Bill
Moyers, always a must-read, interview psychiatrist Robert J. Lifton on
the president's state of mind, mental health, and danger to our world
(and us). Here's how it begins. Tom
"There will not be a book published this fall more urgent, important,
or controversial than The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump, the work of 27
psychiatrists, psychologists and mental health experts to assess
President Trump’s mental health. They had come together last March at a
conference at Yale University to wrestle with two questions. One was on
countless minds across the country: “What’s wrong with him?” The second
was directed to their own code of ethics: “Does Professional
Responsibility Include a Duty to Warn” if they conclude the president to
be dangerously unfit?
"As mental health professionals, these men
and women respect the long-standing “Goldwater rule” which inhibits
them from diagnosing public figures whom they have not personally
examined. At the same time, as explained by Dr. Bandy X Lee, who teaches
law and psychiatry at Yale School of Medicine, the rule does not have a
countervailing rule that directs what to do when the risk of harm from
remaining silent outweighs the damage that could result from speaking
about a public figure — “which in this case, could even be the greatest
possible harm.” It is an old and difficult moral issue that requires a
great exertion of conscience. Their decision: “We respect the rule, we
deem it subordinate to the single most important principle that guides
our professional conduct: that we hold our responsibility to human life
and well-being as paramount.”
"Hence, this profound, illuminating and discomforting book undertaken as “a duty to warn.”
"The foreword is by one of America’s leading psychohistorians, Robert
Jay Lifton. He is renowned for his studies of people under stress — for
books such as Death in Life: Survivors of Hiroshima (1967), Home from
the War: Vietnam Veterans — Neither Victims nor Executioners (1973), and
The Nazi Doctors: Medical Killing and the Psychology of Genocide
(1986). The Nazi Doctors was the first in-depth study of how medical
professionals rationalized their participation in the Holocaust, from
the early stages of the Hitler’s euthanasia project to extermination
camps.
"The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump will be published Oct. 3 by St. Martin’s Press.
"Here is my interview with Robert Jay Lifton — Bill Moyers
"Bill Moyers: This book is a withering exploration of Donald Trump’s
mental state. Aren’t you and the 26 other mental health experts who
contribute to it in effect violating the Goldwater Rule? Section 7.3 of
the American Psychiatrist Association’s code of ethics flatly says: “It
is unethical for a psychiatrist to offer a professional opinion [on a
public figure] unless he or she has conducted an examination and has
been granted proper authorization.” Are you putting your profession’s
reputation at risk?
"Robert Jay Lifton: I don’t think so. I
think the Goldwater Rule is a little ambiguous. We adhere to that
portion of the Goldwater Rule that says we don’t see ourselves as making
a definitive diagnosis in a formal way and we don’t believe that should
be done, except by hands-on interviewing and studying of a person. But
we take issue with the idea that therefore we can say nothing about
Trump or any other public figure. We have a perfect right to offer our
opinion, and that’s where “duty to warn” comes in.
"Moyers: Duty to warn?
"Lifton: We have a duty to warn on an individual basis if we are
treating someone who may be dangerous to herself or to others — a duty
to warn people who are in danger from that person. We feel it’s our duty
to warn the country about the danger of this president. If we think we
have learned something about Donald Trump and his psychology that is
dangerous to the country, yes, we have an obligation to say so. That’s
why Judith Herman and I wrote our letter to The New York Times. We argue
that Trump’s difficult relationship to reality and his inability to
respond in an evenhanded way to a crisis renders him unfit to be
president, and we asked our elected representative to take steps to
remove him from the presidency.
"Moyers: Yet some people argue
that our political system sets no intellectual or cognitive standards
for being president, and therefore, the ordinary norms of your practice
as a psychiatrist should stop at the door to the Oval Office.
"Lifton: Well, there are people who believe that there should be a
standard psychiatric examination for every presidential candidate and
for every president. But these are difficult issues because they can’t
ever be entirely psychiatric. They’re inevitably political as well. I
personally believe that ultimately ridding the country of a dangerous
president or one who’s unfit is ultimately a political matter, but that
psychological professionals can contribute in valuable ways to that
decision.
"Moyers: Do you recall that there was a comprehensive
study of all 37 presidents up to 1974? Half of them reportedly had a
diagnosable mental illness, including depression, anxiety and bipolar
disorder. It’s not normal people who always make it to the White House.
"Lifton: Yes, that’s amazing, and I’m sure it’s more or less true. So
people with what we call mental illness can indeed serve well, and
people who have no discernible mental illness — and that may be true of
Trump — may not be able to serve, may be quite unfit. So it isn’t always
the question of a psychiatric diagnosis. It’s really a question of what
psychological and other traits render one unfit or dangerous.
"Moyers: You write in the foreword of the book: “Because Trump is
president and operates within the broad contours and interactions of the
presidency, there is a tendency to view what he does as simply part of
our democratic process, that is, as politically and even ethically
normal.”
The presidency and the behavior of the president can be
seen as under that category of malignant normality. For example, Donald
Trump lies repeatedly. We may come to see a president as liar as normal…
In other words, his behavior as president, with all those who defend
his behavior in the administration, becomes a norm.
"Lifton: Yes.
And that’s what I call malignant normality. What we put forward as
self-evident and normal may be deeply dangerous and destructive. I came
to that idea in my work on the psychology of Nazi doctors — and I’m not
equating anybody with Nazi doctors, but it’s the principle that prevails
— and also with American psychologists who became architects of CIA
torture during the Iraq War era. These are forms of malignant normality.
For example, Donald Trump lies repeatedly. We may come to see a
president as liar as normal. He also makes bombastic statements about
nuclear weapons, for instance, which can then be seen as somehow normal.
In other words, his behavior as president, with all those who defend
his behavior in the administration, becomes a norm. We have to contest
it, because it is malignant normality. For the contributors to this
book, this means striving to be witnessing professionals, confronting
the malignancy and making it known...."
U.S. President Donald Trump participates in a joint news conference with
Amir Sabah Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah of Kuwait, September 7, 2017.
(Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)
