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Feb. 15th, 2017 at 1:07 PM
A psychiatrist writes to the New York Times, in defence of the mentally ill...
https://www.nytimes.com/…/an-eminent-psychiatrist-demurs-on…
(Source: Letters of Note FB page)
A psychiatrist writes to the New York Times, in defence of the mentally ill...
https://www.nytimes.com/…/an-eminent-psychiatrist-demurs-on…
Comments
The kicker there is "required to diagnose". Doctors don't go around randomly diagnosing people; the only time they diagnose is when someone comes (or is brought) to them with a presenting problem.
As it happens, nobody knows what kind of distress and impairment Trump suffers. He certainly fits every criteria of the profile of a sociopath (http://www.mcafee.cc/Bin/sb.html), and sociopaths are not generally amenable to therapy, but it isn't true that they don't suffer: else why all the rage?
Mr. Trump has been 'rewarded' so far, in that he has all the trappings of material success. He also has a string of bankruptcies behind him; may not actually possess the wealth that the trappings seem to indicate; may in fact be in debt up to his eyeballs to some very shady people, and/or susceptible to blackmail for his illegal actions. There is a very good chance that the consequences of his actions will catch up with him, and he'll die in jail as the intel community promises.
I do think he's crazy, according to the classic definition of 'keeps doing the same thing and expecting different results.' I also think he is a profoundly stupid man - not just because he's profoundly ignorant (though he is that,) but more because he's too besotted with his own arrogance to see the terrible fall he's riding for.
Dr. Thomas Szasz held that 'mental illness' is only a metaphor anyway, and not a very apt one. Reportedly Trump lives on junk food and doesn't sleep; he looks like a stroke waiting to happen; his speech is rambling and disconnected, full of non sequiturs and warped logic to the point of actual incoherence at times - just looking at him, I'd guess he's on at least three prescriptions, not counting the mind-altering one to keep what's left of his hair from falling out.
"Mens sana in corpore sano": Trump clearly has neither. But is his brain/mind messed up because he treats his body badly, or does he treat his body badly because his brain/mind is messed up? We'll never know - even his doctors will never know - and unlike them, we have no good reason to care.
(rather offtopic, you do know that "mens sana in corpore sano" is a famous misquote, right?)
There's more on the topic here, if you'd not already seen this article: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/feb/16/donald-trump-us-president
EDIT: No, it's not a misquote - it's right there, Line 356 of Satire X (http://www.thelatinlibrary.com/juvenal/10.shtml) on 'The Futility of Aspiration': "orandum est ut sit mens sana in corpore sano"; "you ought to pray for a sound mind in a healthy body." Who told you it was a famous misquote? Google is not showing me any corroboration of that.
I think I posted that article from the Guardian in my links post yesterday - if not from the Guardian, from somewhere else. I don't re-post from the New York Times because it's on a paywall - it's still possible to read their articles in the source code, but most people won't bother even if they know how. Anyway, I'll go check out the comments; I'm sure it's a lively discussion! ^^
EDIT 2: No, it was a different article I'd posted. This one was interesting too. IMHO the models of schema therapy (http://www.schematherapy.com/id63.htm) and transactional analysis (http://www.ericberne.com/transactional-analysis/) are far more useful in figuring people out than all those DSM (http://www.newyorker.com/tech/elements/the-d-s-m-and-the-nature-of-disease) disorder-diagnoses, most of which are based on discredited Freudian notions (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_narcissism). It's clear that Donald Trump is a rude self-centered jerk; it's also clear that he's a human being in pain.
I hold with Alice Miller, that right-wing authoritarianism is an artifact of emotional (and usually physical) abuse in childhood.
Edited 2017-02-17 07:30 pm (UTC)
You see, back in the "good old times", in the Soviet Union, they were fond of quoting "mens sana in corpore sano", meaning it in the way of, "you must keep fit for your mind to be fit as well."
...Which, of course, is nonsense, as there have been many prominent scientists, artists, philosophers, etc., who have been sickly all their lives, and by the same token, many very fit individuals with not much in the way of brainpower...
So yes, the misquote being the quote not given in full, "a healthy mind in a healthy body is a great boon" is how I'd seen in rendered in Russian (translating back into English)
Thanks for the psych links, will read more later; and yes, Alice Miller's theory makes sense...
On the other hand, I'd bet that Stephen Hawking and those who care for him do everything they can to keep his body as healthy as possible under the circumstances. Except for the disease he has, he may actually be healthier than Trump.
The premise of Juvenal X (http://www.poetryintranslation.com/PITBR/Latin/JuvenalSatires10.htm) is that it's foolish to pray for any of the things people usually pray for, because they're all prone to backfire, and that the only things actually worth praying for are things one can secure for oneself without prayer.
Edited 2017-02-18 12:12 am (UTC)
Oh, I think most people in Russia had also not heard of Juvenal, it's just that "mens sana in corpore sano" was much touted by the government (which is now starting on the same, yet again!) ('those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it'...)
So it was the Soviet government that touted 'mens sana in corpore sano'? I'm presuming that what they meant by that was more-or-less "This is Sparta!": everybody should start their day with cold baths, physical jerks, and plain oatmeal, walk to work, healthfully spend their free time growing vegetable gardens, and not complain of the lack of drink, tobacco, or fancy food. Yes?
I certainly do agree that voluntary simplicity beats the hell out of involuntary poverty, but the key word there is voluntary. One can't just impose Strength And Health Through Clean Living on an unwilling populace by government order.
In addition to reading history, those who would govern ought to read science fiction. Not only would this teach them some science, it would give them practice in thinking about "how this clever idea might go badly wrong, and what will have to be done if it does."
DSM-5 Manual Catches Fire And Dies During Presidential Press Conference (http://www.breakingburgh.com/dsm-5-manual-catches-fire-dies-presidential-press-conference/)
EDIT And this!
A Medical Theory for Donald Trump’s Bizarre Behavior (https://newrepublic.com/article/140702/medical-theory-donald-trumps-bizarre-behavior)
Edited 2017-02-18 09:33 am (UTC)
The second is an interesting theory...but I don't think it quite matches the clinical symptoms :P
(although of course I am not a specialist; I'd only read a bit about it before)
As the writer notes, the neurosyphilis hypothesis could be demonstrated or conclusively falsified with a couple of blood tests, which is more than could be said for any of the psychiatric-disorder hypotheses. Other possibilities include atherosclerosis, prescription-drug side-effects, or merely having been born on the neurodiversity spectrum: Trump displays a lot of ADHD-like traits, and his young son certainly does set off the Aspie-dar, so who knows?
It would all be Trump's private business, if he were not POTUS, but unfortunately he is. I don't really care why he's such a train-wreck; I just want him out of the White House. Fingers crossed!
Edited 2017-02-20 02:19 am (UTC)
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