Donald Trump is NOT a Narcissist or Sociopath

However, what he does have is even more troubling and concerning.

I agree that it is improper to diagnose people of psychiatric conditions unless you have personally met with them and evaluated them. However, when our nation’s security and future are at risk, I have given myself a pass to weigh in on his psychiatric condition.

The most frequent diagnoses of President Trump by others in my profession who have felt the same concern for our country’s well-being have been narcissist, malignant narcissist or sociopath.

I agree that he demonstrates features of all of these, but I don’t believe these are his primary psychiatric diagnosis. However, what he does have is even more troubling and concerning.

Before I elaborate on what his primary diagnosis is, I would ask you to recall a famous quote by the late international self-help author, Wayne Dyer, “When you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.”

As long as he is seen as a narcissist and/or sociopath and/or compulsive liar, it is going to continue to trigger disgust, retaliatory anger and even outrage. Such feelings if triggered cause others to begin to counter his name-calling with their own name-calling and the situation just continues to escalate.

If however, we change the way we look at Trump through what I believe his primary diagnosis is, I think he will appear differently and evoke different and perhaps more constructive responses from his critics… and even his supporters.

Trump’s primary diagnosis is Oppositional Defiant Disorder. Check for yourself.

The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5), published by the American Psychiatric Association, lists criteria for diagnosing ODD. The DSM-5 criteria include emotional and behavioral symptoms that last at least six months.

Angry and irritable mood:

· Often and easily loses temper

· Is frequently touchy and easily annoyed by others

· Is often angry and resentful

Argumentative and defiant behavior:

· Often argues with adults or people in authority

· Often actively defies or refuses to comply with adults’ requests or rules

· Often deliberately annoys or upsets people

· Often blames others for his or her mistakes or misbehavior

Vindictiveness:

· Is often spiteful or vindictive

· Has shown spiteful or vindictive behavior at least twice in the past six months

ODD can vary in severity:

· Mild. Symptoms occur only in one setting, such as only at home, school, work or with peers.

· Moderate. Some symptoms occur in at least two settings.

· Severe. Some symptoms occur in three or more settings.

Children, and in this case, adults with ODD also have narcissistic features, in that they are completely self-involved, and also sociopathic features, in that rules — especially those decreed by “authority figures” — are gratuitously and delightfully defied (which you often see in his scornful, smug smiles).

Furthermore, when ODD children are acting up, we don’t think of them as evil or even mean, we just think they are committing mean and evil acts. We cut them slack because they are just children and we hope (and pray) they will grow out of it.

I believe that like ODD children, Trump does mean and evil things, but that he isn’t dyed-in-the-wool evil. That might explain his continued almost childlike surprise when he is viewed that way, which then of course just stokes his fire to launch a counter-attack for having been in his eyes slighted.

One of the reasons his opponents cast him as evil is that his behavior is so outrageously humiliating, demeaning and degrading that people he has called such awful names are so infuriated that they deem him as evil to justify their fury (an emotion they have trouble admitting they have). In the psychiatric profession that is referred to as “countertransference” where we treat an individual a certain way because of how they remind us of someone else.

Why is a diagnosis of ODD so troubling and concerning?

If you have ever had a child with ODD or if you were that child, but thankfully outgrew it, there is not much you can do to stop them other than give them time outs and prevent them from doing harm to others or self-harm. They are not open to corrective guidance because their core disorder is “oppositional defiance.”

Efforts by people like Senator Kamala Harris to get him thrown off Twitter are an attempt to give him a time out. But he is the President and can exert “executive privilege” to resist almost anything, including a “time out.”

If President Trump has ODD, how might he have developed it?

Certainly genetics play a role and from what we know about his father, Fred, although not as prone to infantile antics, he, too was a difficult person.

It’s also possible that something Donald wanted from his dad and possibly never received is respect. Respect is different from being seen as impressive and respect is something you earn vs. take. It may be that his father didn’t give him the respect he still covets (and probably wouldn’t give it to him today if he were alive, seeing Donald as b.s.ing schemer his father had to bail out on more than a few occasions) — and takes out on everyone who isn’t treating him respectfully. If that’s the case I would say to President Trump, “Your father, just like you, may not have been capable of feeling or showing respect for others, so let go of chasing it. Realize that the only way to gain respect is to be perceived as having earned it. Earning it requires focus, consistency over time, taking personal responsibility for your actions and their consequences, remaining true to consensually agreed upon ‘respectable’ values and behavior, such as described in this article, ‘On Becoming (and Behaving) Like a Leader.’ If you could do an about face and grow into the qualities by practicing the behaviors in that article, you’d be amazed at how much support and respect you would earn and gain.”

One last thought President Trump to make the above suggestion even more enticing. The world will root more for a reformed a-hole or jerk more than for someone who has been nice all along. That’s because nice people get taken for granted, but the relief people feel from not having to fear or hate an a-hole anymore is like ecstasy.

In summary, the dilemma we find ourselves in is not just John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton’s quote that power corrupts and absolute power, corrupts absolutely. It’s that the power of the Presidency has essentially turbocharged a mean spirited, ODD ridden toddler’s tricycle. And such a toddler, without having the requisite judgment, sense or common sense, or people to reign him in, will continue to drive that tricycle into wall after wall (and not just one he is trying to build along the Southern border).

Perhaps our best hope is to have the American people change the way they look at him and see him as having ODD and in seeing him that way to have even his supporters begin to withdraw their support as he reminds them of the ODD kid from their elementary schools who drove everyone crazy.

Of course, an even better hope is that President Trump changes and becomes someone who finally earns what he has been coveting for his entire life. And that it respect.