It's important to consider what ways a person's reasoning could be affected when considering his or her arguments. I certainly don't agree that psychological damage refutes a philosophical system, but it can give you a better understanding of the choices a person makes and why it's rational to disagree with him or her.
Nice find. No she was not. She was on the cutting edge of what everyone feels and thinks. Those who wish to hide those thoughts call her nuts. I would say Ayn Rand was born sane in a crazy world--like a lot of us around The Gulch.
Was Robert A. Heinlein psychologically damaged? Galileo? Pascal?
What about William Shockley, co-inventor of the transistor, and a notorious racist?
As Ayn Rand said in The Fountainhead, it's a man's (woman's) IDEAS that count, not whether s/he was in some way "psychologically damaged."
This is a Red Herring that should be ignored. Or, at best, refuted for the ad hominem attack that it is.
And yes, for the record, I think that Ayn Rand was "psychologically damaged." So am I. Big effing Woop.
I enjoyed your comment.