For Trump, size clearly matters; reality, not so much

[Jayhawker Soule]

Then I realized that it was the same old you taking another gratuitous snipe at me.

Wow! How the hell did you manage to come to that conclusion?

Edit: I just read on another thread where you called Musk and Trump narcissists.

Therefore?

 

[Shadow Wolf]

Anyway, you have a standard that isn't mine, but one that it seems you would like me and others to adopt as well. It's fine with me if you refrain from using any of these technical words, but it's also fine with me that others do.

My standards are the standards of the professional mental health and medical fields. You don't diagnose people who aren't your patient, and with mental illness doing so contributes to the stigmatization and demonization of mental illness.

OK. Instead, just list the symptoms of each psychological diagnosis. Instead of narcissist, say these things below about him. I think it's more complete and more succinct to simply say that he's a malignant narcissist:

Signs Someone Is a Malignant Narcissist​

Signs and symptoms of narcissistic personality disorder (and the severity of these symptoms) vary. But the following are common characteristics of malignant narcissists:1

• Preoccupied with fantasies about beauty, brilliance, success, and power
• Unable to handle criticism
• Tendency to lash out if they feel slighted
• Likely to take advantage of others to get what they want
• Overly concerned about their appearance
• Expect to be treated as superior and craves this validation, also known as narcissistic supply
• Lack of empathy for others
• Inflated sense of self and inability to self-regulate
• Have no remorse for hurting others and no interest in apologizing unless it benefits them
• Have an attitude of deserving the best of everything
• Tendency to monopolize conversations and/or mistreat those who they perceive as inferior
• Hidden insecurity and a weak sense of self
• Tendency to blame others for their own bad behavior

Additional signs of malignant narcissism can include:

• Seeing the world in black-and-white terms, including seeing others as either friend or foe
• Seeking to win at all costs, leaving a great amount of pain, frustration, and even heartache in their wake
• Not caring about the pain they cause others—or maybe even enjoying it and experiencing it as empowering
• Doing what it takes to protect themselves from loss, inconvenience, or failing to get what they want in any situation

Yup. He is terribly insecure and thinks very highly of himself. This is apparent. What it isn't doing is playing psychiatrist and applying a diagnosis with an incomplete picture.
And this is a good reason why don't do armchair diagnosis. Those things could mean narcissism, it could be anti-social personality disorder (lots of overlap there) or even just very low self-esteem and an abused childhood (bunch of overlap there too). Seeing the world in black-and-white? That's common for autism (along with a sense of empathy that just doesn't work like others and makes it hard for us to put ourselves in another's shoes). Doing what it takes to protect yourself from loss? That's most people. Blame others for your bad behavior, lack of empathy, black and white, a lot of that is also common to Conservative, Fundamentalist Evangelical Christianity.

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

My standards are the standards of the professional mental health and medical fields.

Those standards apply to them in their professional capacity, and they can be sanctioned for violating them, not to lay people.

A similar discussion arises with "innocent until proven guilty." Those standards only apply to legal proceedings, and probably only to judges and jurors. The legal system doesn't treat defendants as innocent. If it did, they wouldn't be in court. You and I are free to judge Trump (for example) guilty before a jury does.

You don't diagnose people who aren't your patient, and with mental illness doing so contributes to the stigmatization and demonization of mental illness.

But that doesn't apply here. When I make a psychological diagnosis of Trump, nobody is harmed.

It's not relevant to my argument, but in my case, I do have some training and experience there. My education included a two-month rotation in psychiatry, which admittedly isn't much, but I was immersed in psychiatric hospitals and clinics for that time and became familiar with psychiatric patients of assorted stripes as well as seeing how the professionals there comported themselves.

I also had a few decades of clinical experience, where I managed minor problems like anxiety and uncomplicated depression without help, and referred other cases to psychiatrists, whose consults included a diagnosis and all the facts defending it as well as a therapeutic regimen.

My job included screening psychiatric patients for medical diagnoses before referring. What looks like dementia can be due to a urinary tract infection, atrial fibrillation, or thyroid disorders. A psychotic patient I admitted was simply somebody taking the same medication under two names in two bottles (digoxin, brand name Lanoxin). Why drag a psychiatrist into it when all that was needed was to stop the medication for a few days until the digoxin level returned to normal.

But once such things were ruled out, I sent the patient for expert mental health care.

Anecdote: I was assigned the task of interviewing a patient without being allowed to read the chart first. After thirty minutes of interviewing, I could find nothing abnormal there, so I left. As I was walking out the door, I asked him if he preferred his door open or shut. He answered, "Open. That's a seven." I went back in and continued from there. Lesson: the pathology isn't always easy to identify much less name.

He is terribly insecure and thinks very highly of himself. This is apparent.

Interesting comment. I don't know if that's meant as sarcasm. If not, you went further than I did. I'm not aware of any insecurities there apart from being easily miffed if religion is not respected. He's self-confident, but I don't know that his ego is excessive.

What I was commenting on is taking antitheistic opinions personally and the willingness to make derogatory personal comments in response.

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

My standards are the standards of the professional mental health and medical fields. You don't diagnose people who aren't your patient

I just read the following and thought of you and this discussion:

From Trump’s narcissistic personality disorder

"Those are also the diagnostic criteria for narcissistic personality disorder, or NPD for short, from the 5th edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual for Mental Disorders, or DSM-5 for short. There are nine such criteria in all, any five of which identifies a person with NPD. Donald Trump fits them all.

"Oh but wait, you might say, I’m diagnosing Trump from afar. Should I be doing that? After all, I’m not a psychiatrist or a trained psychologist. No, I don’t see a problem. I don’t need a meteorologist to tell me that the sky is blue. Anyone can see that Trump fits all those criteria. They are designed to be easy to spot by amateurs. What’s more, anyone with an ounce of discernment can tell that the Republican nominee for president of the United States is a very, very sick man."

We are free to make these judgments for ourselves, and ought to. I also didn't wait for a court of law to tell me that Trump is a criminal. Nor am I waiting for a psychiatrist to tell me that Trump is a narcissist in the technical sense, nor a sociopath, nor on the road to dementia. These are easy diagnoses for even lay people to make.

Your point is well taken why one in the field ought not do that with his or her patients if not a licensed psychologist or psychiatrist, but as for the rest of us or even those people when not on the job, making such judgments is appropriate, especially regarding somebody wanting to hold public office and asking for your vote.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

I just read the following and thought of you and this discussion:

From Trump’s narcissistic personality disorder

"Those are also the diagnostic criteria for narcissistic personality disorder, or NPD for short, from the 5th edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual for Mental Disorders, or DSM-5 for short. There are nine such criteria in all, any five of which identifies a person with NPD. Donald Trump fits them all.

"Oh but wait, you might say, I’m diagnosing Trump from afar. Should I be doing that? After all, I’m not a psychiatrist or a trained psychologist. No, I don’t see a problem. I don’t need a meteorologist to tell me that the sky is blue. Anyone can see that Trump fits all those criteria. They are designed to be easy to spot by amateurs. What’s more, anyone with an ounce of discernment can tell that the Republican nominee for president of the United States is a very, very sick man."

We are free to make these judgments for ourselves, and ought to. I also didn't wait for a court of law to tell me that Trump is a criminal. Nor am I waiting for a psychiatrist to tell me that Trump is a narcissist in the technical sense, nor a sociopath, nor on the road to dementia. These are easy diagnoses for even lay people to make.

Your point is well taken why one in the field ought not do that with his or her patients if not a licensed psychologist or psychiatrist, but as for the rest of us or even those people when not on the job, making such judgments is appropriate, especially regarding somebody wanting to hold public office and asking for your vote.

In anither thread I used as an example a plastic surgeon who told us all about Michael Jackson's plastic surgery. He never worked on Jackson himself, and it turns out some of that was legit medical stuff.
If a pro shouldn't do it because they lack the full picture, what makes you have confidence that those with no schooling, licensing or background can do it? Everybody else ****s **** up severely, like how they have bastardized anti-social personality disorder to the point people think it means being shy and I've known it to get applied to caring, loving amd concerned autistic people just because they didn't conduct a greeting ritual in the preapproved normie way.

 

[Copernicus]

My standards are the standards of the professional mental health and medical fields. You don't diagnose people who aren't your patient, and with mental illness doing so contributes to the stigmatization and demonization of mental illness...

...Your point is well taken why one in the field ought not do that with his or her patients if not a licensed psychologist or psychiatrist, but as for the rest of us or even those people when not on the job, making such judgments is appropriate, especially regarding somebody wanting to hold public office and asking for your vote.

This is the key point here. None of us are engaged in making a professional diagnosis of Donald Trump or claiming to be qualified to do so. There are people here with greater technical expertise in the subject matter, and they should be listened to. Advising caution about jumping to conclusions is always good advice, but one has to decide whether a candidate for public office is suitable for that office. If the candidate behaves in a really weird way over a long period of time--several decades in the case of Donald Trump--it is legitimate for people to discuss that weirdness and speculate as to its causes. Nobody questions that Donald Trump is a narcissist by any definition of that term. If that behavior truly does qualify as pathological, then one should not vote to put him into the most powerful office in the country. It is clear that Donald Trump is not going to let himself be examined professionally and have the results made public, so there is no point in waiting for a professional diagnosis. That is never going to happen. Public discussion of the weirdness will continue, no matter how strongly some people wish it wouldn't.

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

what makes you have confidence that those with no schooling, licensing or background can do it?

I DON'T have confidence in lay diagnoses, but those opinions mean nothing to me unless they are justified (explained). And they don't harm patients just as judgments of guilt by people not on the jury don't hurt defendants.

like how they have bastardized anti-social personality disorder to the point people think it means being shy

I neither encourage them to make such mistakes nor mind if they do. Their mistakes are irrelevant to me and out of my reach to control anyway. People are going to do what they like in this area, and that's how it should be. You, however, have an ethical code that you should follow when dealing with patients.

I don't have that duty and will go on making such judgments myself. And I don't see that as taking liberties or behaving unethically. Au contraire. It is my duty to recognize when I am dealing with a pathological liar or a sociopath or a narcissist or dementia both in my life and when voting, and I'm not waiting for them to go see a psychiatrist and provide me with the report, because that isn't realistic.

Did you look at the link? You didn't comment on it. The author is a lay person in this area and shows how he came to his conclusion using DSM-5 diagnostic checklist and a good example of justification for his assessment.

And he is correct and doing a service to his readers - political junkies; I guess that makes me one, too - spelling it all out for them in simple, non-technical language so that they can agree with him if they don't already.

I liked his comment about not needing a meteorologist to tell him that the sky is blue. I'd have said, "to tell me it's snowing" or to say that "it looks like rain."

 

[Shadow Wolf]

Did you look at the link? You didn't comment on it. The author is a lay person in this area and shows how he came to his conclusion using DSM-5 diagnostic checklist and a good example of justification for his assessment.

That's what laymen do. They don't know how to use it. He doesn't have a good accessment and cannot possibly have a good accessment as he only has access to what's available online and on TV and what other people are saying. That is upfront muddled and without necessary nuance to properly access someone. It's such a garbage way of approaching it you don't really have any idea what the man is like in private (remember he was absolutely aware of the dangers posed by covid, something you wouldn't have known by his public actions amd policy alone) and you can't even ask him questions.

 

[Kathryn]

Polls. IT'S POLLS. Not poles.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

Polls. IT'S POLLS. Not poles.

So? People make mistakes. We know what was meant.

 

[Kathryn]

So? People make mistakes. We know what was meant.

It is rampant through this forum.

 

[Copernicus]

That's what laymen do. They don't know how to use it. He doesn't have a good accessment and cannot possibly have a good accessment as he only has access to what's available online and on TV and what other people are saying. That is upfront muddled and without necessary nuance to properly access someone. It's such a garbage way of approaching it you don't really have any idea what the man is like in private (remember he was absolutely aware of the dangers posed by covid, something you wouldn't have known by his public actions amd policy alone) and you can't even ask him questions.

But none of us are pretending to be professionals who can give a proper diagnosis with that list. It is alarming that Donald Trump seems to check off a lot of boxes that would not be checked for most people. That is relevant in a discussion like this.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

It is rampant through this forum.

Yeah. Brains farts, second language, not knowing, not noticing, and I dount anyone types a post then waits a few minutes to edit with a bit of a fresh look at it. They happen. We usually know what's meant anyways.

 

[Copernicus]

Polls. IT'S POLLS. Not poles.

It is rampant through this forum.

What bothers me more is seeing it in headlines and in articles on the websites of major news outlets. As someone of Polish descent, I feel somewhat sensitive about this. I like Harris, but it's not because of my Polish ancestry.

And the people who write those headlines are actually paid to proofread news articles.

 

[Kathryn]

Yeah. Brains farts, second language, not knowing, not noticing, and I dount anyone types a post then waits a few minutes to edit with a bit of a fresh look at it. They happen. We usually know what's meant anyways.

See above.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

But none of us are pretending to be professionals who can give a proper diagnosis with that list. It is alarming that Donald Trump seems to check off a lot of boxes that would not be checked for most people. That is relevant in a discussion like this.

When you use clinical terminology and diagnosis you are playing doctor. Amd sometimes it gets silly like some absurd documentary that tried to diagnose a faceless, generalized idea of what a large corporation is with something like schizophrenia or some other psychotic disorder (it also misrepresented Milton Friedman).
It's damaging, it's stigmatizing and it distorts meaning anf what things actually are because laymen aren't trained in these things, and it shows because in a clinical setting a clinician does not open it up and go down the checklist. They have to talk with the patient, access things, listen to them in their own words. And as I pointed out there are areas of very sharp contrast between the public Trump who has been one way and the private Trump that was very different.
Or think if it this way. Laymen get things so wrong that it's a lost cause on getting people to realize that deliberately acting aggressive is not and cannot be passive aggressive. It's not leaving angry notes, it's keeping silent amd doing nothing when someone's about to get hit by a truck. And that's just a behavior, possible symptom, yes, but just a behavior and not even a diagnosis.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

What bothers me more is seeing it in headlines and in articles on the websites of major news outlets. As someone of Polish descent, I feel somewhat sensitive about this. I like Harris, but it's not because of my Polish ancestry.

And the people who write those headlines are actually paid to proofread news articles.

Yeah, here no one is a professional acting in a professional capacity. But major news sources? It's gotten cringy how they've apparently forgotten what a style guide is and what it's for, and just the basics of formal written English. Amd that the editors let it slide? Gag me with a spoon.

 

[Copernicus]

When you use clinical terminology and diagnosis you are playing doctor. Amd sometimes it gets silly like some absurd documentary that tried to diagnose a faceless, generalized idea of what a large corporation is with something like schizophrenia or some other psychotic disorder (it also misrepresented Milton Friedman).

It's damaging, it's stigmatizing and it distorts meaning anf what things actually are because laymen aren't trained in these things, and it shows because in a clinical setting a clinician does not open it up and go down the checklist. They have to talk with the patient, access things, listen to them in their own words. And as I pointed out there are areas of very sharp contrast between the public Trump who has been one way and the private Trump that was very different.

What makes you think that you know the difference between the public Trump and the private Trump? Do you know him personally? His niece, Mary L. Trump does, and she is also a professional. If you want to know something about the private Trump, read her book on the subject: Too Much and Never Enough. She doesn't give a professional diagnosis of him, but she knows enough to make informed comments on his mental state in both public and private.

Or think if it this way. Laymen get things so wrong that it's a lost cause on getting people to realize that deliberately acting aggressive is not and cannot be passive aggressive. It's not leaving angry notes, it's keeping silent amd doing nothing when someone's about to get hit by a truck. And that's just a behavior, possible symptom, yes, but just a behavior and not even a diagnosis.

That's fair. We should not mistake these opinions for formal diagnoses. I think most of us here realize that these are just discussions of how to interpret Donald Trump's weirdness. Plenty of people don't think that he is a bona fide racist, but then there was the Central Park Five. It doesn't seem right to just say nothing about his behavior and then vote him into the highest office in government. Is he really a pathological narcissist if he acts like one? Not necessarily. But there is nothing to explain why he fits the criteria so well.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

What makes you think that you know the difference between the public Trump and the private Trump?

This became publically known when the mismatch of his public behaviors and policies of covid and his private acknowledgement od covid as a serious and deadly threat was leaked.
That isn't saying there is always a mismatch, but it's a neon example of why armchair shrinking people doesn't work.

That's fair. We should not mistake these opinions for formal diagnoses. I think most of us here realize that these are just discussions of how to interpret Donald Trump's weirdness. Plenty of people don't think that he is a bona fide racist, but then there was the Central Park Five. It doesn't seem right to just say nothing about his behavior and then vote him into the highest office in government.

The usage of clinical terminology is what is damaging. It stigmatizes and demonizes mental illness amd it is entirely possible to discuss his abhorrent behaviors with out. And it builds a stronger case because when you claim he has a diagnosis and you can't produce anything better than speculation based on what you've seen and third third and fourth hand your argument is already off to a bad start.

 

[Copernicus]

This became publically known when the mismatch of his public behaviors and policies of covid and his private acknowledgement od covid as a serious and deadly threat was leaked.
That isn't saying there is always a mismatch, but it's a neon example of why armchair shrinking people doesn't work.

His "private acknowledgement" was basically hearsay, not verifiable in the sense that his public behavior is. So you have no idea whether the acknowledgement was made sincerely or merely as erratic as his public behavior. He contradicts himself all the time in public, so why not in private? Mary Trump and others have spoken at length about how his private behavior can be just as erratic as his public behavior. That was discussed at length in House committee hearings that investigated the January 6 riot and Donald Trump's response to it. It was testimony sworn under oath by people who had intimate access to his private behavior.

The usage of clinical terminology is what is damaging. It stigmatizes and demonizes mental illness amd it is entirely possible to discuss his abhorrent behaviors with out. And it builds a stronger case because when you claim he has a diagnosis and you can't produce anything better than speculation based on what you've seen and third third and fourth hand your argument is already off to a bad start.

You keep coming back to the false claim that I and others are attempting a clinical diagnosis rather than just pointing out how similar Donald Trump's behavior is to a list of traits commonly associated with the clinical condition. You are seriously exaggerating the damage that discussions like this do, and one could argue that just as much, if not more, damage is done by those who willfully ignore what appears to be a pathological condition. If he wanted to clear up the matter himself, he could submit to a battery of tests and make the results known to the public in order to restore confidence in him. We've seen enough in public and in sworn testimony from his associates to realize that something is wrong with his mental state, even if it isn't the clinical condition that it appears to be. This is not just random speculation in social media. There have been a lot of articles on the subject by both professionals and laymen in the press. They aren't hard to find.