Diagnostic criteria
George Conway makes a point.
Don’t assume that the things he says and does are part of a rational plan or strategy, because they seldom are. Consider them as a product of his pathologies, and they make perfect sense. https://t.co/k9rAK3tGFT
— George Conway (@gtconway3d) March 18, 2019
I always do. Not that I can brag about it; he’s nothing if not obvious. The Twitter blurts are so nuts they can’t possibly be part of a rational strategy.
— George Conway (@gtconway3d) March 18, 2019
Ah, okay, we’re going there.
— George Conway (@gtconway3d) March 18, 2019
1, check, 2, check, 3, check, 4, check, 5, check, 6, check.
— George Conway (@gtconway3d) March 18, 2019
1 through 7, check.
He ticks every single box, and not with a light tick in pencil but with a loud heavy one in his beloved sharpie. He doesn’t just show all the behaviors, he flaunts them, he performs them in tights and a spangled leotard, he hires planes to pull a banner advertising them. He’s the most florid narcissist most of us will ever see in action.
In my teens I had a very passionate relationship with someone who – as I discovered a few months down the line – turned out to believe that vampires literally exist. The relationship didn’t last very long after we’d had the vampire talk.
Hats off to Mr and Mrs Conway. I certainly couldn’t maintain a relationship under those circumstances.
I’d sooner be with vamperella.
And yet some commenters on Twitter are scolding shrinks who break the “Goldwater rule,” and pretend that it’s not possible to know what’s wrong with Trump because a clinician hasn’t seen him in person in a structured interview.
American mental health has a lot to answer for.
Goldwater rule shmoldwater rule.
Another “how the hell do they do that, and why?” couple is James Carville and Mary Matalin. Sounds like a nightmare to me.
Yeah, these days “clinical diagnosis” is like “until proven guilty in a court of law” isn’t it?
Standards we’re told we should adhere to and defend even though they make no particular sense and only serve to defend the aggressor.
I’m not qualified to diagnose Trump as crazy, but I wouldn’t want him to look after my cat.
I think there are a lot of times we need the Goldwater rule, because people are so quick to jump to “crazy” for everyone who behaves in a way they don’t understand, but in the case of Trump, I fail to see how his behaviors require a standard psychiatric evaluation.
And when I was working for Social Security Disability as an examiner and we had cases of people alleging disability for mental illness, we put a lot of stock in the description of behaviors described by the people who lived or worked with them, because the psychiatrist can only tell you what happens in the course of evaluation, not how it affects their everyday ability to function. The doctor’s report was only the starting point; they did have to get a clinical evaluation, but in many cases, the deciding point was the description of behaviors given by those who knew them best, but may have not psychiatric training. In the case of Trump, any family member/friend describing the behaviors he exhibits would likely have led us to an immediate decision of presumptive disability; in other words, severe enough to go ahead and start benefits while we completed the formal evaluation, because it would be almost certain to lead to a finding of disability. Then we would send him to a doctor, get the official diagnosis, and finish the case (probably with a designated representative to receive and manage the money).
Thanks for telling that story, iknklast.
From my personal experience, a whole lot of reading and research, and from talking to survivors of Cluster B abusers, I’m convinced that perceptive family and associates are usually much better at “diagnosing” these disorders.
The whole point of publishing diagnostic criteria for any affliction is so that people (or those around them) can see how worried they should be and hopefully get some help. But some diagnoses are pretty obvious – kind of like how if we posted a picture of dog shit most people would know it when they saw it. Like Trump’s tweets. A toxic soup of racism. paranoia and dumbfuckery that is structured so poorly that a c- 2nd grade English student should be able to pick up on the problems. Of course, the urgency of intervention goes up the more likely one is to harming oneself or others. Do they have a gun in the home, do they have a plan, do they have the launch codes, that sort of thing.
Iknklast @ 5, I agree with you about peoples rush to blame bad behaviour on someone being ‘crazy’. It’s especially a go-to when mass shootings occur. admittedly such people often are disturbed, exhibiting signs of personality disorders or whatever. However, equally often they are quite functional ‘normal’ people that leaves those who worked with them shocked and surprised that they snapped. This is exactly the case with the Christchurch shooter. People who worked with and lived beside the shooter are shocked and surprised. members of the gun club he belonged to considered him ‘normal’. Yet the gun dealer who was happy to sell him guns is not calling him crazy, as is Trump and the rest of the gun lobby.
We shouldn’t leap to a lay persons diagnosis on the basis of one event. A mass shooting might be because crazy, or it might be because of a mix of irrational social and political beliefs – toxic, but not ‘crazy’.
Trump on the other hand, there is now a mountain of publicly available evidence, which while not definitive, is leaning toward seriously suggestive.
FYI, you missed 3 of the criteria for NPD (didn’t click through to the full image?).
I think he hits 8 of 9 decisively. I don’t think he meets the requirement for #3, as he seems to like to be around stupid people who are cheering him on. But since you only need 5 of 9, the diagnosis fits.
APD seems to fit as well (I might not give him all 7, but definitely at least 3).
What a train wreck.
Skeletor, I agree that he likes to be around those people, but it appears he views them as special and unique, so it probably still fits, because he views them as “his” people, and will often duck out of any situation where the people don’t fit his needs. We err in assuming that special and unique mean from our point of view; we need to view them from his POV (which is a scary thought, frankly, to look at the world through Trump’s eyes).
And I noticed those missing things, too, but just shrugged it off, because I didn’t want to fuss about it. Guess that’s just my “estrogen vibe” or “girl brain”? (Don’t hit me, I’ll show myself out).
Aka just not being a jerk?
Ew.
It strikes me that there is a large difference between declaring a diagnosis of someone based on what is publicly known of them, and saying ‘what we know of this person so far matches the following criteria used for diagnosis.’ This is perfectly appropriate.
Pliny @7,
Is that the point? My understanding was that basically, the DSM (or at least, the personality disorders section of it) was created so that there could be standardized diagnoses that would satisfy insurance companies that a patient needed treatment. I.e. that insurers wouldn’t pay for your weekly therapy session “because it makes me feel better,” but if your therapist diagnosed you with Capitalized Personality Disorder then it was valid medical treatment that might (depending on your plan) be covered.
It was also my impression that the only reason the DSM is “published” is because it’s 2019 and everything is on the internet, not because it’s intended to be used by laypeople. Back in the 1980s, my guess is that you would have had to either be in the profession, or hand over a huge chunk of change to buy a copy, or else go to your local medical school library.