Hal Brown, MSW
Introduction:
Yesterday I wrote about two previous Chauncey DeVega articles featuring interviews with experts. Along with Igor Derysh he has been a go-to columnist at Salon for interviews with experts from academic fields from psychology to history about Trump. Only 15 people seem to have read my diary from yesterday so hear’s a second chance.
Today’s DeVega interview was the featured article on their front page and is well worth reading. I recommend it even though I have some criticism.
A critique of psychologist Dan McAdams analysis of Trump as interviewed by Chauncey DeVega.
Dan McAdams wrote an article which was featured on the cover of The Atlantic (if you don’t want to use up a free article there click here’s a summary) about Trump's narcissism in the summer of 2016.
He was the first mental health professional to describe Trump in psychological terms in the mainstream media. This was almost a year prior to John Gartner's May 2017 USA Today article.
I don't doubt he has read the opinions and analysis from John Gartner, Lance Dodes, Bandy Lee, Justin Frank, Mary Trump, and others and decided to put his own spin on what he told Chauncey DeVega and apparently wrote in his book. There’s nothing wrong with that, but in many ways I see him as rephrasing what others have said.
For example, like most of us in the Duty to Warn group we consider Trump to be a malignant narcissist. McAdam’s says the following:
I end up just being flummoxed by the strangeness of the man. I believe that he does not neatly fit the categories. He's not the typical malignant narcissist. He's unbelievably disagreeable, but in ways that nobody would ever fathom. There are so many things about Donald Trump that are peculiar. My book is entitled "The Strange Case of Donald J. Trump." I cannot help but to emphasize the strangeness of Donald Trump — it is as if he is a type of one-off when it comes to human nature.
True enough. Trump is not the “typical” malignant narcissist. So what? He’s an atypical malignant narcissist, bit he still is a malignant narcissist.
McAdams assiduously tries to craft his own narrative and toys with the idea that if Trump has a diagnosis it wouldn't really fit into the DSM-5 but he is a one-of-a-kind.