The power of numbers… when those numbers represent 18,000 20,000 + (as of Feb. 8th) mental health professionals who consider Trump to be dangerously mentally ill this number is having an impact.
As one of the early signers of Dr. John Gartner’s petition I watched in amazement as the number of signatories climbed at the rate of about 10 every few minutes past each milestone.
Those of us in touch with Dr. Gartner first though 5,000 would be a good goal to start promoting the petition to the media, then it was headed towards 10,000, 15,000 all in about a week. Last I looked it was at 18,000 20,000 and climbing.
The petition originally planned just to go to Sen. Chuck Schumer :
We, the undersigned mental health professionals, believe in our professional judgment that Donald Trump manifests a serious mental illness that renders him psychologically incapable of competently discharging the duties of President of the United States. And we respectfully request he be removed from office, according to article 3* of the 25th amendment to the Constitution, which states that the president will be replaced if he is “unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office.”
(The relevant section is No. 4, but I am sure Sen. Schumer will get the message. “Whenever the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive departments or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall immediately assume the powers and duties of the office as Acting President.”)
I have a cogent psychological counterpoint to the following:
“I wrote the criteria for personality disorders,” says Frances, professor emeritus at Duke. The public diagnoses being bandied about are inaccurate and “miss the point,” he argues. They ignore the criterion that symptoms must be causing distress and impairment. “Donald Trump causes distress to others, not to himself. He is rewarded for his behaviors.”
There is sickness, Frances contends, but he believes it is in society in general. “We are ignoring real existential threats—of overpopulation, of climate, of inequality.” The cure for this illness, he believes is political activism and electing officials who can be trusted to face “the real problems.” Those most in a position to diagnose are, with the exception of the petitioners and those on the media circuit, sitting out the question of the year.
The professor is wrong. His severe NPD does cause him distress. He is so sensitive to narcissistic injury that he has frequent episodes of narcissistic rage. The leaks coming out of the White House describe him as easily angered, distractible, even roaming the White House in the middle of the night. If he were anybody but president his symptoms would be causing distress and impairment.
One of our Kossacks put’s it even better in this comment:
I’m kind of weirded out by this:
“Donald Trump causes distress to others, not to himself. He is rewarded for his behaviors.”
as a defense against the diagnosis. People with personality disorders:
The enduring pattern leads to clinically significant distress or impairment in social, occupational, or other important areas of functioning.
(bolding mine)
Does Frances not understand the meaning of “or?” Doesn’t have to be distress. In fact the overall definition of a personality disorder says nothing about distress, no matter what Frances says:
The essential features of a personality disorder are impairments in personality (self and interpersonal) functioning and the presence of pathological personality traits. To diagnose a personality disorder, the following criteria must be met: [then follows the criteria for each of the personality disorders]
As for impairment, being rich solves a lot of impairment problems. Let’s face it, a low income person who behaved like Trump would probably be in jail — certainly wouldn’t be able to hold a job or maintain a relationship. Trump is impaired but the impairment is smoothed over by his wealth (which he inherited) — hiring lawyers and flunkies to protect him from the damage he causes to others (and to himself). For example — not paying people what he owes them. If he weren’t rich, he wouldn’t get away with it and he’d be in really big trouble.
The notion that to be diagnosed with a personality disorder the person must themselves feel distress doesn’t make sense. Essentially, Frances is saying if a person goes around shooting people without remorse (or any “distress”) you can’t diagnose them as having a personality disorder. Antisocial personality disorder anyone?
Tuesday, Feb 7, 2017 · 9:47:22 PM +00:00 · HalBrown
Sound familiar? "Public health groups have been wary of wading into the political fray on vaccines, reluctant to give the impression that there’s any legitimate debate among scientists over whether people should have their children immunized. The letter had been in the works since Trump’s vaccine doubts resurfaced last month, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics.” www.huffingtonpost.com/…