Paranoia, Antisocial Personality Disorder and Narcissism
Trump meets all criteria for a mental disorder
The author of the article believes that Trump is a reckless type. Archives
The documentary "Inappropriate: The Psychology of Donald Trump" analyzes Trump's character. Archives
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The question of whether (US President) Donald Trump is mentally unfit to become president, or more frankly, whether he suffers from a serious mental disorder, is not an issue that can be taken lightly, and yet it sometimes seems to be tinged with some comedy. In 2017, as speculation about Trump's mental state reached a boil, psychiatrist Allen Francis, who has written the criteria that defines narcissistic personality disorder, published a letter to the New York Times insisting that the syndrome did not apply to Trump. But I searched for those criteria on several prominent medical sites, and guess what I found? Trump meets each of those criteria. Do not take my words off their heads, search for them yourself. The message sent to the editor of "The New York Times" appears to be as if the famous psychiatrist, Sigmund Freud, emanated from his death to claim that the character Woodley Allan performed in a 1970s movie was not really about insanity.
Trump is the kind of reckless kind, who inspired many of us to play a psychologist sitting in a rocking armchair. We'd put him on the sofa throughout his presidency. So most, if not all, of the ideas presented in the upcoming documentary "Inappropriate: The Psychology of Donald Trump", which will be released on August 28, will be familiar to any student of psychology, which we might call "Trump syndrome."
Trump, as the director of the film, Dan Bartland, explains, is a malignant narcissist, and the film reviews the details of the four traits in Trump that define this syndrome: his paranoia (the feeling that any journalist asks him a difficult question, or any employee who does not bow to him, must obtain from him) Antisocial personality disorder (persistent lying, not showing remorse for the most destructive thing he does); Sadism (thousands of fierce attacks and insults in his tweets); And narcissism (don't I need to elaborate on that?)
Additionally, the film analyzes his tendency to create and live in his own reality, and explores his lack of empathy - which, of course, is the hallmark of a sociopath. (They aren't crazy; they don't care about you - or anyone else.) And that puts him in tune with the Nazi leader, Adolf Hitler, the fascist leader Benito Mussolini, and the authoritarian leaders of our time.
Old news
Most of these ideas may seem like old news. However, the film reveals differences within it. Veteran sports writer Rick Riley, author of the book Cheat Leader: How Golf Exposes Trump, says Trump is (among our best golf presidents), so Riley raises the question: Why does Trump need to cheat on golf? According to Riley, Trump is preparing his golf cart to be on the court before others, so that he can choose the starting point and be more able to manipulate the results. He will either place the base of the ball in the wrong place, or deny that he has hit a ball that falls into the lake. And when he loses, he claims that he won the tournament, or that he is the only player. He tried to deceive the famous golfer, Tiger Woods. And the movie suggests that if Trump was cheating on golf, he'd cheat anything.
From the start, Trump's psychoanalysis has been fraught with controversy, and many psychiatrists follow the guidelines of the American Psychiatric Association's "Goldwater Rule," issued in 1964, that prohibit them from making an individual diagnosis of a public figure. In 1964, Fact magazine published a survey of 1,189 psychiatrists who said that the presidential candidate, Barry Goldwater, was unfit to become president. Goldwater sued them and won, and according to psychologist John Gartner, he was right to win. The original article, which was published by the magazine, reviewed diagnostic stories about Goldwater, such as: "His father was never forgiven for being a Jew" and "He is a mass murderer." In other words, it was pure speculation. The guiding principle that emerged from this was that psychiatrists should not provide diagnoses of public figures that they did not analyze personally.
Directing method
But Gartner, in the documentary, claims that the Goldwater Rule was not intended to be an obstacle to publication, but rather a way to direct the psychological establishment, away from unfounded speculation. A lesser known rule, known as the Tarasov rule, is that psychiatrists have a duty to warn people involved when a patient is in danger of harm. Tarasov's instructions appeared in 1969, when a patient told a psychiatrist that he was going to kill his girlfriend. The doctor did not warn the girl, and the patient returned home, committing this crime. It has now become a law in all 50 states that if the psychiatrist is aware of a potential danger, secrecy loses in this case.
Gartner claims that this is exactly the case in Trump's case. "If we don't talk, it's immoral," says Gartner. And he goes on to make a wonderful critique of the Goldwater Rule - especially that the APA's rules are based on observable behavior that Trump has shown so abundantly. He may be the president with the most noticed behavior in history. But if the psychiatrist is interviewing in person with, say, a sociopath, then it is his nature to lie to him.
The film also notes that certain mental illnesses should not exclude anyone from the presidency. Abraham Lincoln suffered depression, and the disease may actually have helped him win the Civil War. "It was inspired by his identity," says Gartner, "which is why he was able to bear the enormous burden of the Civil War."
Narcissism
But malignant narcissism is really insidious. The film explains Trump's attacks on the media - his attacks on facts and on reality itself as a way to intentionally distort the audience's sense of what is real and what is not. Psychiatrist Lance Dodds, one of the film's characters, argues that Trump's lack of loyalty - due to all of the people he expelled - is a direct reflection of not having someone sympathetic to him, and that he has no human connections. And these attacks start from "You are the greatest person, you are a terrible person, you are a worthless person, I will attack you, and I will destroy you."
In the middle of the 84-minute movie, the movie takes a step back, reflecting on Trump's inner life, as it was, and moving on to topics such as whether or not he is a racist - Trump's counselor husband, Killian Conway, George Conway. (Who turned down the job in the administration), was available to testify that he was suspicious of Trump, but decided, in the end, that he was indeed racist, and that his political will and speech were intertwined with the will and speech of Mussolini and Hitler. (Trump used to read Hitler's speeches before bed, using the trick to repeat the phrase three times.) These issues, of course, remain at the center of the debate about Trump.
The terrifying question
When the film is completed, Trump's psychological vision will return to focus on politics, especially with regard to nuclear weapons. Will Trump use it? This is the scariest question we can ask, and if the answer is rooted in his mental state, and if he were to fire those weapons, it would confirm our worst fears about his demons.
The film never deals with what I always thought was the most mentally uneven aspect of Trump's personality, which is that we all know how many lies he made in his position (and for many years before that), given that they are well documented. But regardless of the horror of his daily fraud, we must ask: Why is he making all these lies, so much so that he might actually believe a number of them? What is the reality in which Donald Trump lives? If we knew the answer, we could name a new disorder, a disorder that it might be proud of.
Owen Gleberman is a film critic
"Inappropriate: The Psychology of Donald Trump" interprets Trump's attacks on the media, his attacks on facts, and on reality itself as a means of intentionally distorting the audience's sense of what is real and what is not. Psychiatrist, Lance Dodds, one of the film's characters, argues that Trump's lack of loyalty, due to all of the people he expelled, is a direct reflection of the lack of a person sympathetic to him, and that he has no human connections.