But last week, appearing on The Sean Hannity Show on Fox News Channel, Loudon had plenty to say about it.
She told host Sean Hannity, a close friend who wrote the foreword to the book, that the anonymous “senior official” who wrote a Trump-bashing op-ed for TheNew York Times was an example of what she calls “Trump derangement syndrome.”
Then she took a deep breath.
“But my book actually uses science and real data and true psychological theory to explain why it is quite possible that this president is the most sound-minded person to ever occupy the White House,” she said.
Hannity interjected: “Literally, liberals’ heads are going to explode at what you said!
I want to bring this Daily Beast article to readers attention since I have frequently written diaries on Trumpology, i.e., about why Trump is, (to paraphrase the language of Gina Loudon whose book jacket proclaims that she’s ‘America’s favorite psychological expert.’) Trump is the least sound-minded” president in history.
There is much in this article to consider. There are too many interesting excerpts to put a few substantive quotes in a diary. Here are just a few brief things to note. I recommend you read the article.
- Suffice to say that Loudon, 58, who often refers to herself as “Dr. Gina,” does not have a psychology degree or license. She has no clinical training.
- She obtained a Ph.D in a field called “human and organization systems” from an online school called Fielding Graduate University. This online institution is unranked in US News and World Report.
- There no way she “has the depth of a credentialed psychoanalyst” as her book jacket claims.
- Her new book, Mad Politics: Keeping Your Sanity in a World Gone Crazy—which contains theories that experts say have been dismissed by scientific research.
- She admits she does not have clinical training but says “my gut instincts, which have nothing to do with my professional training, are pretty solid,”
Dan McAdams is quoted. He wrote the very first article saying Trump major article about Trump’s personality. This was a cover story, “The Mind of Donald Trump,” which was published in the June 2016 issue of The Atlantic. It was about how his narcissism, disagreeableness, grandiosity might shape his possible presidency.
The next major magazine to publish an article about Trump's personality came six months later. This was in US News and World Report on Jan. 27, 2017, Temperament Tantrum: Some say President Donald Trump's personality isn't just flawed, it's dangerous. This marked Dr. John Gartner's debut as the major spokesman for the duty to warn movement.
There are hundreds of mental health professionals who have publically said Trump’s personality makes him too dangerous to be president (some explained why in the best-seller “The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump.” Whether one ventures a public diagnosis or not, we all agree on the basic premise.
There is a legitimate mental health professional who has come out saying that Trump cannot be diagnosed, psychiatrist Allan Francis who wrote the DSM diagnosis of narcissistic personality disorder. However, he also is highly critical of Trump.
He wrote in a letter to the NY Times:
Most amateur diagnosticians have mislabeled President Trump with the diagnosis of narcissistic personality disorder. I wrote the criteria that define this disorder, and Mr. Trump doesn’t meet them. He may be a world-class narcissist, but this doesn’t make him mentally ill, because he does not suffer from the distress and impairment required to diagnose mental disorder.
Mr. Trump causes severe distress rather than experiencing it and has been richly rewarded, rather than punished, for his grandiosity, self-absorption and lack of empathy. It is a stigmatizing insult to the mentally ill (who are mostly well behaved and well meaning) to be lumped with Mr. Trump (who is neither).
Bad behavior is rarely a sign of mental illness, and the mentally ill behave badly only rarely. Psychiatric name-calling is a misguided way of countering Mr. Trump’s attack on democracy. He can, and should, be appropriately denounced for his ignorance, incompetence, impulsivity and pursuit of dictatorial powers.
….Comments welcome on the Daily Beast article and any other aspects of Trumpology. ….
I will not respond to comments reopening the discussion as to whether a therapist can make a distant diagnosis or clinical assessment of Trump nor will I respond to commenters who question the validity of making any psychiatric diagnosis that can’ t be proved by medical testing.)
PS: These are my credentials.
Thursday, Sep 13, 2018 · 5:44:37 PM +00:00 · HalBrown
Here’s a another psychologist who admits she is a Trump supporter and thinks he is mentally healthy.
President Donald J Trump and Mental Illness Nancy Mroczek PhD
August 30, 2017
Regarding Attempts To Frame A Narrative About The President In Terms of Mental Illness
Excerpts:
How dare the president be talked about as mentally ill whatsoever... This president has been treated overwhelmingly unfairly with the Democrats trying to stick one nasty impediment to his governing after another. This president has withstood the Democrats’ ill will & downright skullduggery without becoming any way other than his usual self. I’d like to see someone else do as steadily and energetically and willingly as he under the same oppositionally contrived circumstances.
Yes, he does seek approval from others via a personality that desires to be reinforced as in acknowledgement of things he has done, thinks, etc. That serves him to determine what people feel as well. We who esteem his service, do not mind his personality in the least, we like it, and picadillos can be even endearing and winsome when a person is liked. The president is not, however, - not, - by any means, - a narcissist - as in lacking in empathy or conjuring un-realisms to suit a self importance. It is galling to me that practitioners in the field of mental health above all would dare to deem him mentally ill (eg, narcissist as I’ve read).
And don't call him mentally ill for his positions!: i.e., eg, because you feel he has no empathy for illegal aliens; or, because you haven't appreciated the bona fide danger of indiscriminate admissions to the US; or, because you believe he is a racist (how dare these words be thrown around); or, because he is accused to be against women. President Donald J Trump speaks what millions of persons in the US feel in their bones: that the US 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 Comey for politics (quelle horreur), to, mental illness, to, on and on and on.
We, the supporters of the president, must whisper our faith in our president between us, all the while being careful to whom we whisper, lest we be set upon, in the land of the free: the United States of America.
I forgot that I wrote about this psychologist back in December:
In looking over her website, which is unnecessarily called Dr. Nancy Mroasek, Ph.D., I see a lot of self-promotion, but it is lacking in that there’s no vita, no listing her academic credentials. A web search shows her listed on several websites. The claim that she is certified in a couple of fields doesn’t say by whom. She could have just taken a one-day seminar or even a one-week course and gotten a certificate.