For a second day in a row, because of the Michael Wolff book, my morning email alerts from Google News have about 50 articles related to Trump’s mental health. A few days ago I realized that I wasn’t able, and in fact didn’t need to, archive every article (on my own modestly URL’d halbrown.org website) which I could find which referenced or described Trump’s mental health and dangerous psychopathology.
Now, at best I only have time to skim the titles and look over a few articles that seem interesting to me.
One, from Talking Points Memo, had a quote mirroring something I was already thinking as I watched Morning Joy a few minutes ago. Here are two excerpts that sums up my thoughts:
"For public purposes, clinical diagnoses are only relevant as predictors of behavior. If the President has a cognitive deficiency or mental illness that might cause him to act in unpredictable or dangerous ways or simply be unable to do the job, we need to know. But My God, we do know! We see him acting in these ways every day – and not just in multiple news reports from an abundance of different news organizations. We see it with our own eyes: in his public actions, his public statements, his tweets. All the diagnosis of a mental illness could tell us is that Trump might be prone to act in ways that we literally see him acting in every day: impulsive, erratic, driven by petty aggressions and paranoia, showing poor impulsive control, an inability to moderate self-destructive behavior. He is frequently either frighteningly out of touch with reality or sufficiently pathological in his lying that it is impossible to tell. Both are very bad.”
"Again, for our purposes, it doesn’t matter. If the entire psychiatric profession got together and examined Trump and pronounced him entirely free of any mental illness, his behavior wouldn’t be any less whacked or dangerous in a President. That brings us back to the point. It’s really only the behavior that matters to us as citizens. A diagnosis would only be helpful to learn about behavior we don’t know about or predict future endangering behavior. Since we know about the behavior we’re talking about, none of that matters or applies. In common sense, every day rather than clinical language Trump is clearly unstable, erratic, impulsive. In a word, he’s nuts and not well. As citizens, we are entirely able and entitled to make these determinations. They are ordinary English language descriptors that the psychiatric profession doesn’t control and shouldn’t want to control. The entire debate over whether Trump is mentally ill is simply a diversion, premised on the idea that we need either permission or dictation to say he is not able to safely or competently fulfill the job of President. We don’t. The observed behavior is really all that is necessary and all that matters. It’s very clear. "
Trump doesn’t behave the way he does because he’s just a quirky guy who enjoys being the center of attention at a party after he’s had a few drinks too many. He’s not the loudmouthed jerk who goes back home after he dropped his drawers and put a lampshade on his head at the office Christmas party, and wakes the next morning with a world class hangover not remembering much of the night before.
Trump has a severe mixed personality disorder of a certain type. I consider him to be a malignant narcissist — however there’s no need to write about that anymore. If you don’t already know what it is, use The Google.
The behavior (which of course includes words) of someone with a cluster B personality disorder (see addendum) tells clinicians a lot more than what DSM-5 code to bill insurance companies for. It tells them whether that person is amenable to change, or whether it is even possible for them to change.
The literal bottom line:
Trump will never change except for the worst if he has dementia as some experts have suggested, and because he’s not just the office clown, he’s dangerous.
Addendum
Cluster B is called the dramatic, emotional, and erratic cluster. It includes:
- Borderline Personality Disorder — Very difficult to treat but often seen in therapy since patients do suffer and often seek help.
- Trump: Narcissistic Personality Disorder. — Considered almost impossible to treat, those suffering from it actually make others suffer and do not perceive they have a disorder
- Histrionic Personality Disorder. — Very difficult to treat but often seen in therapy since patients do suffer and often seek help.
- Trump (significant characteristics) — Antisocial Personality Disorder — Considered almost impossible to treat even when some realize they have antisocial tendencies. Some age out of the more extreme antisocial behaviors, in many instances while they are in prison. However there are many people with characteristics of the disorder like Trump who don’t meet the full criteria.
Disorders in this cluster share problems with impulse control and emotional regulation.
Trump, considered by many or most of those clinicians choosing to publicly diagnose Trump see him as suffering from a combination of Narcissistic Personality Disorder and Antisocial Personality Disorder. Put the two together and add delusions and paranoia and you come up with Donald Trump.