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As the battle lines are drawn before Donald Trump’s bid for reelection, a new documentary based on the testimony of mental health professionals has called the president of the United States a “malignant narcissist.”
Not Fit: The Psychology of Donald Trump – posted on streaming platforms Tuesday – claims not to be politically motivated.
The film interviews several psychologists who argue that they have a medical duty to warn the American public about Trump’s alleged state of mind.
According to psychologist John Gartner, Trump clearly exhibits four key symptoms of malignant narcissism, the “most destructive” personality type, which include paranoia, narcissism, antisocial personality disorder, and sadism.
“This type of leader appears throughout history and they are always extraordinarily disruptive,” Gartner told AFP, noting that the same label has been applied to Hitler, Stalin and Mussolini.
“What is so strange is that we are not used to seeing this kind of leader in America.”
But the film’s central premise of professionally diagnosing a public figure from afar is controversial.
Republican candidate Barry Goldwater successfully sued a magazine after it published a damning poll of psychiatrists who speculated on his mental health during his failed career in 1964.
Later, the psychiatric community ruled that offering a professional opinion without an in-person examination is unethical.
Yet Gartner argues that the rise of observation-based diagnosis over traditional Freudian psychoanalysis, and the vast amount of public data on Trump’s behavior, renders that rule outdated.
And the film highlights another rule that forces mental health professionals to speak up when one patient’s disorder endangers others – in this case, the American public.
“It’s not that he’s as bad as Hitler, or that he’s the equivalent of Hitler,” says Gartner. “But he has the same diagnosis as Hitler.”
Diagnosing Trump has long been a popular tactic for his opponents.
Trump’s psychologist niece Mary Trump recently published an unflattering tome about her uncle, while the president himself Deal art The co-author has said that his book should be re-titled “The Sociopath.”
The President of the United States responded memorably to the allegations of mental health problems by declaring himself a “very stable genius.”
In addition to psychologists, the film interviews lawyers, historians, academics, former intelligence officers and, above all, prominent Trump critics.
Among them are the short-lived White House communications chief Anthony Scaramucci and George Conway, whose wife, Kellyanne, recently announced that she would be stepping down as a longtime adviser to the president.
According to director Dan Partland, “many” politicians “have psychological diagnoses that are not dangerous.”
The film suggests that Abraham Lincoln struggled with depression, which was an asset during the Civil War suffering, and Bill Clinton has hypomania, a key to his charisma.
“It is the particular constellation of diagnoses that Donald Trump has that makes him so dangerous,” Partland told AFP.
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