I think I saw a post about this diary, but this article about the book seems to do such a good job of summarizing the main points that it’s worth posting — and worth your reading the whole article. Makes me want to buy the book!! (Bolding mine):
http://www.oregonlive.com/trending/2017/09/is_donald_trump_actually_crazy.html#incart_river_home
Is Donald Trump actually crazy? 27 mental-health experts offer up their conclusions (Commentary)
…The book, “The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump,” doesn’t offer a definitive diagnosis. It tries (sort of) to respect the so-called “Goldwater rule,” which prohibits psychiatrists from diagnosing someone they have not personally examined.
Its authors, however, are very clear about one thing: we should all be very concerned about Trump’s mental health. What follows is a summary of some -- not all -- of the mental illnesses the experts fear the U.S. president may have. The editor, clinical psychiatrist Bandy X. Lee, says the contributors used “science, research, observed phenomena and clinical skill” to reach their conclusions.
Bandy X. Lee...had some trouble getting the book off the ground. .... “A number of people,” she wrote, “admitted they were afraid of some undefined form of governmental retaliation, so quickly had a climate of fear taken hold.”
Lee pushed forward anyway, and eventually organized a “Duty to Warn Conference,” which led to the book....
Stanford University professor emeritus Philip Zimbardo and Rosemary Sword, with whom Zimbardo writes a column for Psychology Today, have an explanation for the president’s tweets in which he brags about his intelligence, issues threats to critics and allies alike, and contradicts himself. He’s a narcissist, or “an unbridled, or extreme, present hedonist.”
.. Zimbardo and Sword admit there is another possible explanation for Trump’s behavior: dementia or Alzheimer’s disease. They write that “comparing video interviews of Trump from the 1980s, 1990s and early 2000s to current video, we find that the differences (significant reduction in the use of essential words; an increase in the use of adjectives such as very, huge and tremendous; and incomplete, run-on sentences that don’t make sense and that could indicate a loss of train of thought or memory) are conspicuously apparent.”
Richard Nixon, the 37th president, was a narcissist, clinical psychologist Craig Malkin states. Donald Trump, the 45th president, is a step beyond that: a pathological narcissist. “Pathological narcissism begins,” Malkin writes, “when people become so addicted to feeling special that, just like with any drug, they’ll do anything to get their ‘high,’ including lie, steal, cheat, betray and even hurt those closest to them.”… Malkin adds: “When they can’t let go of their need to be admired or recognized, they have to bend or invent a reality in which they remain special despite all messages to the contrary. In point of fact, they become dangerously psychotic. It’s just not always obvious until it’s too late.”
… Dodes concludes: “Donald Trump’s speech and behavior show that he has severe sociopathic traits. The significance of this cannot be overstated. While there have surely been American presidents who could be said to be narcissistic, none have shown sociopathic qualities to the degree seen in Mr. Trump. Correspondingly, none have been so definitively and so obviously dangerous.”
.. Clinical psychologist John D. Gartner believes New York Times columnist David Brooks perfectly captured Trump’s “increasing hypomania” in a 2016 column.
Wrote Brooks: “He cannot be contained because he is psychologically off the chain. With each passing week, he displays the classic symptoms of medium-grade mania in more disturbing forms: inflated self-esteem, sleeplessness, impulsivity, aggression and a compulsion to offer advice on subjects he knows nothing about. His speech patterns are like something straight out of a psychiatric textbook. Manics display something called ‘flight of ideas.’ It’s a formal thought disorder in which ideas tumble forth through a disordered chain of associations.” After summarizing Trump’s boom-and-bust business career, Gartner writes: “Trump’s first hypomanic crash resulted in a few bankruptcies, but while he is president, the consequences could be on a scale so vast it’s difficult even to contemplate. ... His worsening hypomania is making him increasingly more irrational, grandiose, paranoid, aggressive, irritable and impulsive.”
… Psychiatrist Steve Wruble lays much of the blame for President Trump’s mental-health problems on Trump’s domineering father, Fred.
“Donald Trump’s early development,” he writes, “created who we are witnessing. ... [H]is father’s intensity left its mark on the entire family. Donald’s oldest brother essentially killed himself under his father’s rule. This tragedy must have played a prominent role in the formation of Donald’s identity and left minimal room to rebel against his father’s authority, except through competition in the realm of business success. Despite their appreciation for each other, the tension between father and son caused Donald psychological wounds that still fester.”
Robert Jay Lifton, a professor emeritus of John Jay College and a psychiatry lecturer at Columbia University, fears this will all result in “malignant normality.” That is, that Trump’s abnormal behavior, because he’s the president of the United States, will become viewed by his fellow Americans -- particularly children -- as normal. Lifton, who early in his career studied how Nazi doctors at death camps came to accept their assignments (it often included heavy drinking), says the “process of adaptation to evil ... is all too possible.” He decided to participate in this book project because he believes the citizenry must “recognize the urgency of the situation in which the most powerful man in the world is also the bearer of profound instability and untruth.”
I read a lot of posts about Rump’s mental health, because I’m a retired mental health counselor and have had too many interactions with narcissists and personality-disordered individuals to have any doubt that the Prez is severely personality disordered. I agree with those in this book that he’s not going to change or get better, and my experiences have shown me that the sooner his power is removed or significantly reduced, the better. If a narcissist has power, they will use it, and use it badly — period. One book I’d recommend for anyone who has no experience with or info on narcissism is “The Wizard of Oz and Other Narcissists” by Eleanor D. Payson — it’s easy to understand and gives the symptoms in clear detail… I think you’ll agree once you read it that we have no choice but to get Rump out of office. Some of what has come out this week about Manafort and Mueller gives me hope, but it’s not done til it’s done.