On “Meet the Press” this morning David Plouffe, who managed President Barack Obama's first campaign, admitting he wasn’t a psychologist, said Donald Trump was a psychopath. Here’s a high profile political expert, and a layman, making a psychiatric diagnosis. Not only isn’t he qualified to do this, he’s wrong.
Plouffe: "Basically, we have a psychopath running for president. I mean, he meets the clinical definition, OK?"
Todd: "I assume you don't have a degree in psychology. We're jumping to conclusions here, I think this is what gets voters a little frustrated with this campaign.”
Plouffe: "Listen, the grandiose notion of self-worth, pathological lying, lack of empathy and remorse. So I think he does. Right, I don't have a degree in psychology.”
In point of fact, Trump doesn’t fit enough of the criteria to be diagnosed as a psychopath, or what is now called an antisocial personality. He may have some of the characteristics but that doesn’t make him a psychopath. The word psychopath is misunderstood and erroneously applied by the public at large. Even Norman Bates in Psycho wasn’t a psychopath. He was far more likely to have been suffering from multiple personality disorder (now dissociative disorder). Hannibal Lector, on the other hand, probably was a psychopath.
Psychology Today has a good summary of what a person who can be considered a psychopath looks like:
The severity of symptoms of antisocial personality disorder can vary in severity. The more egregious, harmful, or dangerous behavior patterns are referred to as sociopathic or psychopathic. There has been much debate as to the distinction between these descriptions. Sociopathy is chiefly characterized as a something severely wrong with one's conscience; psychopathy is characterized as a complete lack of conscience regarding others. Some professionals describe people with this constellation of symptoms as "stone cold" to the rights of others. Psychology Today
Anyone can ask themselves which characteristics of simple anti-social personality disorder Trump exhibits in the behavior they have repeated seen. While there are technical changes between the previous edition of the diagnostic manual and the current one (DSM-5) basically the criteria to be diagnosed as having antisocial personality are having, to a significant degree, at least three of these:
- Lie, con, and exploit others
- Act rashly
- Be angry, vain, and aggressive
- Fight or assault other people
- Break the law
- Not care about the safety of others or themselves
- Not show signs of remorse after hurting someone else
- Fail to meet money, work, or social duties
- Abuse drugs or alcohol
See for yourself on WebMD.
I don’t see any signs that Trump would be given this diagnosis even though one could argue that he has shown some of these indices in numerous public appearances.
From psychologist McAdams’ article in The Atlantic.
The “grandiose notion of self-worth, pathological lying, lack of empathy and remorse” observed by Plouffe, with a notable exception, are actually symptoms of the personality disorder that attends the word most frequently used to describe Trump not only by mental health professional, whether they choose to make an actual diagnosis or not, but by laymen who know how to Google the DSM-5 using the key words “narcissist” and “DSM-5.”
The exception is pathological lying. This isn’t even in the diagnostic manual, although thanks to Trump it may be in the next editions. Look up “pathological lying diagnosis” if you want more information or read “Pathological Lying: Symptom or Disease” from Psychiatric Times.
Since the majority of professionals qualified to diagnose and treat mental health conditions who have gone public have decided to follow the so-called Goldwater rule and not make a diagnosis of someone they haven’t examined, they use words in addition to narcissism, even extreme narcissism, grandiosity and unempathic. See: www.dailykos.com/...
Because this professionals don’t enlighten the public about how one makes a diagnosis from a wealth of information gained by real life behavioral observation, and what a diagnosis actually means in terms of a person’s fitness to be president, we have people like Plouffe making unjustifiable statements to discredit Donald Trump.
