Where does politics begin and psychiatry end in assessing social problems?
As you know, we just experienced hundreds of thousands of unnecessary deaths, the near-loss of our democracy, and traumatization of a nation as a result of a president’s mental unfitness, and so we cannot say the two areas are always separate. If the psychological dangers and unfitness were addressed earlier on, as would have been routine for any other job, we may have avoided these predictable consequences. Mental health issues do not stop at the political realm, and a high political office does not make one immune from mental problems.
At the same time, just as political matters should not be labeled as psychiatric, psychiatric issues should not be labeled as political. Politicians are supposed to consult with experts in areas that exceed their ability to handle—and not pretend that it is politics as usual—just as mental health experts should not comment on areas outside their expertise. Mislabeling can lead to catastrophes, as we have seen under Donald Trump, when glaring psychological problems were interpreted as political strategy or “3-D chess.”
We associate Nazism or Stalinism with certain countries, while portraying Adolf Hitler, Idi Amin, or Pol Pot as such exceptional “monsters” that they would never be replicated on our soil, when the psychological characteristics they display are quite common—and it was handing them power that was exceptional. If we fail to understand the personality types that relentlessly seek but cannot handle power, which transforms them into grotesque megalomaniacs who run their countries to the ground, we will forever be vulnerable to them. We need to engage those who are best poised to detect these signs early, before they entrench themselves in the political structure, and that would be mental health experts. Continue reading.