British Paper: Trump “displays classic traits of mental illness”
Mental health professionals have theories about the president's mental state -- and they're rather unnerving
In an article entitled “‘Malignant narcissism’: Donald Trump displays classic traits of mental illness, claim psychologists,” British newspaper, The Independent, reports that more and more mental health professionals are raising serious red flags when it comes to the president’s mental state.
Psychotherapist John Gartner, for instance, told U.S. News & World Report that “Donald Trump is dangerously mentally ill and temperamentally incapable of being president.” He posits Trump suffers from “malignant narcissism,” which is incurable and differs from Narcissistic Personality Disorder.
To be perfectly clear, no one has done a personal diagnosis of the president, and this is all speculation, which President Trump will no doubt discount as “crooked psychiatry” and claim that he’s more mentally acute that any other living person, animal, plant or mineral, on the planet — just like he insisted that it was “really sunny” as he delivered his Inaugural speech. (It wasn’t. It was really cloudy.)
The Independent goes on to list The American Psychiatry Association‘s nine-point checklist for narcissism noting that “if someone displays just five of the traits, they have Narcissistic Personality Disorder.” We thought we’d share the newspaper’s summation below, leaving in their native spellings, as it really does seem to answer so many questions about President The Donald.
- Has a grandiose sense of self-importance (e.g., exaggerates achievements and talents, expects to be recognised as superior without commensurate achievements).
- Is preoccupied with fantasies of unlimited success, power, brilliance, beauty, or ideal love.
- Believes that he or she is “special” and unique and can only be understood by, or should associate with, other special or high-status people (or institutions).
- Requires excessive admiration.
- Has a sense of entitlement, i.e., unreasonable expectations of especially favourable treatment or automatic compliance with his or her expectations.
- Is interpersonally exploitative, i.e., takes advantage of others to achieve his or her own ends.
- Lacks empathy: is unwilling to recognise or identify with the feelings and needs of others.
- Is often envious of others or believes that others are envious of him or her.
- Shows arrogant, haughty behaviours or attitudes.
So, what do you think? Is our new President “barking mad,” as the WaPo’s wonderful political columnist Dana Milbank worries? Or is he just living in an “alternate facts universe” the rest of us aren’t privy to?
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