The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump: 27 Psychiatrists and Mental Health Experts Assess a President - Hardcover

Lee, Bandy X.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1250179459 ISBN 13: 9781250179456

Publisher: Thomas Dunne Books, 2017

Synopsis

The New York Times bestseller! More than two dozen psychiatrists and psychologists offer their consensus view that Trump's mental state presents a clear and present danger to our nation and individual well-being.

This is not normal.

Since the start of Donald Trump’s presidential run, one question has quietly but urgently permeated the observations of concerned citizens: What is wrong with him? Constrained by the American Psychiatric Association’s “Goldwater rule,” which inhibits mental health professionals from diagnosing public figures they have not personally examined, many of those qualified to answer this question have shied away from discussing the issue at all. The public has thus been left to wonder whether he is mad, bad, or both.

In THE DANGEROUS CASE OF DONALD TRUMP, twenty-seven psychiatrists, psychologists, and other mental health experts argue that, in Mr. Trump’s case, their moral and civic “duty to warn” America supersedes professional neutrality. They then explore Trump’s symptoms and potentially relevant diagnoses to find a complex, if also dangerously mad, man.

Philip Zimbardo and Rosemary Sword, for instance, explain Trump’s impulsivity in terms of “unbridled and extreme present hedonism.” Craig Malkin writes on pathological narcissism and politics as a lethal mix. Gail Sheehy, on a lack of trust that exceeds paranoia. Lance Dodes, on sociopathy. Robert Jay Lifton, on the “malignant normality” that can set in everyday life if psychiatrists do not speak up.

His madness is catching, too. From the trauma people have experienced under the Trump administration to the cult-like characteristics of his followers, he has created unprecedented mental health consequences across our nation and beyond.

It’s not all in our heads. It’s in his.

"There will not be a book published this fall more urgent, important, or controversial than The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump...profound, illuminating and discomforting" ―Bill Moyers

About this title

About the Author:

Bandy X. Lee, M.D., M.Div., is Assistant Clinical Professor in Law and Psychiatry at Yale School of Medicine. She earned her degrees at Yale, interned at Bellevue, was Chief Resident at Mass General, and was a Research Fellow at Harvard Medical School. She was also a Fellow of the National Institute of Mental Health. She worked in several maximum-security prisons, cofounded Yale’s Violence and Health Study Group, and leads a violence prevention collaborators group for the World Health Organization. She’s written more than 100 peer-reviewed articles and chapters, edited several academic books, and is author of the textbook Violence.

Review:

"This is an historic work in the history of American psychiatry. We have never been in this place before." ―Lawrence O'Donnell

"There will not be a book published this fall more urgent, important, or controversial than The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump...profound, illuminating and discomforting" ―Bill Moyers

"The stand these psychiatrists are taking takes courage, and their conclusions are compelling." ―The Washington Post

“When I first heard about the conference that gave rise to this book at Yale, I was worried that a manifesto would come out with a diagnosis.... That is not what happened: what happened is a very thoughtful assessment based on lots of public data, which gives us a very clear way of thinking about the terrific vulnerabilities of our current president that elicits a duty to warn.” - Samuel Barondes, Professor Emeritus and Former Chair of Psychiatry at the University of California, San Francisco

“This insightful collection ... is a valuable primary source documenting the critical turning point when American psychiatry reassessed the ethics of restraining commentary on the mental health of public officials in light of the ‘duty to warn’ of imminent danger.” - Estelle Freedman, the Robinson Professor in U.S. History at Stanford University

About this edition

• Publisher: Thomas Dunne Books
• Publication date: 2017
• ISBN 10: 1250179459
• ISBN 13: 9781250179456
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 384