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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsDoes Trump Have a Personality Disorder? An Analysis
Many people have discussed and written about Donald Trumps weird personality. However, most of what I have read on the subject consists of statements of the authors less than professional opinions. I have often wondered how a physiologist or psychiatrist would view Trump from an analytical prospective. Based on my examination of the available scientific literature on the subject, that is the perspective I tried to capture in this article.
http://www.cajunscomments.com/does-trump-have-a-personality-disorder-an-analysis/
Bucky
(53,795 posts)He does not have one personality disorder
by the way, there's been quite a bit of remote analysis of Trump by psychoanalytic professionals. There have been articles and even op-ed pieces in the New York Times on the subject.
gibraltar72
(7,486 posts)Nuff sed?
Cirque du So-What
(25,811 posts)It is my considered opinion, however, that he is a fucking asshole.
dalton99a
(81,065 posts)Gabi Hayes
(28,795 posts)didn't read yours yet
how about mid stage neurosyphilitic dementia?
perhaps his yeomanlike service in the Vietnam era has finally caught up with him
Lint Head
(15,064 posts)different personality traits.
loyalsister
(13,390 posts)That would have been diagnosed in his 20s and he probably would have been hospitalized at some point. He would have had severely debilitating episodes. Aside from that, noone with schizophrenia seeks the kind of attention as he does.
Lint Head
(15,064 posts)They control it with drugs. Also manic depressives can display a different personality.
loyalsister
(13,390 posts)People diagnosed at the time he was didn't, and the drugs were almost as debilitating as the illness. The lack of variety limited the effectiveness. It's hard to imagine that a privileged family would have been accepting of him. Look what happened to Rosemary Kennedy.
TheDebbieDee
(11,119 posts)CajunBlazer
(5,648 posts)TheDebbieDee
(11,119 posts)Most people learn/manage to function "normally" in spite of them...
CajunBlazer
(5,648 posts)I have been doing a lot of reading and haven't come across that yet.
TheDebbieDee
(11,119 posts)CajunBlazer
(5,648 posts)world wide wally
(21,718 posts)mnhtnbb
(31,316 posts)Rex
(65,616 posts)That he is a sociopath.
Charles Bukowski
(1,132 posts)cornball 24
(1,471 posts)diagnosis (es) and said there are so many illnesses and disorders with similar symptoms, that he recommended we pay attention to the behaviors and their effects vs. a diagnosis. Personally, I don't want to equate this charlatan with those who suffer from chronic mental ILLNESS. I lean toward character DISORDER or plain rotten to the core.
CajunBlazer
(5,648 posts)...narcissistic personality disorder. As I pointed out in the article, he meets every diagnostic criteria. In fact, there ought to be a picture of Trump in the dictionary by the definition of the term. The chronic lying to improve his image or escape blame is a symptom of the disorder.
The most interesting thing that I have read about this disorder is that those who have it will never admit to having or seek help because to do so would be counter to the image of perfection which they try to project to others and themselves.
loyalsister
(13,390 posts)Imagine someone who grew up in an environment where any challenge to his opinions would get someone fired or otherwise removed from his circle.
On some level it appears that that is how he has lived his life.
I think it's more likely that his behavior is so far out of our experience that it's tempting to see what is a natural characteristic of someone who has been catered to and has never had to take responsibility for his behavior as some sort of recognized pathology.
I think it's more responsible to label it affluenza.
CajunBlazer
(5,648 posts)As explained in the article - He fits every dignostic criteria of narcissistic personality disorder perfectly. Maybe you acquired that disorder in the way you describe, but how ever he acquired it, he has it now.
loyalsister
(13,390 posts)I am not sure exactly what your dx of me would be. I have observed the environmental factors I described up close but most definitly have not lived it.
politicat
(9,808 posts)Is "do the behavioral aspects cause the person distress?"
I'm fairly confident saying that Il Douche feels no distress about his behavior. And therefore, while displaying behaviors consistent with a Cluster B personality disorder, he does not meet criteria.
I primarily work with PTSD clients, but there's a strong correlation between PTSD from battlefield conditions or from adult, short-term trauma, and C-PTSD stemming from childhood abuse and neglect. Children who grow up with an abusive parent are essentially programmed from infancy to accept and treat as normal a deeply dysfunctional environment. This means that they're more likely to take risks to get out of the dysfunction (joining the military, taking a risky job), to be in situations where their own safety is not their first priority, or vulnerable to others willing to exploit them. If one is not taught to value one's own perceptions, sense of safety, abilities and person, one is more vulnerable to being exploited or harmed in the future.
Most dysfunctional parents exhibit behavior consistent with a Cluster B personality disorder, but very few dysfunctional parents have a diagnosis, because most people with a Cluster B disorder don't think they're doing anything wrong, don't think they're causing harm, and don't care if someone is being harmed by their behavior. We use very specific terminology -- their parents are narcissists, they do not have NPD. Their parents are sociopathic, they do not have Antisocial Personality Disorder. Their parents are histrionic, they do not have Histrionic Personality Disorder.
Orange Julius Caesar is a narcissist. His behavior is consistent with all aspects of the disorder, but he does not experience distress over his behavior.
Cluster B is pretty much the full range of assholery. So asshole works, too.
CajunBlazer
(5,648 posts)I didn't find that in the literature. Thanks. Actually just being a narcissist sound like a worst situation than actual having NPD. Trumps behavior is exactly like someone with NPD, but he suffers none of the bad affects internally - is that right?
politicat
(9,808 posts)So when a client comes into my office to talk about their issues, I am there for that client. If they bring their parent in for relationship counseling, I'm still there for my client. If a couple come in together as a partnership, I'm there as the advocate for the relationship, a facilitator and (sometimes) an umpire. Personally, ethically, I will not take a parent and child as separate clients, just because keeping their advocacy separate is significantly more work, and more like an exponent or order of magnitude than just a doubling. But when a client is there, and their parent isn't my client, I cannot make a diagnosis of that person. All I can say is "their behavior is consistent with X, so we can use that as a frame of reference, but it is not a diagnosis." And thus, we use the colloquial words, because we're trying to frame something. This is a practical matter of how therapy works, and yeah, that doesn't show up in the literature, because that's what we teach in practical education. It's one of those professional tricks, like when a GP breathes on the stethoscope to warm it before applying it to bare skin. You're never going to find that in the literature.
It's not that a narcissist has it better than someone with a diagnosis, anymore than someone who hasn't noticed a lump is better off than someone with a cancer diagnosis. A narcissist is still a bundle of insecurities. They're still stuck in a developmental fault state, where they don't actually fully accept or recognize that the world is full of other people with perspectives and agency. They're still desperate for attention, and craving approval, while simultaneously disbelieving that all of those figments of their imaginations can give attention and approval. They're profoundly lonely and disconnected from both their own ability to cope with their emotional reactions and control their internal needs. In many ways, they're worse off, because they have no means of dealing with their negative behaviors nor of understanding them. But they also don't know what's wrong, and they often don't think there is anything wrong, because other people don't fully exist for them, and if those figments complain, well, they're figments. How much can their opinion actually count?
Given a choice, on a personal level, I would much rather work with someone with an NPD dx than someone who displays behavior consistent with. Even if the person with the dx is still not convinced that we other people in their universe actually exist, they're willing to entertain the notion and are working the process, and usually will behave (however mechanically) as if we non-player characters are actually PCs. That is rarely true with narcissists, and they don't even realize they're discounting the rest of us.