In an interview published in Psychology Today psychologist Dan McAdams explains why Donald Trump defies psychiatric diagnosis. From:
I do not find the clinical categories of the DSM all that useful in explaining how a person has come to be and in making sense of a person’s life, including President Trump. He is much stranger than any diagnostic category can convey, in my opinion. This is the thesis of my new book, The Strange Case of Donald J. Trump: A Psychological Reckoning. There is no diagnostic label that captures his unique blend of attributes and orientations. Among the most interesting features of Trump’s inimitable personality are (1) his peculiar form of extraversion-based charisma, (2) his startling lack of an animating life narrative in his own mind to make sense of who he is and how he came to be, and (3) his belief, shared unconsciously by a percentage of his supporters, that he is not “a person” – he is more than a person, like a superhero, like a primal or mythic force, but less than a person, too, in that he is not held morally accountable in the same way that other persons are. I am not speaking metaphorically.
It is an interesting coincidence that the title of the first major book about the psychology of Trump was “The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump” and now we have “The Strange Case of Donald Trump.” Perhaps we could end up a trilogy ending with “The Strange and Dangerous Case of Donald Trump.”
I view Trump as a malignant narcissist (see links below) but so much more. Trump, ever the defiant man, also defies any traditional or even non-traditional psychiatric diagnosis. I do think. however, that McAdams’ very last four word sentence is indicative of Trump being a malignant narcissist.
Since adolescence, he has viewed every day of his life to be akin to an impeachment hearing. Don’t forget: "Man [especially Democrats] is the most vicious of all creatures, and life is a series of battles ending in victory or defeat.” He lives for this.
Where did the “vicious of all creatures” quote come from? It is from what Trump says was his favorite movie, “Citizen Kane.”
Trump either fails to see the moral emptiness at (cinematic loser Charles Foster) Kane’s core, or else he does, and it doesn’t strike him as exceptional. Either way, however we spin it—wherever we draw the line of his self-delusion—Trump is admitting that he’s every bit as hollow as Charlie Kane; every bit “the empty box” (as Welles called him); every bit the liar and narcissist and demagogue.
I suppose this shouldn’t surprise me. After all, Trump’s worldview is, and always has been, rather Hobbesian in its bleakness. “Man is the most vicious of all animals,” he said in 1981, “and life is a series of battles ending in victory or defeat.” For a guy like Trump, who values strength and victory above all, morality doesn’t even enter into the equation. Hence his praise, back in 1990, for the Chinese government’s massacre of students on Tiananmen Square: “They were vicious, they were horrible, but they put it down with strength. That shows you the power of strength. Our country is right now perceived as weak…”
Donald Trump Modeled His Life on Cinematic Loser Charles Foster Kane
If I had one question to ask McAdams it would be to expand what he meant by his parenthetical “especially for Democrats.”
If you read the article it will be helpful to review the OCEAN scale which measures the “big five personality traits.” McAdams rates Trump on this scale in the last paragraph.
Here are the five factors:
Before you look at the ratings McAdams gave to Trump take a minute and rate him yourself and see if you agree with the psychologist.
I wrote about Dan McAdams in a Daily Kos story in May of 2016.
2016!
Trump and malignant narcissism
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Donald Trump malignant narcissist Archives - - Steve Becker, LCSW