← Previous Post: | Next Post:

 

You Know UD’s No Fan of the Super-Massive Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental …

Disorders, with its at-least-one-guaranteed-billable-disorder-for-every-American (put DSM in my search engine), but she has never denied that in cases of grossly obvious and damaging psychological imbalance it can provide clarity about characteristics and treatment.

Representative Karen Bass, a politician with a background in health care, has launched a petition calling on “mental health professionals to publicly urge the Republican party to conduct an evaluation of Mr. Trump and officially determine if he is mentally fit to lead the free world.” Citing in detail the DSM’s criteria for Narcissistic Personality Disorder, Bass suggests that Trump seems indeed to have been so debilitated by NPD that he should be replaced at the top of the ticket — pending professional confirmation of his condition.

Margaret Soltan, August 3, 2016 8:01PM
Posted in: democracy

Trackback URL for this post:
https://www.margaretsoltan.com/wp-trackback.php?p=52555

17 Responses to “You Know UD’s No Fan of the Super-Massive Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental …”

  1. Bernard Carroll Says:

    In addition to all the comments on his egregious narcissism, his scattered, hyperkinetic thought process makes one wonder about adult ADHD.

  2. dmf Says:

    could just be an asshole, sadly for your purposes here the “test” for these disorders/criteria is more about how it effects the life of the person being evaluated than how it effects the people around them at least for adults, and as far as I know you can’t be found incompetent for a personality disorder yet, if yer a successful manipulator of people in a society that rewards such than you are normal…

  3. Margaret Soltan Says:

    dmf: Yes. Recall the “article in CFA Magazine by Sherree DeCovney claiming that 10 percent (at least) of the people in the financial services industry are psychopaths.”

  4. dmf Says:

    yeah tho those kinds of stats strike me as of a genre with those that report all the people worn out by our dying economy/nation-state as being mentally-ill/depressed/etc, the sad truth is that many able bodied folks are easily bent/socialized into these kinds of behaviors, for some context see Robert Sapolsky’s work on top-primate stress in our near cousins. All too easy to conflate social “ills” with actual disorders.
    nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2016/07/masha-gessen-problem-with-media.html

  5. dmf Says:

    apples, trees…
    https://bobbiblogger.files.wordpress.com/2012/03/trump.jpg

  6. Margaret Soltan Says:

    Ugh.

  7. JackOH Says:

    Back in the 1980s, a local sheriff refused to execute foreclosure orders. The government’s attorney publicly mentioned referring the sheriff for a psychiatric eval. Not long after, the sheriff successfully defended himself against public racketeering charges. Then sheriff and later Congressman James Traficant enjoyed a, er, ah, colorful career.

    My point? Trump is an extremely shrewd sumbitch who learns. I’d expect to see him play the victim card, portraying himself as the people’s voice being whomped on by K street and Wall Street wire-pullers.

  8. Margaret Soltan Says:

    JackOH: Traficant! There’s a name that takes me back.

  9. JackOH Says:

    Jimbo had good points. He was convicted of taking a bribe (among other charges) from the very same Mr. Big who now disports himself as chair of our Podunk Tech-affiliated foundation. I wish I were making this stuff up:):)

  10. charlie Says:

    You know UD, questioning the effectiveness of the DNSM is a symptom of mental disease, as is the use of ellipses at the end of sentences…

  11. Margaret Soltan Says:

    Uh oh…

  12. Profane Says:

    http://www.theonion.com/article/dsm-5-updated-accommodate-man-who-legitimately-bei-53401

  13. JackOH Says:

    Big Pharma can help. Voice-over: “Shkrelium is not for everybody. Talk to your doctor before taking Shkrelium. Side effects include a big gaping hole where your brain used to be.” (Cue Beavis and Butthead snicker.)

  14. charlie Says:

    Jack, the best are the cialis commercials, the ones where everyone ends up nude in an outdoor bathtub. One of them had a black couple. I’m from San Francisco. I KNOW that no Bay Area brother is gonna end up naked, sitting in a bathtub on a hill overlooking the Embarcadero Freeway. He’d give up sex prior to that. Hell, I’d give up sex if that crap made that insane….

  15. Margaret Soltan Says:

    Profane: efforts to appease the moon… Why had I never seen this before? Thank you for the link!

  16. JackOH Says:

    Charlie-LOL. I see those ads. Dude’s in good physical trim, lives upmarket in a decent ‘hood, and his wife’s out of a Bond movie. This guy’s gotta problem? Okay, blood flow, right. Maybe we can medicalize adolescent energies, too, into the right channels. Wait, we already do that. Ivan Illich has a good take on the medicalization of everything in “Medical Nemesis”, if you can find a copy.

  17. charlie Says:

    Do they have a drug to cure typos? I need me some of that….

Comment on this Entry

UD REVIEWED

Dr. Bernard Carroll, known as the "conscience of psychiatry," contributed to various blogs, including Margaret Soltan's University Diaries, for which he sometimes wrote limericks under the name Adam.
New York Times

George Washington University English professor Margaret Soltan writes a blog called University Diaries, in which she decries the Twilight Zone-ish state our holy land’s institutes of higher ed find themselves in these days.
The Electron Pencil

It’s [UD's] intellectual honesty that makes her blog required reading.
Professor Mondo

There's always something delightful and thought intriguing to be found at Margaret Soltan's no-holds-barred, firebrand tinged blog about university life.
AcademicPub

You can get your RDA of academic liars, cheats, and greedy frauds at University Diaries. All disciplines, plus athletics.
truffula, commenting at Historiann

Margaret Soltan at University Diaries blogs superbly and tirelessly about [university sports] corruption.
Dagblog

University Diaries. Hosted by Margaret Soltan, professor of English at George Washington University. Boy is she pissed — mostly about athletics and funding, the usual scandals — but also about distance learning and diploma mills. She likes poems too. And she sings.
Dissent: The Blog

[UD belittles] Mrs. Palin's degree in communications from the University of Idaho...
The Wall Street Journal

Professor Margaret Soltan, blogging at University Diaries... provide[s] an important voice that challenges the status quo.
Lee Skallerup Bessette, Inside Higher Education

[University Diaries offers] the kind of attention to detail in the use of language that makes reading worthwhile.
Sean Dorrance Kelly, Harvard University

Margaret Soltan's ire is a national treasure.
Roland Greene, Stanford University

The irrepressibly to-the-point Margaret Soltan...
Carlat Psychiatry Blog

Margaret Soltan, whose blog lords it over the rest of ours like a benevolent tyrant...
Perplexed with Narrow Passages

Margaret Soltan is no fan of college sports and her diatribes on the subject can be condescending and annoying. But she makes a good point here...
Outside the Beltway

From Margaret Soltan's excellent coverage of the Bernard Madoff scandal comes this tip...
Money Law

University Diaries offers a long-running, focused, and extremely effective critique of the university as we know it.
Anthony Grafton, American Historical Association

The inimitable Margaret Soltan is, as usual, worth reading. ...
Medical Humanities Blog

I awake this morning to find that the excellent Margaret Soltan has linked here and thereby singlehandedly given [this blog] its heaviest traffic...
Ducks and Drakes

As Margaret Soltan, one of the best academic bloggers, points out, pressure is mounting ...
The Bitch Girls

Many of us bloggers worry that we don’t post enough to keep people’s interest: Margaret Soltan posts every day, and I more or less thought she was the gold standard.
Tenured Radical

University Diaries by Margaret Soltan is one of the best windows onto US university life that I know.
Mary Beard, A Don's Life

[University Diaries offers] a broad sense of what's going on in education today, framed by a passionate and knowledgeable reporter.
More magazine, Canada

If deity were an elected office, I would quit my job to get her on the ballot.
Notes of a Neophyte

Archives

Categories