Trump out-of-control: Malignant Narcissism!!!

Finally, the press and media might be waking up to the fact that President Trump has a very serious, and untreatable problem: Malignant Narcissism. It's been kinda obvious....

As I've mentioned before, the pundit class continues to flail around trying to figure Trump out. It's really easy if you just use the correct clinical term. US News:

 

John D. Gartner, a practicing psychotherapist who taught psychiatric residents at Johns Hopkins University Medical School, minces as few words as the president in his professional assessment of Trump.

"Donald Trump is dangerously mentally ill and temperamentally incapable of being president," says Gartner, author of "In Search of Bill Clinton: A Psychological Biography." Trump, Gartner says, has "malignant narcissism," which is different from narcissistic personality disorder and which is incurable.

Gartner acknowledges that he has not personally examined Trump, but says it's obvious from Trump's behavior that he meets the diagnostic criteria for the disorder, which include anti-social behavior, sadism, aggressiveness, paranoia and grandiosity. Trump's personality disorder (which includes hypomania) is also displayed through a lack of impulse control and empathy, and "a feeling that people ... don't recognize their greatness.

"We've seen enough public behavior by Donald Trump now that we can make this diagnosis indisputably," says Gartner.
 
His comments run afoul of the so-called Goldwater Rule, the informal term for part of the ethics code of the American Psychiatric Association saying it is wrong to provide a professional opinion of a public figure without examining that person and gaining consent to discuss the evaluation. But Gartner says the Trump case warrants breaking that ethical code.

Some of the hypomanic characteristics Gartner says Trump also possesses are also, paradoxically, the very qualities that "made America great," the psychotherapist says. The creativity, confidence and out-of-the-box thinking, is what has driven the nation's most successful entrepreneurs, says Gartner, who has also authored the book "The Hypomanic Edge: The Link Between (A Little) Craziness and (A Lot of) Success in America."  Trump himself has defended his demeanor as – perhaps paradoxically – the best. "I think I have the best temperament or certainly one of the best temperaments of anybody that's ever run for the office of president. Ever."

One Democrat has stepped out of the shadows, telling it like it is:

"We've moved from the entertainment to the clinical concern. There is a serious clinical concern about, how delusional is this guy?" says Rep. Gerry Connolly, D-Va. "It will only get worse, because this guy is the president and he's surrounded by enablers and sycophants, who instead of trying to call him on it are fueling the delusion. They're enablers. They're not stopping the drinking problem. They're handing out the Scotch bottles."