Now that yet two more credible allegations of sexual improprieties and assault have come out about Trump, bringing the total to 10, I have to wonder what will happen as Trump has to defend himself against behaviors he knows are true. He has denied ever meeting any of the women recounting his undated sexual advances; but he can’t claim that about the the latest one since they clearly knew each other.
It is in his nature to counter-punch. This is what he will do. That’s on the outside, on the inside psychological defenses are at work but we can only make educated guesses as to what they are. This isn’t all that relevant because we know that the best predictor of future behavior is past behavior.
I’ve written about what the final straw, which bombshell, would break the back of Trump’s campaign. That has happened. The campaign camel has a broken back and four broken legs. But now I wonder what will happen when Trump continues to blame Hilliary and an imaginary evil conspiracy including nefarious (possibly Jewish) banks, the press, and even establishment Republicans. What will his brainwashed supporters do. And as a clinician, I wonder what will happen to Trump himself.
You don’t have to be a psychotherapist like me to conclude that Trump is an extreme narcissist. The DSM-5 is so easy to use laymen can make the actual clinical diagnosis themselves.
I want to get this online quick, so I apologize for republishing excerpts from what I wrote on August 22nd — with one addition which I will put here rather than at the end.
I am now consulting with several other psychotherapists to see if they think that someone with a personality make-up like Trump has would be susceptible to a psychotic break when he finally realizes that he has lost any chance of becoming president. As a clinician who was never interested in learning about narcissistic personality disorder in depth until Trump, this is all new to me.
Because Trump is such an extreme narcissist and has so much of his self-worth invested in winning the election, we need to understand narcissistic injury and narcissistic rage. We must understand what happens when circumstances drive extreme narcissists into a state of rage, and consider what might happen when one has the power to influence and persuade a significant portion of the population to act out.
"Narcissistic rage is the response of a narcissist to anything they perceive as a threat to their ego, their control or their power. It is usually intense, out of proportion, often random and is used to manipulate."
This is what we can expect: "And at the same time the narcissist may also be plotting how to get revenge on the person who dared to challenge them. So the person gets twice the punishment...!"
Instead of his directing his rage against only person (Hillary Clinton) he may direct it against the system.
Politico published a disturbing article today:
What if Trump won't accept defeat?
As their nominee unravels, Republicans worry where his scorched-earth, rigged-election rhetoric leads the GOP and the country.
In it conservative radio host Charlie Sykes wrote about how Trump is leading his supporters to believe that the election is rigged against him and the the polls are also rigged. Sykes says: emphasis added.
“There’s a sizable portion of his fan base that will believe these things, and it’s toxic to our democracy,” he continued. “You’re basically taking ideas and voices that have been on the fringes — justifiably — and Donald Trump is bringing them squarely into the mainstream and weaponizing them. This is something we’ve not had to confront before. At one time there were responsible voices that would have drawn some lines that would have kept these voices from dominating our discourse, and they don’t exist now.”
Read more: www.politico.com/...
Their last paragraph gives me pause, to say the least!
"My hope is that if he loses big, anyone who’s not a racist nationalist says ‘Never again’ and the racist nationalists just retreat to their basements where they belong. But my fear is that Bannon and Trump uniting could be about them looking to do something long-term that would ensure this fringe element remains.”
I wrote the following in August, but now we know he is encouraging those who are so angry they want to act out. In fact as of this morning reporters we booed and shout at when the press pool entered his rally.
I think a Trump loss even if he doesn't absolutely nothing to encourage it, there will be a real feeling among the farthest fringe that they are been given license to act out on their feels of white entitlement. The more Trump encourages them by ranting about how he lost because the system was rigged, the more he throws gasoline on the rage of zealous supports who are possibly mentally unstable supporters. These the risk of this rage turning into a flaming and dangerous fury.
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It should go without saying what could happen when unstable people feel empowered to act on their anger. Trump has made me afraid, and I no long fear what will happen if he wins, I fear what will happen when he looses.
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From searching pictures for angry Trump
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Addendum
- Control freaks
- Irritability
- Short fuses
- Low frustration tolerance
- Argumentative
- Need to have the last word
- Unable to lose
- Won’t take “No” for an answer
- Quick to anger if you don’t accommodate them
- Quick to being aggressively defensive if you call them on any deficiency, fault or responsibility
- Can’t apologize or if do, can’t do it sincerely
- Rarely say, “Thank you” or “Congratulations”
- Don’t feel or demonstrate remorse
- Feel entitled to enthusiastic and appreciative approval, adoration, agreement and obedience
- Gloat in victory, sullen in defeat
- Quick to rage if you humiliate
Below, emphasis added:
What is really at the core of narcissists is an instability in their ability to feel and sustain feeling bigger, larger, smarter and more successful than everyone else which they need to feel stable. And just as Hamlet’s mother said, “the lady doth protest too much,” “the narcissist doth brag, scorn, talk down, primp and belittle too much” in order to continually prove to the world and themselves that they are larger than life. This is not to increase their self-esteem as much as it is to continually spackle the holes in their core that lead to a feeling of instability—and that, if not spackled, will lead to brittleness followed by fragmentation.
Narcissistic rage occurs when that core instability is threatened and furthermore threatened to destabilize them even further. Not unlike a wounded animal being the most vicious (because they think the next wound would kill them), narcissistic rage occurs when narcissists believe the next insult/assault to their grandiose based stability would shatter them.
Friday, Oct 14, 2016 · 10:08:10 PM +00:00 · HalBrown
Psychotherapist Neil Friedman writes to me:
I think he is suffering his narcissistic injury all the time but has developed quite an efficient and effective system of defenses to keep it covered. . .at least covered enough so as not to expose to much about his wounds. . . What will happen when the wall he has built (did the Mexican's pay for it) around his aggrandized sense of self comes crumbling down is anybodies guess, but we can safely say it won't be pretty. and all the kings horse and all the kings men. . .
