Retired Harvard Psychiatrist Claims Trump’s ‘Psychosis’ is Still a Danger to America
“He is among the foremost voices who attempted to warn the American people and the world about Donald Trump’s dangerous behavior.”
We spent the last four years documenting the work of Yale psychiatrist Bandy Lee, who repeatedly diagnosed Trump from afar, a decision that ultimately cost her position at the university.
Now we have a former Harvard psychiatrist claiming that Trump’s mental state still represents a danger to the country.
I had never heard of Dr. Lance Dodes before reading this piece by Chauncey DeVega of Salon, but a quick Google search revealed he is a regular guest on MSNBC. Shocker.
Former Harvard psychiatrist Lance Dodes: Trump’s psychosis is still an “enormous danger”
For at least the past five years, some of America’s and the world’s foremost mental health experts have attempted to warn the public that Donald Trump was (and is) a dire threat to public safety.
Based on Trump’s public behavior and other available information, these experts warned that he appears to be a malignant narcissist, a pathological liar who is obsessed with violence, easily manipulated by praise and other ego-stroking behavior, indifferent to the suffering of other human beings, anti-social and anti-human in his values and behavior, irresponsible and impulsive and in total quite likely a sociopath or perhaps a psychopath…
In an effort to assess Donald Trump’s continuing danger to American society and democracy, I recently spoke with Dr. Lance Dodes, whom I have interviewed on numerous occasions. Dodes is a retired assistant clinical professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and a training and supervising analyst emeritus at the Boston Psychoanalytic Society and Institute. He is among the foremost voices who attempted to warn the American people and the world about Donald Trump’s dangerous behavior.
Now for the truly funny part. Trump has been out of office for six months, and yet people in liberal media can’t stop talking about him. So naturally, this is the first question DeVega asked Dodes:
Are Trump’s followers addicted to him? What would withdrawal look like for them and the country as a whole?
I don’t like to use the word “addiction” because it has a particular meaning. I would describe Trump’s most extreme devotees as members of a charismatic cult. Such cults unconditionally worship a charismatic leader who is often delusional with a grandiose, psychotic belief in his perfection, like Trump. The followers close themselves off from accurate or rational information in order to protect their connection to the godlike cult leader and to avoid questioning his delusional views, which would cause them to be shunned or expelled from the group.
You’ve read the rest a thousand times, MAGA is a cult, QAnon, blah blah blah.
Dodes has been making this same argument about Trump for years. In 2017, he wrote at Newsweek:
While there have surely been American presidents who could be said to be narcissistic, none have shown sociopathic qualities to the degree seen in Trump. Correspondingly, none have been so definitively and so obviously dangerous. Democracy requires respect and protection for multiple points of view, concepts that are incompatible with sociopathy. The need to be seen as superior and a lack of empathy or remorse for harming other people are in fact the signature characteristics of tyrants, who seek the control and destruction of all who oppose them, as well as loyalty to themselves instead of the country they lead.
Like Bandy Lee, Dodes has also violated the ethics of his profession by analyzing Trump from afar repeatedly on MSNBC, where he is a favorite guest of Lawrence O’Donnell. This is from January of this year:
What is it about Trump that makes psychiatrists so crazy?
Featured image via YouTube.
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Comments
Trump Derangement Syndrome is The Real Danger to America
Actually, TDS is the media brainwashing people to block the Populist wing of either party from gaining in Washington. The UniParty (establishment wing of both parties) just want to rule the people. In fact, the core belief of Establishment types is that power is top-down, meaning the people are meant to be ruled by a ruling class. Populists believe that power comes from the people – “consent of the governed”. Trump is the first Populist leader to gain power in 100 years (since Teddy Roosevelt). Trump has many flaws – including narcissism (which many many politicians also suffer from) – but at least his policies made sense.
But nothing but “crickets” on Biden’s mental condition, due IMO to the long term consequences of 2 brain surgeries for aneurysms 30+ years ago, one of which had burst. At least Trump knew the difference between Syria and Libya, the latter ruined by the Obama/Biden administration.
Physician heal thyself.
I think the psychiatrist is the one with the psychosis.
That is usually the case. A soft science profession for those who lack significant hard science skills. Much like social workers.
Too late! TDS has progressed too far.
He means Trump isn’t female enough. Trump’s more into risk management and systems, like a guy, not feelings like a girl.
Also has some Don Rickles talent.
These people are crazy.
They most assuredly are—this moron, Bandi Lee, and check out this ’healthy’ gem who also masquerades as one who is expert at diagnosing and treating the human mind: https://legalinsurrection.com/2021/06/nyc-psychiatrist-says-white-people-are-psychopathic-after-admitting-to-fantasies-of-killing-white-people/
“I can’t quit you, Trump!”
– Liberals
If this guy has a license to practice and is diagnosing without having personally examined….should he not be getting notification from his licensing agency that he is under investigation for overstepping his scope of practice, or whatever the proper terminology?
That is exactly what happened to a psyco female practitioner.
If you mean Bandy X Lee, no such thing has happened to her. She’s as crazy as ever, but her license has never been under any threat.
I guess when you’re retired, you can say any old thing without consequence. On the basis alone should this guy be ignored.
Two words – HIPPA Violation.
He has neither records nor any actual contact with the President so he isn’t privy to the President’s protected health information, Thus he can’t violate the provisions of HIPAA.
Nothing he says violates HIPAA. Trump is not his patient, so he has no duty of care toward him. Also he has no access to his private information, so how could he release it?
There is no law against diagnosing someone remotely, and there are no grounds for threatening his license. The so-called “Goldwater rule” is the policy of a private organization, of which he may not even be a member. Even if he is a member, all they can do is cancel his membership; they have no control over his license.
Who does this jackass think he is, Liz Cheney?
Whew! Talk about a prime example of a malignant narcissist and psychopath… And violating all of the ethical standards of his profession.
Only according to one organization. He is entitled to disagree with it. He may not even be a member, in which case he has no reason to care what it thinks.
The root problem with psychiatry is not so much that, due to the present state of the art, it’s more of a proto-science than a real science. Or even that it’s bible, the DSM-XX, is more of a billing manual than a document based on scientific principles.
The root problem is that so few psychiatrists seem willing to admit the all-too-real limits on the actual limits on what’s actually known yet persist in pretending to know what’s far beyond their abilities to comprehend, given the current state of the art.
This example is more extreme than most, yet surely the field would do well to recognize that much of what both research psychiatry and practitioners do is more trial-and-error than science, that ignorance and arrogance seldom make good companions, and that a first step toward acquiring a real science of the human mind and its maladies might be to admit just how little anyone actually knows of these things?
Psychiatrist abuse their positions to impose their values on society. The best example of this is when they decided that people who are unable to accept reality aren’t mentally ill. That when you can’t accept your body your mentally ill. This is a simple matter of common sense. Psychiatrists let their empathy with those who have this mental illness override common sense and impose their values on society.
Psychiatry is – in my view ‘ poppicock with a dash of voodoo. Wrap it in sheepskin, bake for six years in a warm college and you have a Ph D..
How many times have psychiatrists released homicidal maniacs and sexual predators for prison only to have them kill or rape or both almost immediately?? Clearly most are fakes that lack common sense.
Nope. A psychiatrist is an M.D. — A phD would be a psychologist.
“How many times have psychiatrists released homicidal maniacs and sexual predators for prison only to have them kill or rape or both almost immediately?? Clearly most are fakes that lack common sense.”
Oh … you mean like … judges, parole boards and DA’s?
Forgot the heaping helping of balderdash.
And a sprinkling of horsefeathers.
“What is it about Trump that makes psychiatrists so crazy?”
Given the female shrink we read about here a couple days ago, who wanted to empty a revolver into the next white person she met, I don’t think Trump is even necessary to the process.
He’s probably there to secretly diagnose Lawrence O’Donnell….speaking of mental disorders….this guy had TDS far before it was cool.
https://fair.org/uncategorized/boss-bashing-does-lawrence-odonnell-have-a-fallback-job/
No doubt psychiatrists are often pushing the edges of rationality. They seem to have no idea what “normal” really is.
I really value the opinion of this psychiatrist about what “democracy” requires. We should had a psychiatrist write the Declaration of Independence.
Come to think of it, why doesn’t he gather Bandy X. Lee and a few other of our psychiatric betters and go form their own country! They’ll surely know what it requires.
I should add that I also know psychiatrists who are salt of the earth. How do I happen to know so many?? I don’t know but I do … it has nothing to do with my health insurance?
Over the last 5 years, I’ve worked with with several therapists to get help for members of my church. IMHO, the ones that were effective were the ones with psychology degrees with a speciality in therapy (family, abuse, personal, etc), and who were willing to work within our church belief system. The couple of psychiatrists I dealt with were morons – they kept trying to impose their belief systems on our members, invalidate what the members believed, push unnecessary drugs, or worse, not use appropriate drugs.
Most jocks are dull witted, the question is were they dumb to start with or did repeated blows to their heads make them stupid.
The same question is true of shrinks, were they a bit or more crazy and that led them to the profession, or did all the time they spent with crazy people make them what they are?
What’s the difference between a psychiatrist and a psychotic?
Give up? Do do I.
One last grasp at media attention….all the other grasps missed the golden ring. This guy is a nobody.
He has his own mind, and isn’t bought by China, Russia or Iran????
They can’t handle Trump because he is what a REAL President should look like and act like.
Desperate gasp for attention but he’s going to have to try harder in an age of shrinks wanting to shoot white people in the head.
The headline is an Oxymoron ,, everyone from harvard is Psychosis On Steroids !!
“Hatred is the most accessible and comprehensive of all the unifying agents. Mass movements can rise and spread without belief in a god, but never without a belief in a devil.”. ― Eric Hoffer in The True Believer
Think about the Two Minutes of Hate. What would you expect from Harvard?
The left has lost the people. They are recycling old lies. This is desperation.
Yo Doc, six words:
BARRACK HUSSEIN OBAMA UMM UMM UMM!
Now THAT was a cult of personality.
And by “enormous danger”, Dodes means Trump is an enormous danger to those who hate America. Damn right!
Look at the picture of this doofus and then read his blather. And we’re supposed to take him seriously? He reminds me of nothing so much as a 19th Century Victorian evangelist passing judgement on the natives.
All kinds of people can spout all kinds of nonsense.
It’s obvious why the leftist media strains to find and promote them.
The media’s power resides solely in its ability to reach nincompoops to propagandize.
So my question is: why are you facilitating this by re-publishing this garbage and giving it a link to boot.
Well, Dr. Dodo, your reckless, unprofessional, fact-free “analysis” says volumes more about you than it does about Mr. Trump.
Don’t forget your clown nose for the next interview.
This guy is nuts; time for his family to stage an “intervention”.
It’s the progressive fascists who are deranged with their hate and lies about their political enemies, Trump and Republicans.
Trump is an anchor that will do nothing but deep six conservatives. I see no benefit in conservatives reliance on Trump or the Trump family. I’d suggest they follow what ever platform they wish but do it on their own two legs and divorce themselves from Trump.