‘Mental Pathology in Politics’

There is a Price to Not Talking about It—such as Toxic Leadership, Shared Psychosis, and Dark Times

“You were right all along!” we heard throughout the Trump presidency.  “You must feel vindicated!” I heard, even from Congress members, following January 6, 2021.  In 2022, Mother Jones published a major article subtitled, “The Vindication of Bandy Lee.”  Yet, in 2024, there is still no major public discussion on mental health.  Why?

In 2016, the United States crossed a threshold.  Its worsening societal mental health manifested in the election of a severely mentally-impaired leader, and its mental state was going to grow worse, fast.  Like anyone in the throes of worsening illness, it needed a doctor—or many.

A fact that is unique about needing a head doctor, however, is that the more one needs the doctor, the more one will run from that fact.  It is the job of the head doctor to educate and advise, early on—while the patient’s head is still relatively intact—to accept treatment.  It is the job of the doctor to prevent a spiraling of illness that risks great suffering, even greater denial, and possibly forced treatment, if not danger and demise.  Far from being the “easiest” branch of medicine that any layperson can practice, it is actually one of the hardest, for these reasons.

This is where the nation was in early 2017, when we collectively came forth in a major way.  It was still early, and the nation had the possibility of a quick recovery.  This is why the book I edited, The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump: 27 Psychiatrists and Mental Health Experts Assess a President, became an instant New York Times bestseller—so unexpectedly successful that it took Macmillan five weeks of repeat printings to catch up with the demand—and we catapulted into the number one topic of national conversation.  The Washington Post called it “the most courageous book of the year.” There was still what psychiatrists call, “insight”, on the part of the nation.

We would later learn that, unbeknownst to us, as the Guardian later reported, none other than White House Chief of Staff General John Kelly “secretly” consulted our book “as an owner’s manual” on how to protect the nation and the world from the dangerous man.  He even used the principles in our book possibly to avert nuclear war with North Korea!

Even before this knowledge, we were credited with changing national discourse, and over fifty U.S. Congress members consulted with us.  Foremost on their minds were the medical data that could lead to implementing the Twenty-Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which deals with a president who is “unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office.”  Impeachment was also on the table as a just intervention to the emergency situation.  We were asked to “educate the public medically, so that [they] could act politically.”  This would have been a normal response to an abnormal situation, to which the nation would need to adjust but could potentially quickly adapt back to health.

The worst thing one can do in such a situation is to ally with the mentally-afflicted patient’s symptoms and to “enable” the destructive drives that are part of disease, no matter how strong the drive (unfortunately, the psychiatric establishment at the time chose this easier but irresponsible route, in order to procure federal funding—which it did massively under the Trump administration).  One reason why psychiatrists are sometimes allowed to force treatment is because the nature of head disorders is that, once treated, patients return to thank doctors, recounting the experience as a freeing from the even more oppressive mental “imprisonment”.  Nevertheless, the hope is always to avoid reaching the point of self-destructive drives by intervening early.

In this manner, freeing people from the grips of mental pathology allows for greater freedom and greater democracy, not less—just as adequately defeating physical disease allows for the rest of life to go on.  We do not say about a patient lying in bed with Covid-19, “That is the lifestyle she chooses”; instead, we secure the appropriate professionals to prescribe the necessary interventions, such as medicines and quarantine, so that the person can overcome the illness and pursue the life one truly chooses.  Only after basic physical and mental health is restored, can humans truly have the autonomy to engage in the life of their choice, be it recreational, vocational, or civic.  Being educated to know the difference is critical to self-governance.

The possibilities are still immense, but the current probability is dark. The deeper the disease, the greater the self-destructive tendency, at the same time as having less flexibility to make a change. Seven years ago, I and a group of mental health experts came forth to try to protect the nation from a grave public mental health threat, by sharing our knowledge for prevention.  We already knew that, unless we contained the psychological dangers in a mentally-impaired leader, they would spread into becoming social, cultural, geopolitical, and civic dangers.  The public heartily welcomed us, but the American Psychiatric Association recruited the New York Times to sidelined us from all major media and public discourse.  As a result, our greatest fears came to pass, with the precise severity and timeline we predicted.  There is still a chance to turn things around from this crisis point, but it requires that we arm ourselves with knowledge. Could we do it?

Announcement:

Dr. Bandy X. Lee will be holding a live session of “Assessing the Nation’s Mental Health” tomorrow, January 6, 2024, at 1 p.m. EST/10 a.m. PST on Zoom.  All subscribers will receive the Zoom link an hour before the session.

Dr. Lee is a forensic psychiatrist, social psychiatrist, and expert on violence who has applied her mental health knowledge to advise criminal courts, civil courts, governments, and international bodies for 25 years.  Since 2017, she has endeavored to educate the American public on applying mental health principles to our current societal crises, which have placed us at existential risk. Three years since the January 6 violent attack of the U.S. Capitol, and following 1.2 million preventable American deaths, climate destruction, nuclear perils, and rampant global and domestic instability, how can we better prepare ourselves today? Please join us in mapping out 2024!