Ghostwriter Tony Schwartz plays psychoanalyst with Donald Trump, and he nails him.

Tony Schwartz on Morning Joy, Oct 23.

Joy Reid had Tony Schwartz, the outspoken author of “The Art of the Deal” on this morning. Schwartz has taken up the void of the absent mental health professionals who are most qualified to explain the psychopathology of Donald Trump.

Not that these psychotherapists don’t have opinions about Trump, but they been scared away from expressing them publicly by the admonition against doing so by the American Psychiatric Association. By now you probably have heard of The Goldwater Rule. Of course this only applies to psychiatrists, by those in other mental health professions have taken this as a rule. 

Joe Burgo, a clinical psychologist, did go on The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell to explain Trump’s narcissism. Here’s the video.

The Goldwater Rule doesn’t apply to me. Even if it did, I’d ignore it since I feel I have a duty to warn the public about the danger Trump represents.   I’ve have written many stories here about my impressions of Trump’s diagnosis. 

…Trump is a narcissist—at least, several experts in narcissism have raised (quite strongly) this possibility. As Jeffrey Kluger, author of The Narcissist Next Door: Understanding the Monster in Your Family, in Your Office, in Your Bed—in Your Worldnoted in Time, "To call Donald Trump a narcissist is, of course, to state the clinically obvious. There is the egotism of narcissism, the grandiosity of narcissism, the social obtuseness of narcissism." And writing in the New York Times, Scott Lilienfeld, a psychology professor at Emory University, and Ashley Watts, a graduate student there, observed:
The political rise of Donald J. Trump has drawn attention to one personality trait in particular: narcissism. Although narcissism does not lend itself to a precise definition, most psychologists agree that it comprises self-centeredness, boastfulness, feelings of entitlement and a need for admiration.
They declared that it would be "inappropriate of us to offer a formal assessment of his level of narcissism.” www.motherjones.com/...

The lack of credible experts to explain the unusual mix of narcissistic and other psychopathology that adds up to what some have referred to as “Trumpism” leaves it to others, in particular David Corn, who have only second hand observations of Trump. However, Schwartz is unique in that he spent a year and a half with Trump.

Thus what he had to say this morning is especially illuminating.

•  He described the neurology (using terms prefrontal cortex and amygdala) to describe how he doesn’t think Trump has conscious control when he say some things. He just talked about deep narcissistic injury… and us shrinks aren’t supposed to talk about Trump’s psychopathology. He pointed to his own head to illustrate how what Hillary said at the debates went into his brain and out his mouth without any intermediate conscious mediation.

•  Smallest vocabulary of any person that’s ever run for public office … 200 word… Schwartz
•  "Trump doesn’t know the words irony, nuance, subtly”

•  "He feels like a cornered rat."
• ​ “Narcissism has evolved into paranoia"

• He suspects hundreds of women have had that experience with Trump

•  "He isn’t capable of caring about anyone, he’s so needy himself, there isn’t any left to give to anybody else —“

Sunday, Oct 23, 2016 · 3:57:09 PM +00:00 · HalBrown

Sunday, Oct 23, 2016 · 5:11:04 PM +00:00 · HalBrown

This is the first story I wrote from a psychotherapist’s perspective:

www.dailykos.com/… 

Sunday, Oct 23, 2016 · 5:43:01 PM +00:00 · HalBrown

I wrote this a few days ago:

I began to study psychology when I was 15 and first read Freud. I was an undergraduate psychology major and got my masters in social work on the clinical track. I worked 40 years as a psychotherapist diagnosing and treating people with a wide variety of mental health problems. As director of a mental health clinic and clinical supervisor I was familiar with thousand of patients.

Nowhere have I come across a person with the personality of Donald Trump. I have tried to diagnose him but he defies standard diagnostic categories because he exhibits characteristics of so many diagnoses from the DSM and in addition has paraphilias (groping, toucherism, and possibly  frotteurism) and pathological lying (which isn’t even a listed disorder). Megalomania, obsession with the exercise of power, especially in the domination of others, isn’t in the DSM and of itself isn’t a psychiatric disorder. Trump’s oral impulsivity is unusual if not unprecedented in a presidential candidate. I could go on, but all this leads up to his apparent believing in tin-foil hat dire conspiracy theories.

The latest wrinkle in his diversionary tactic from the sexual allegations is, of course, his claim that the elections are rigged despite having no rational evidence that this is true. And the latest wrinkle in this is that 1.8 million dead voters are going to vote for Hillary.

What can anyone, whether a clinician or a lay person, make of this?  

Damned if I know.

Sunday, Oct 23, 2016 · 5:45:44 PM +00:00 · HalBrown

This is a long story I wrote about Trump’s pathological lying.

www.dailykos.com/...

Sunday, Oct 23, 2016 · 5:53:58 PM +00:00 · HalBrown

Is Trump a psychopath? www.dailykos.com/...

Sunday, Oct 23, 2016 · 6:01:23 PM +00:00 · HalBrown

About breaking the Goldwater Rule: www.dailykos.com/…

About narcissistic rage: www.dailykos.com/…

More about diagnosing Trump: www.dailykos.com/…

About the Free Therapist Manifesto which 2200 mental health professionals signed: www.dailykos.com/…

The never-ending controversy about diagnosing Trump: www.dailykos.com/…

Even more: www.dailykos.com/…

and then there’s this: www.dailykos.com/...

www.dailykos.com/...