“Stop Calling Trump ‘Crazy.’ It Demeans Those With Mental Illness.”

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Patrick Kennedy writes in the Washington Post “we ought to stop casually throwing around terms like ‘crazy’ in this campaign and our daily lives. The president of the American Psychiatric Association has said that even for professionals, these sorts of diagnoses, made from afar, are ‘unethical’ and ‘irresponsible.’ And they only serve to demean and undercut people … There’s a lot to criticize about the policies, ideas and ideology of the Republican nominee. As a person, he lashes out with unnecessary cruelty, and his policies would drive our country into a lengthy recession (but) We can reject Trump without resorting to making baseless diagnoses of his mental health.”

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From “Stop calling Trump crazy” (on CNN.com):

“Fred Friedman, the co-founder of the mental health reform group Next Steps, describes himself as a person with active mental illness symptoms. He feels this “diagnose Trump” movement is “just going to add to the stigma of having mental illness symptoms.” Recalling Eagleton, Friedman told me when it came to high office, he “hoped the stigma of mental illness was less today. To ask Trump to withdraw because of a possible diagnosis takes away any progress we have made. It hurts my heart.””

8 COMMENTS

  1. This is BS. People don’t have mental illness. People have problems in feeling, thinking, and functioning based mostly on experiences in the environment, especially with neglect, trauma, abuse, isolation, poverty etc. Stigma shouldn’t be the pseudo-stigma of defending the idea of having a “brain disease” and differentiating this from people like Trump. That is just total BS.

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  3. Actually, calling someone who makes an assassination threat crazy is too nice of a word. Sorry, I know I will be flamed for this but I have bitten my tongue one too many times on this board regarding Trump.

    But getting back to the topic, it isn’t the language that matters but the actions. You can be politically correct all you want but if the actions tell a different story, language means zilch.

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  4. WASHINGTON – Just when liberals thought it was safe to start identifying themselves as such, an acclaimed, veteran psychiatrist is making the case that the ideology motivating them is actually a mental disorder.

    “Based on strikingly irrational beliefs and emotions, modern liberals relentlessly undermine the most important principles on which our freedoms were founded,” says Dr. Lyle Rossiter, author of the new book, “The Liberal Mind: The Psychological Causes of Political Madness.” “Like spoiled, angry children, they rebel against the normal responsibilities of adulthood and demand that a parental government meet their needs from cradle to grave.”

    While political activists on the other side of the spectrum have made similar observations, Rossiter boasts professional credentials and a life virtually free of activism and links to “the vast right-wing conspiracy.”

    For more than 35 years he has diagnosed and treated more than 1,500 patients as a board-certified clinical psychiatrist and examined more than 2,700 civil and criminal cases as a board-certified forensic psychiatrist. He received his medical and psychiatric training at the University of Chicago.

    Rossiter says the kind of liberalism being displayed by both Barack Obama and his Democratic primary opponent Hillary Clinton can only be understood as a psychological disorder.

    “A social scientist who understands human nature will not dismiss the vital roles of free choice, voluntary cooperation and moral integrity – as liberals do,” he says. “A political leader who understands human nature will not ignore individual differences in talent, drive, personal appeal and work ethic, and then try to impose economic and social equality on the population – as liberals do. And a legislator who understands human nature will not create an environment of rules which over-regulates and over-taxes the nation’s citizens, corrupts their character and reduces them to wards of the state – as liberals do.”

    Source : http://www.wnd.com/2008/11/56494/

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  5. Defining characteristics of pathological lying include:

    The stories told are usually dazzling or fantastical, but never breach the limits of plausibility, which is key to the pathological liar’s tactic. The tales are not a manifestation of delusion or some broader type of psychosis; upon confrontation, the teller can admit them to be untrue, even if unwillingly.

    “I remember landing under sniper fire. There was supposed to be some kind of a greeting ceremony at the airport, but instead we just ran with our heads down to get into the vehicles to get to our base.”

    –Hillary Clinton, speech at George Washington University, March 17, 2008

    http://www.businessinsider.com/hillary-clinton-bosnia-sniper-fire-2016-6

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  6. I’m not too into politics. I’m not even from the US, so I couldn’t care less about these people (and I neither support one candidate over another, because it doesn’t cause even a blip in my personal life).

    However, something that I [i]have[/i] noticed certain psychologists do online is diagnose political personalities like Trump with “personality disorders” (“narcissistic personality disorder” etc.). Keep psychologists aside; how often have we not noticed average people who know nothing of these things make statements like “X person behaves this way because he probably has Y personality disorder”. As if that somehow explains why the person behaves that way. They think that using medical disorder terminology points to some intrinsic biological flaw as a result of which the person in question behaves the way he/she does. They don’t understand that it’s [i]because[/i] he behaves that way that they label him/her that way, and that such labelling is descriptive and not explanatory.

    Honestly, these psychologists who do long distance diagnosing should be sued and put into deep trouble. They should be made an example out of, so that the rest of their comrades look at them and fear engaging in such practices. It’s the only way to set these issues and these people straight. Writing posts, activism etc…it seems to be more useless by the day. You want to call someone out on their behaviour, ideas and policies? Then call them out on their behaviour, ideas and policies. Stop medicalising the issue.

    This reminds me of an incident with “bipolar specialist” Nasser Ghaemi. He wrote a long article on Psychology Today about why it’s not depression but bipolar depression that “killed” Robin Williams. I pointed out (via a comment on the article) that he had never met Robin Williams in person, so why would he long distance diagnose him that way? I wrote that there could have been social factors and problems in living that made him want to kill himself. He modified my comment and took out the part where I wrote that he was long distance diagnosing him, and just kept the “social factors and problems in living” part.

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    • Very well-stated. DSM diagnosis is more judgment than anything else. And when we are judgmental, we do it at any distance. It does not take deep thinking to be judgmental–in fact, it’s usually quite shallow, superficial, and leaves out relevant information, because it doesn’t fit in the box of the one doing the “diagnosing”/judging. How can long distance diagnosing be anything other than pure and transparent projection? Says more about the accuser than the accused.

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      • Can you believe these douches?

        Nigel Barber on Psychology Today writes about Trump’s Narcissistic Personality Disorder. Basically a defamatory quasi-medical rewording of the fact that he thinks he is a narcissist. It wouldn’t matter if they did this to Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders or Nelson Mandela. It is nonsensical.

        Nigel Barber also writes: “The key question to ask is whether, having come so far despite his psychiatric disorder, Trump, or any other narcissistic personality can communicate well enough to be an effective leader of the free world.”

        Another commenter on the article who calls himself Howard writes:

        “Mr. Trump surely fits the clinical picture of narcissism and perhaps psychopathy and machiavellianism.

        My guess is somehow his narcissism not only inflates his self image but flagrantly distorts his sense of reality, to the point of functional psychosis.

        Perhaps there is comorbidity of bipolar- he is genuinely a threat to himself and others, and the country”

        So…there is something called NPD in him, perhaps even a comorbidity of bipolar (which has caused him to be psychotic)…something that must be unearthed and treated by the psychologist….give me a break.

        My own comment on the article:

        If you think the man is being a narcissist, you can simply say it as it is (that he’s being a narcissist), instead of medicalising the issue and using the term “Narcissistic Personality Disorder” to delegitimise someone, which is just a quasi-medical rewording of the fact that you think he’s narcissistic.

        “Having come so far despite his psychiatric disorder”.

        Give me a break, I’m not even from the US, and I couldn’t care less who wins the election in the USA, but that statement is downright pathetic.

        You want to call someone out on their behaviour? Do that. You want to write about a patient’s behaviour that distresses you or anyone else? Write about it in a descriptive manner, like they would in court statements.

        Those of you who label people with DSM/ICD personality disorders are not doctors nor psychologists (or whatever positions you hold). You are criminals engaging in defamation and libel and should be locked up in jail for it.

        6 months per label should set things straight.

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