A group of psychologists and mental health professionals on Saturday marched through New York calling for President Trump to be removed from office.The group —which included more than 100 psychologists and mental health professionals— are pushing for Trump to be ousted from his post, according to The New York Post, The Hill reported.“We can sense […]
A group of psychologists and mental health professionals on Saturday marched through New York calling for President Trump to be removed from office.
The group —which included more than 100 psychologists and mental health professionals— are pushing for Trump to be ousted from his post, according to The New York Post, The Hill reported.
“We can sense the power of Trump’s underlying fear that he is worthless and weak by how intensely he resists and retaliated against any criticism,” said Harry Segal, a Cornell University psychologist.
“No matter how minor, he can’t let anything go.”
Michelle Golland, a clinical psychologist, told The New York Post the country is “suffering from his narcissistic personality.”
“He has no empathy. You can feel it, the way he spoke about the San Juan mayor,” she said. “She has PTSD and our president mistreats her. She is re-victimized. That is a narcissist.”
The march was organized by The Duty to Warn PAC, a group of psychologists that believes Trump has a malignant narcissism, according to Newsweek.
The group planned to hold marches across the country to send a message about Trump, warning that he could start a nuclear war.
The psychologists and their political action committee cite the 25th amendment which lays out the rules for removing a president from office.
Dangerously Mentally Ill
Last month The Independent quoted a group of 27 psychiatric or psychological professionals who said Donald Trump is “dangerously mentally ill”.
Led by Yale psychiatrist Dr Bandy Lee, the writers hold forth in a new book that also claims “his madness is catching”.
Gail Sheehy, one of the contributors, wrote in her chapter: “Beneath the grandiose behavior of every narcissist lies the pit of fragile self-esteem. What if, deep down, the person whom Trump trusts least is himself?
“The humiliation of being widely exposed as a ‘loser,’ unable to bully through the actions he promised during the campaign, could drive him to prove he is, after all, a ‘killer’.”
Dr Lance Dodes, a psychiatrist formerly of Harvard University, said Trump exhibited “sociopathic qualities” and “a persistent loss of reality”.
And psychologist Philip Zimbardo, referring to Trump’s decision to launch an attack on military installations in Syria after the Khan Sheikhoun chemical attack, said: “We believe that Trump is the most dangerous man in the world, a powerful leader of a powerful nation who can order missiles fired at another nation because of his (or a family member’s) personal distress at seeing sad scenes of people having been gassed to death.”
Dr Lee has long complained that psychiatrists seeking to warn of what she has called Trump’s “dangerousness” are constrained by the American Psychiatric Association’s (APA) Goldwater rule, which states it is unethical for psychiatrists “to offer a professional opinion about an individual based on publicly available information without conducting an examination” in person.
She claims the association’s ethics committee “expanded” that position in a ruling earlier this year when it sought to answer the question of whether professionals should be allowed to diagnose or give their clinical opinion on public figures in the interests of national security—concluding that, broadly, they should not.
Dr Lee has argued the rule should not apply if doctors believe the president presents a risk to others. Dr Dodes has said he also rejects the Goldwater rule when it comes to Trump, calling it “antiquated”.