What followed when two psychologists with diametrically opposing views expressed them in The St. Louis Post-Dispatch? One of the OpEd editors responded.
Here is an excerpt from Dr. Mroczek’s OpEd (emphasis added)
President Donald J. Trump speaks what millions of people in America feel in their bones: that the United States has gone overboard in laxity, self-destruction and loss of common sense. No, we do not want girl and boy children naked and showering together as continues to happen in some schools at present time.
Do not confuse your disgust with what you believe are his policies juxtaposed against those of his predecessor, which were so different. He’s been hit with everything in serial time; from vulva contact in a sexually colluding industry of both genders to being a liar to a fantabulous Russia concoction used by the FBI and its former director, James Comey, for politics to mental illness to ... on and on and on.
As each smearing has not been effective enough, a new one is tried. The loser? The country. Should there be any discussion or debate of mental illness regarding the president, I volunteer heartily to represent the president for the courageous man he is — a male with testicular fortitude. He is to be admired as a person who works exceptionally hard and who might be a role model for achievement were he not demonized so.
If you are having trouble following her reasoning, you aren’t alone. I found her writing, to put it mildly, something less than what I’d expect of an educated person.
Excerpt:
I decided to devote our op-ed pages last Friday to a pro/con discussion first published in The National Psychologist newspaper between
John Gartner, a 28-year veteran of the Department of Psychiatry at Johns Hopkins University Medical School, and
Nancy Mroczek, a behavioral psychologist and neuropsychologist in Boston.
Soon after the two pieces were posted online, I received a call from Mroczek, who is a staunch and outspoken Trump defender. Gartner argues, along with thousands of other professionals in the field, that the president shows clear signs of being psychologically unfit.
I commented regarding the pro-Trump psychologist's OpEd (Trump is not mentally ill) that her essay was such a fawning unprofessional piece I could barely read it. It turns out that the editor agreed with me.
But as a professional, I asked her, how do you explain Trump denying the very recordings in which he stated in unequivocal terms that, as a star, he was allowed to kiss women without asking for permission and to “grab them by the pussy.”
My mouth dropped open when Mroczek responded, “Oh, do you think those women go running away screaming when he grabs them by the pussy? No, they say …” (and here she alters her voice to mimic the deep, seductive, come-hither, lilting voice of a woman who welcomes having her crotch grabbed by a star) “No, they say, ‘Hi Don.’”
The clear gist of her comment was that those women want it.
I followed up this week with a confirmation email to Mroczek. She responded that she “absolutely DID say the ‘hi don’ thing.” So she meant it.
During our phone conversation, I had asked about Trump’s history of walking into beauty pageant dressing rooms when he knew the contestants would be naked. Trump took pleasure in catching them in various states of undress.
Mroczek disputes having answered that question. But she did, and her answer was just as outrageous as her “Hi Don” remark. But I’ll leave it out since she disputes it.
It is mind-boggling. I would hazzard an educated guess, having been a psychothrapist in private practice in the Boston area, that she isn't held in particularly high regard among her colleagues because of this disconnect between what psychology tells us about Trump and what she wants to believe. Her opinion is a classic example of confirmation bias in someone who should know better.
Full discloser: I have worked with Dr. John Gartner since the beginning of the Duty to Warn movement. I have also documented as many, perhaps almost all, articles on the subject of Trump’s mental unfitness for office on my own website, and have written numerous article about the subject on Daily Kos.