Donald Trump Is Not Mentally Ill ... It's Worse Than That.

To the Editor:

Fevered media speculation about Donald Trump’s psychological motivations and psychiatric diagnosis has recently encouraged mental health professionals to disregard the usual ethical constraints against diagnosing public figures at a distance. They have sponsored several petitions and a Feb. 14 letter to The New York Times suggesting that Mr. Trump is incapable, on psychiatric grounds, of serving as president.

Most amateur diagnosticians have mislabeled President Trump with the diagnosis of narcissistic personality disorder. I wrote the criteria that define this disorder, and Mr. Trump doesn’t meet them. He may be a world-class narcissist, but this doesn’t make him mentally ill, because he does not suffer from the distress and impairment required to diagnose mental disorder.

Mr. Trump causes severe distress rather than experiencing it and has been richly rewarded, rather than punished, for his grandiosity, self-absorption and lack of empathy. It is a stigmatizing insult to the mentally ill (who are mostly well behaved and well meaning) to be lumped with Mr. Trump (who is neither).

Bad behavior is rarely a sign of mental illness, and the mentally ill behave badly only rarely. Psychiatric name-calling is a misguided way of countering Mr. Trump’s attack on democracy. He can, and should, be appropriately denounced for his ignorance, incompetence, impulsivity and pursuit of dictatorial powers.

His psychological motivations are too obvious to be interesting, and analyzing them will not halt his headlong power grab. The antidote to a dystopic Trumpean dark age is political, not psychological.

ALLEN FRANCES

Coronado, Calif.

The writer, professor emeritus of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Duke University Medical College, was chairman of the task force that wrote the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders IV (D.S.M.-IV).

An Eminent Psychiatrist Demurs on Trump’s Mental State

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Comments

[Robin]

I believe President Trump is guilty of some impeachment worthy behavior. He knows all the dirt will soon come to light, which is why in my opinion, he is PRETENDING to be crazy. Accusing Obama of wiretapping Trump Towers, accusing the Jewish community of having someone desecrate their cemeteries & vandalize their community centers for the purpose of making him look bad. That's silly. Mark my words, Donald Trump is doing this for monetary gain. If he is forced to resign instead of being impeached, he will still be able to draw a lifetime salary from the U.S. government. He is also banking on his celebrity status going through the roof & bringing even more $$$ in the form of lectures, interviews, books, etc.