing a public figure who has not been personally examined?’ This question came to mind on reading the ‘In Debate’ article published in the November issue of the Journal.Reference Gartner, Langford and O'Brien¹ I find it is rather ironic that the debate by Gartner, Langford and O'Brien has diagnosed public figures by proxy. On the one hand, one may defend this debate in a scientific journal of repute as an academic or literary freedom – the right to free speech and to express views about anyone. However, in such a situation what happens to the privacy of the public figures discussed in the article and confidentiality regarding information about them, irrespective of the sources? Was any consent sought or taken from those who were quoted in this article? I find that the ethics of discussing public figures in the form of a debate is a proxy or deceptive discussion circumventing the Goldwater rule or principle. In order to make the debate ethical, the authors could have disguised or anonymised the names of the public figures. I wonder if one could take the same liberty of publishing a psychiatric assessment of the authors or other psychiatrists, without offending them? One could consider the views of the authors/debaters as a projection, displacement, suppression, repression, narcissism or any other psychoanalytic defence mechanism based on these authors' writing, publications and use of their twitter or other social media. One cannot rule out any psychic determinism in opinions and views. (Likewise, somebody can do the same for me!) The role of the Journal in this connection can also be questioned: the Journal permitted the discussion of public figures who had not been personally examined, in contravention of the Goldwater rule and principle, under the guise of an academic debate!