In an open letter, a collective of specialists draws up the psychiatric profile of Donald Trump, depicted as emotionally unstable. Their approach is debated.
Donald Trump’s sanity continues to stir people’s minds. A few weeks ago, psychiatrists had declared him unfit for the presidential exercise because of “his impulsiveness, his hypersensitivity to criticism, and his apparent inability to distinguish fantasies from reality”. This time, the charge comes from a collective of 35 American psychiatrists, psychologists and social workers, who are co-authoring an open letter published in the journal The New York Times.
They say they have “remained silent too long” because of a self-imposed “dictum” by mental health specialists about the evaluation of public figures. “This silence results in a failure to bring our expertise to worried journalists and members of Congress at this critical moment,” we read. We fear that the stakes are too high to remain silent ”. In the United States, a petition is circulating for mental health specialists to support a movement to impeach the president.
Twist reality
According to the signatories, the president has an “inability to tolerate the divergent opinions of his own” and is likely to develop “reactions of rage”. “These words and his demeanor suggest a deep ineptitude for empathy. Individuals with this trait tend to twist reality to suit their psychological state. They tie up the facts and those who communicate them, including journalists and scientists ”.
The authors of the text fear that the immense power acquired by Donald Trump will spoil things. “These attacks will increase, because his personal myth of megalomania is apparently confirmed. We believe that the serious emotional instability manifested by Mr. Trump in his words and actions renders him unfit to serve safely as President of the Republic ”.
The advisability of making such a diagnosis remotely, without having been the subject of a consultation, is however being debated across the Atlantic. In a letter in the form of a response, a prominent psychiatrist tells the signatories all he thinks about the approach of those he designates as “self-proclaimed psychiatrists”.
“Stigmatizing” for the sick
“Most amateur diagnosticians have classified Donal Trump as a narcissistic personality disorder,” writes the man who himself “created the criteria that define this disorder.” His judgment is final: Mr. Trump “does not meet these criteria.” “He is probably a first-class narcissist,” but this is not a mental pathology, according to him. “Mr. Trump generates more than he experiences a sense of deep anguish.”
Allen Frances also finds it “stigmatizing and insulting for people with mental illness (most of whom are well-behaved and caring) to be lumped together with Trump (who is neither ) ”.
Non-pathological incompetence
“This is a wrong way to denounce Mr. Trump’s attacks on democracy,” he continues. For the doctor, there is no need to complicate the diagnosis; the president “should be attacked for his ignorance, incompetence, impulsiveness and his search for dictatorial powers”.
And to conclude, sharply: “his psychological motivations are too obvious to be interesting; Analyzing them will not stop his frantic takeover. The antidote to this dark Trumpian era is political, not psychological ”.
.
