Depends on where you live. In the US, if you have the money, you can see a psychiatrist without a referral. But this is beside the point. It is a breach of medical ethics to diagnose a person without physically speaking to them/meeting them face to face. A diagnosis like the ex-Yale psych, and the fact she was taken seriously, should worry all of us, as it was Congress trying anything to rid themselves of someone who wasn't ''one of them''.