Sitting in a hotel room 12 hours before the second debate with the room TV talking about nothing but a 70 year old delinquent who is commenting about how "the tape" doesn't represent who he is ... has a certain surreal quality about it.
As I've said many times, I have no entre into knowing much if anything about DJT's psychological profile but the man has projected a certain set of images -- purportedly of his true self -- that are fair
game in this election year. These are consistent with and common traits of certain folk who are often characterized as members of certain diagnostic classes that are often overlapping.
Narcissistic Personality Traits .... Among the major healthful developments in the personality of a growing human is the move from the child who sees others only as they are related to the child, that is, with no subjectivity of their own. The young childs' others are need-satisfying objects that provide the child with needed resources for its own well-being and pleasure. The person who is guided by such principles of living does not experience as equally valuable the needs or feelings of others. They may love or hate themselves, or both. There is little or no capacity to empathize, that is, to understand that others have similar sets of motivations ... have similar connections to their own children, parents, gods and theories of the world. As a frequent companion of these traits are ...
Borderline Personality Traits ... Another healthful human development is the growing recognition in the child of the grayness of life ... Our feelings even towards those near and dear to us are a mixture of loving and angry feelings that tend to fuse into a view of that other as mostly good but having their own flaws and limitations. The less developed personality has two separate views of others ... a Good and a Bad. Typically, folk who have not adequately developed along this line will act out some minor faux pas, two which the Other will respond with some criticism or negativity. At this moment, such folk will over-react and see the other -- hitherto, as a Good -- as all Bad. Such folk suffer with poor and stormy interpersonal relationships. Note that the person who develops empathy (ie, recognizes the other as a Subject in Their Own Right) has room for the other to be flawed without seeing them as thoroughly sullied. Note, for instance, the switch of Gov. Christie froom enemy to connfidedente and. -- soon -- back, again. And as a frequent fellow traveler with these traits, we often see ....
Impulse Order and Disorders ... Children, too, learn to control their impulses and behaviors. From rules around eating and vacuating ... to the ability to share and cooperate with others, they develop a certain pride in that cooperative style of living, including the ability to glean pleasure by pleasing others with this manner of dealing with others. Grabbing women's crotches ... Tweeting at 300 am ... ...
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It is important to recognize that these personality anomalies are separate from those mental illnesses which either prevent the processing of reality or distort it or deny it. So, that, for instance, in the delusional and schizophrenic disorders, reality is changed for complex reasons ... some biologically based, perhaps. The person who has, for instance, a delusional disorder might believe that they are being followed by the NSA or someone with a schizophrenic disorder might hear voices that are telling them to do destructive things. People with personality disturbances have, instead, an inability or deficiency in controlling their behavior in relationship to others.
Not to glorify the mental illnesses, but in some sense someone who is being medicated for a schizophrenic disorder might well be more capable of relating and dealing with the exigencies of living and managing their authority, feelings and actions moreso than those suffering from these personality disturbances. Schizophrenics are, in this sense, potentially more suitable to assume positions with great authority than the caricature (whether it is indicative of DJT's actual personality or not) that Trump has painted for the Citizenry.
Whatever the state of DJT's mind,, his behavior projects all the disturbances of these personality anomalies. The repeated demonstration of an inability or disinterest in seeing others' pains ... the comments that suggest a similar inability to recognize empathically the suffering of other groups ... the viewing of the world as "with me or agin' me" ... the difficulty he projects in controlling his behaviors unless reading a script ... speak to all three of these personality and relational oddities ... and ... what to say? ... make the image of the Presidency that he projects a critically dangerous one.
If this breaks the Goldwater Rule and others argue that it is not justified by the Tarasoff Ruling that requires that I, as a mental health professional, warn others of potential serious danger ... what to say? I disagree strenuously.
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