I'm blushing! but this thread isn't about me, it's about Trump.

Interesting profile of Trump's observed behavior by a non-psychiatrist:
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/ar...sident/612031/

#youaintarealman if you vote for Trump? Interesting take . . .

no question for many of his supporters Trump is Viagra.

I don't know, but this is sure true.

Cowardly certainly sticks out as definitive.

You go with the bullying, abuse, isolation and internalized rage you have, not what you wish you had.

That the President is a bona fide conspiracy theorist is more than a bit disturbing.
http://www.internationalskeptics.com...dbf0f2b2cc.jpg

Yes, but it's a very weird kind of cowardice where vanity always seems to win out: He is a germaphobe, and yet he refuses to wear a mask (or rather: refuses to be seen wearing a mask) because he fears that people will then see him as the coward that he actually is - and not as a leader setting a good example by exhibiting responsible behaviour.

So what he fears more than germs is that people would think of him as somebody who is afraid of germs. He finds himself in a time and place where fearing germs has actually become a rational state of mind. Nobody (except for a few manosphere Nazis) would blame him for wearing a mask in this situation, and yet he refuses to do so (i.e. to be seen doing so).

A mask would mess up his hair and makeup. But I bet he makes his hairdresser and makeup artist wear one.

At some point we may need to consider extreme willful ignorance a form of psychiatric disability:
https://www.salon.com/2020/05/27/tru...rgeon-general/

Perhaps he can get the WH doctor to prescribe it for him. After all, what can injecting insulin do to him as a non-diabetic? I mean, there are worse things than a sudden drop in blood sugar causing coma and even death. Like being seen in a mask.

If you hadn't provided the link, I would have guessed The Onion.
However, I wouldn't be surprised to hear that he had diabetes type 2 or at least was pre-diabatic.

Yeah, that's what I thought. Maybe a doctor has mentioned the possibility to him that he's pre-diabetic???

"You should try it, Mister President. Although you might not be allowed..."

Pre-diabetics are never prescribed insulin. And many with full on diabetes 2 never take it either unless their blood glucose gets to a certain point There are non-insulin medications that can control it well along with diet, weight control, and exercise.

But I would not be surprised if Trump is pre-diabetic or verging on it.

Tell him he can't do something and he'll do it to prove him wrong. Good tactic!:thumbsup:

Surely Trump's latest tweets threatening to shoot protestors have to contribute to an assessment of his psychiatric fitness.

I'd say his hissyfit over Twitter daring to criticize his tweet is more revealing. He's now attempting to exert government authority over a private company to censor criticism of himself. That's straight Soviet. It's an entirely mad response from an American president.

Another assessment of Trump's fitness by someone who knows him better than any shrink could:
https://gen.medium.com/the-psychopat...f-aa10ab2165d9

And another by a shrink:
https://medium.com/@vgwcct/a-duty-to...t-371354142a02

I agree with every word in the above two articles. I truly believe that Trump is a narcissistic psychopath who cares only about himself.

If you had read, understood, remembered and agreed with every word in the second, very long article, you would leave out narcissistic and call him a psychopath.

It's an interesting article, but so long (estimated 70 min.) that it will be tl;dr for most readers. The first half of the article is an introduction to the history of diagnostics in the field of psychology, psychiatry (with an aside to brain anatomy), so if you are convinced that you are familiar with this and know all about famous cases like Phineas Gage (who at one point becomes Phineas George, due to a word-processing error, I assume), you can skip the beginning and go to chapter 13 where the discussion of the Goldwater rule begins and soon after the diagnosing of Trump.

The author's use of the diagnostic system to identify psychopaths is very convincing. However, I disagree with him when he thinks that Trump doesn't have a parasitic lifestyle. The problem is that a parasitic lifestyle looks very different when you belong to the 0.1%. You are a different kind of parasite than, say, Kato Kaelin, but that doesn't make you less parasitic.

Republicans may appreciate the excuse that the author offers for believing in Trump. I imagine that xjx388 in particular will be pleased to see that a very human trait appears to be responsible for this deficit.

A Duty To Differentially Diagnose: The Validity Underpinning The Diagnosis Of The President (Medium)

The highlighted are not mutually exclusive.

I think sociopath is more precise than psychopath, however.

We’ve now heard the gamut of things Trump could be, from malignant narcissist to NPD to APD to psycho/sociopath. This doesn’t seem very precise and any predictive value we get from those terms is overshadowed by the simple, unprofessional terms, “incompetent,” “ignorant,” and “just plain stupid.”

Tell me again why it’s so important we assign professional labels...

You should take a look at his argument for the term psychopath rather than narcissist or sociopath. I found it convincing.

Somebody who hides in his bunker, concocting fantasies of evil antifas threatening all decent Americans and assembling a brand-new corps for his own personal protection and to clear peaceful protesters out of the way for his photo ops isn't described properly, precisely or predictively with the words “incompetent,” “ignorant,” and “just plain stupid.”
That is what a psychopathic president does.

But feel free to add ignorant and just plain stupid since he obviously is those, too. Psychopaths are very often incredibly ignorant and stupid. The highly educated, intellectual Hannibal Lecter is fiction! Ignorant, stupid, anti-intellectual Trump is real.

I would be more cautious about using the word incompetent. Calling him incompetent implies that you expect him to be trying to do accomplish something other than what he is actually doing.

Calling him incompetent makes your own idealism obvious: Some people may think that Trump isn't good at fighting the pandemic, for instance, but that is an absurd criticism since he isn't even trying. It isn't of any real concern to him. It would be like saying that all U.S. American presidents so far have been incompetent because they weren't very good at turning the world into a place of peace and harmony or the USA into a country of security and prosperity for everybody. Using the word incompetent for that reason would imply that they had actually been trying to accomplish those things. It is projection, it is what you would want them to be interested in when you believe in the American Dream and idealize the USA.

What Trump is actually trying to achieve is his fanboys' adulation, and he still hasn't lost that. They're out there with guns, eager to defend the USA against the imaginary marauding antifas. And Trump is so good at riling up guys like this that he has managed to assemble an actual personal guard of thousands of those fanboys with at least a little professional experience from law enforcement.

I wouldn't call that incompetent, much the same way that I wouldn't have called Saddam Hussein incompetent.

You hold American presidents in high regard, don't you?

Very few of them have been insane enough to openly act and sound like Stalin: they've either been less power-mad or smart enough to not look it. Trump doesn't even try to hide his authoritarian fantasizing, which means he either doesn't recognize social norms or doesn't care if he's violating them. Either way, that's crazy in his position.

How dare he without interviewing Trump in person. :rolleyes:

Every previous American president, good or bad, has gone to the White House as the culmination of a lifetime in public service, in either the military, public office or both, and has been committed to basic principles of American government. Even Nixon knew his Watergate shenanigans were wrong, and tried to conceal it, and in many ways he was a competent, responsible President. Trump is the first guy to take office after spending his life as a crook, a con artist and entertainer, and he has always imagined that he was elected Emperor.

Part of the reason is that they help predict what he might do next. Threatening to send American troops against protestors goes way beyond incompetence, so far that multiple senior military leaders felt compelled to say "Oh no you don't." Trump is entirely unrestrained by normal social expectations or any human feelings of empathy or shame.

Another assessment by one of the Yale shrinks:
https://www.salon.com/2020/06/07/for...-police-state/

Thanks to Dann for posting this as it was very informative.

A Duty To Differentially Diagnose: The Validity Underpinning The Diagnosis Of The President

What a fascinating read! It completely blows the lid off the "you can't diagnose Trump without an in-person interview" argument. As I was reading it, each diagnostic criterion immediately brought to mind several examples I've seen from Trump perfectly demonstrating them. I agree 100% with this from the article:

Trump scored 32 out of 40 on the diagnostic scale for psychopathy. Wow. There is no doubt in my mind that he is a psychopath. And the Republicans are supporting him.

I'm not convinced that that new wall thing around the White House is just to keep protesters far away. It's also what he'd do to set up the next step of having the walls even more thoroughly locked in place by whatever means and fortified, as his way of trying to stay there and "fight" to keep it after losing the election. The only real reason to think otherwise is that it probably exceeds his ability to plan ahead for anything at all. (But it could still be the plan of one of his equally insane sycophants.)

Donald Trump has 'dangerous mental illness' say psychiatry experts at Yale... Pt 3
 

Double post

It more succinctly summarises this thread.

One things that leapt out at me:

And another thing: "the Goldwater rule"

It had never much substance to begin with. Interviews are not the only way to diagnose someone.

I have always taken that view. But some have argued that it isn't ethical into the ground.

Another point the author of the article made is that interviews can be the least effective way to diagnose as a psychopath can manipulate and charm even professionals. They learn what to say and how to act for a given situation to get what they want.

I find that hard to believe. Most psychiatrists are psychopaths themselves highly trained professionals so they would see through it immediately.

I really don't know how to take that. Put me out of my misery and tell me you're just kidding.

There's a common suspicion that people who go into psychology and psychiatry are trying to understand and resolve their own problems.
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/a...-have-problems

Interesting and I can well believe it. But that does not support Roger Ramjet's statement that 'most psychiatrists' would be able to see through a psychopath's act in an interview.