While Dr. Allen Frances, a former Duke professor and chairman of the task force that wrote the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, denounces Trump for his ignorance, incompetence, impulsivity and pursuit of dictatorial powers, he also says the 35 psychiatrists and psychologists submitted an unethical misdiagnosis.
I think those 35 sickos made a far-left political diagnosis. While Trump may be ignorant on issues, incompetent in some ways, and impulsive with his tweets, that doesn’t make him a dangerous nutjob. And while it may appear that he is pursuing dictatorial powers, he is not doing anything different than Obama and his other predecessors. Trump is just not as smooth as they were.
Here are the two letters, both published by The New York Times last February.
To the Editor:
Charles M. Blow (column, nytimes.com, Feb. 9) describes Donald Trump’s constant need “to grind the opposition underfoot.” As mental health professionals, we share Mr. Blow’s concern.
Silence from the country’s mental health organizations has been due to a self-imposed dictum about evaluating public figures (the American Psychiatric Association’s 1973 Goldwater Rule). But this silence has resulted in a failure to lend our expertise to worried journalists and members of Congress at this critical time. We fear that too much is at stake to be silent any longer.
Mr. Trump’s speech and actions demonstrate an inability to tolerate views different from his own, leading to rage reactions. His words and behavior suggest a profound inability to empathize. Individuals with these traits distort reality to suit their psychological state, attacking facts and those who convey them (journalists, scientists).
In a powerful leader, these attacks are likely to increase, as his personal myth of greatness appears to be confirmed. We believe that the grave emotional instability indicated by Mr. Trump’s speech and actions makes him incapable of serving safely as president.
Lance Dodes, M.D.
Joseph Schachter, M.D., Ph.D.
Susan Radant, Ph.D.
Judith Schachter, M.D.
Jules Kerman, M.D., Ph.D
Jeffrey Seitelman, M.D., Ph.D.
Henry Friedman, M.D.
Babak Roshanaei-Moghaddam, MD
David Cooper, Ph.D.
Dena Sorbo, LCSW, BCD
Joseph Reppen, Ph.D.
Ernest Wallwork, Ph.D.
Judith E. Vida, M.D.
Richard Reichbart, J.D., Ph.D.
Joseph Abrahams, M.D.
Leslie Schweitzer-Miller, M.D.
Cheryl Y. Goodrich, Ph.D.
Lourdes Henares-Levy, M.D.
Alexandra Rolde, M.D.
Dr. med. Helen Schoenhals Hart
Eva D. Papiasvili, Ph.D.
Mali Mann, M.D.
Phyllis Tyson, Ph.D.
Era A. Loewenstein, Ph.D.
Marianna Adler, Ph.D.
Henry Nunberg, M.D.
Marc R. Hirsch, Ph.D.
Lora Heims Tessman, Ph.D.
Monisha Nayar-Akhtar, Ph.D.
Victoria Schreiber, M.A., L.M.S.W.
Penny M Freedman, Ph.D.
Merton A. Shill, JD. LLM., PhD.
Helen K. Gediman, Ph.D.
Michael P. Kowitt, Ph.D.
Leonard Glass, M.D.
__________
To the Editor:
Fevered media speculation about Donald Trump’s psychological motivations and psychiatric diagnosis has recently encouraged mental health professionals to disregard the usual ethical constraints against diagnosing public figures at a distance. They have sponsored several petitions and a Feb. 14 letter to The New York Times suggesting that Mr. Trump is incapable, on psychiatric grounds, of serving as president.
Most amateur diagnosticians have mislabeled President Trump with the diagnosis of narcissistic personality disorder. I wrote the criteria that define this disorder, and Mr. Trump doesn’t meet them. He may be a world-class narcissist, but this doesn’t make him mentally ill, because he does not suffer from the distress and impairment required to diagnose mental disorder.
Mr. Trump causes severe distress rather than experiencing it and has been richly rewarded, rather than punished, for his grandiosity, self-absorption and lack of empathy. It is a stigmatizing insult to the mentally ill (who are mostly well behaved and well meaning) to be lumped with Mr. Trump (who is neither).
Bad behavior is rarely a sign of mental illness, and the mentally ill behave badly only rarely. Psychiatric name-calling is a misguided way of countering Mr. Trump’s attack on democracy. He can, and should, be appropriately denounced for his ignorance, incompetence, impulsivity and pursuit of dictatorial powers.
His psychological motivations are too obvious to be interesting, and analyzing them will not halt his headlong power grab. The antidote to a dystopic Trumpean dark age is political, not psychological.
ALLEN FRANCES
Coronado, Calif.
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