While mental capacity test (cognitive functions) is essential especially for aging Presidents (also look what's happening to Mitch McConnell and Dianne Feinstein - they now have no capacity to be in office) , there are other kind of politicians like DeSantis, V Ramaswamy, Ted Cruz, Marge Greene etc etc etc that will pass the mental capacity test BUT still unfit for the office. If mental capacity test is only about analyzing cognitive functions , they however won't be able to filter out politicians wearing other kinds of masks of sanity. Now we can expand the definition of mental capacity and examiners can check for broader personality traits of politicians to check for dangerousness. But then, we will be entering into controversial area. No political system will allow such examination of politicians. And who/how will examiners will be selected/appointed to make these examinations is also controversial discussion.
Trump is the extreme case of chaotically clown like leader dripping with so many disorders. But there are other types of politicians who conceal their real identity very well. Take someone like Putin who even the CIA believed to be very shrewd and calculated statesman. It turned out to be wrong as he finally demonstrated his dark side with Ukraine war & atrocious war crimes.
Dr Lee, can you outline some scale to measuring dangerousness? Because this is an ambiguous term. Though certainly clear in case of Trump but how it can be applied broadly to whole spectrum of politicians.
Read “The Gift of Fear” by Gavin DeBecker. He shares a link to the scientifically developed assessment tool they use to assess dangerousness of persons of concern for their clients ( largely members of congress and celebrities)
“Dr. Nassir Ghaemi, who runs the Mood Disorders Program at Tufts Medical Center in Boston, argues in his book, A First Rate Madness: Uncovering the Links between Leadership and Mental Illness, that leaders with some mental illnesses can actually perform well in times of crisis as they may be more prepared to deal with upheaval and uncertainty.”
I think the criteria for leadership should not be “the absence of mental illness”. It needs to be that the person maintains the capacity to think clearly and act wisely.
As we say in family medicine: it is not that functional families have no problems. What makes them functional is the speed and capacity with which they address with their problems.
In our hospital we developed a “Provider Impairment program “ with a specific process by which any provider who may be impaired can be referred for competent outside professional evaluation and process in which an impaired provider would be able to re-enter practice.
Your "speed and capacity" reminds me of what Dr. Paul Friday calls normal: Everybody has crazy thoughts, but normal people know it sooner! fridayslaws.com
The term, "mental illness," is way too broad. What we should screen for specifically, are sociopathic traits. Does this person display a capacity for caring about others or do they manifest traits of indifference, callousness, proneness to rage and violence, viciousness, superficial charm, impulsivity, self centeredness, a need to manipulate and dominate others, etc. It's a very specific criterion that separates dangerous individuals from the rest of us. Very often a person with a sociopathic drive for power is attracted to politics and other positions that legitimize their craving for unchallenged authority. Power in the hands of someone who doesn't have the capacity to care about others is the profile of all the vicious dictators who litter our history books.
I found three mental health screens for psychopathy online because I'm no expert on testing. Bandy, James Gilligan, and other violence experts would likely know which tests can and should be administered to candidates for positions of power over others. Please add or correct this list if you're knowledgable.
1) The Psychopathic Personality Traits Scale measures affective responsiveness, cognitive responsiveness, interpersonal manipulation, and egocentricity. (I would love for journalists to be very familiar with the last two terms, and be able to use them accurately in a sentence referring to Trump and others like him.)
2) The Psychopathy Checklist-Revised was originally created by Canadian psychologist, Robert Hare, who wrote the book, Without Conscience. It's a psychological assessment tool that is commonly used to assess the presence and extent of traits associated with psychopathy such as superficial charm, lack of empathy with others, sexual promiscuity, and sadistic and paranoid traits. This checklist is administered in the context of an interview with a well-trained mental health professional.
3) There is also the Triarchic Psychopathy Measure which catalogues traits under three headings: Boldness, Meanness, and Disinhibition. This scale fine-tunes measurements of traits like callousness, need to dominate, lack of empathy, irresponsibility, impulsiveness, destructive aggression, and many more.
Any of these screens, administered and scored by, perhaps, three randomly chosen experts would be helpful in ascertaining which individuals demonstrate characterological traits that could be dangerous to the citizenry.
Yikes! Who said, "We're going to start slitting throats?" That kind of overt statement reveals that the speaker is a narcissistically fragile person who, when their sense of self-worth is
threatened, resorts to images and threats of physical harm as compensation.
Trump displayed this reaction yesterday when he wrote, "If you're coming after me, I'm coming after you." This generic statement whose target remains unnamed, was supposedly aimed at Jack Smith, the special prosecutor who has leveled the latest indictment at TFG.
Narcissistically fragile people don't all respond aggressively when feeling threatened. Most of us suffer ordinary reactions like anxiety, shame, or degrees of depression when our good feeling about ourselves is compromised. But a percentage of the population responds with narcissistic rage...an annihilating fury intended to wipe out the person who so egregiously insulted them to the very core. These are the DANGEROUS people...the murderers, rapists, child abusers who overpower or annihilate others, physically or psychologically, in order to restore their own inner sense of potency and power.
These people can be categorized as sociopathic, because they display no concern for the harm they're doing to others, so intense is their need to focus exclusively on their own sense of personal empowerment. Sociopathy can be tested for, and diagnosed by properly trained mental health professionals. This is the type of mental health exam that any person in a position of power over others should be required to take. We, the people, have a right to know if anybody running for office has sociopathic tendencies because that level of psychopathology cannot be treated... it is characterological.
Dr Lee, Dianne Feinstein has become vegetable. Mitch McConnell is also on similar line. Yet, due to political compulsions, both parties are dragging them because of political motives & conveniences. And it's not just about political offices, the courts are also dysfunctional with lifetime appointments. Like RBG was in no shape to continue in later days of her illness but she was clinging to her SC seat because of political compulsions (& also her own obstinacy). This behavior by civil servants, politicians & political parties impairs proper govt functioning.
I totally agree! I advocated in 2015 for both a required non-partisan Mental Health Exam + an IQ test (to pass need to have above average, but not "gifted" level IQ) + a generic acceptance of the principles of democracy. Absolutely to be a candidate for President, and ideally for Congress as well. When you formed your World Mental Health Coalition, I thought this was a great idea! Starting with the USA, but globally ....having sane emotionally and mentally healthy leaders is NOT too much to ask!!! The goal of course isn't to weed out idiosyncratic mental health issues - it's a FUNCTIONAL exam designed to insure the candidate (and elected official) possesses the needed mental health for the job!!! It's an idea that is overdue ! Using the "broken record method" of repeating such ideas is needed - you can't share the idea just once. In our Capitalistic nation......... repetition sells!!!
I am completely in support of the changes you are offering. We live in dangerous and ever more complexe times. There seems to be a willing disregard of these facts. I remember people or should I say the media, saying they would prefer to have a beer with George W Bush than with Al Gore. The preposterous idea always stuck with me. Now I believe these deeply unqualified candidates are intentionally selected so as to be more easily controlled by the people with the highly highly sophisticated control technologies and methods.
The "Duty To Warn" provision was introduced to protect known potential victims when we find direct threat and intent to do physical exists. Rightwing Florida governor and 2024 presidential 2nd in line for the Republican party Ron DeSantis said that if elected to the White House, he would “start slitting throats” in the federal bureaucracy on his first day in power. A metaphor for some, but there are those who would be motivated to take action. Would there be a way to utilize such a process to bear responsibility on those doing the threatening?
Read “The Gift of Fear” by Gavin DeBecker. He lists a link to the scientifically developed assessment tool they use to assess dangerousness of persons of concern for their clients ( largely members of congress and celebrities).
I wish! Unfortunately, there are multiple forces against having such an evaluation done. The notion of an evaluation seems to panic enough people--especially those already in power, as Dr. Lee alludes to here. People would take the line that it's too personal and might reveal things that could be unjustly held against a candidate. I'm thinking of the McGovern VP choice who, it was revealed, had ECT and had to drop out and be replaced. It was the "court of public opinion" and unfair to him, but there it is.
While mental capacity test (cognitive functions) is essential especially for aging Presidents (also look what's happening to Mitch McConnell and Dianne Feinstein - they now have no capacity to be in office) , there are other kind of politicians like DeSantis, V Ramaswamy, Ted Cruz, Marge Greene etc etc etc that will pass the mental capacity test BUT still unfit for the office. If mental capacity test is only about analyzing cognitive functions , they however won't be able to filter out politicians wearing other kinds of masks of sanity. Now we can expand the definition of mental capacity and examiners can check for broader personality traits of politicians to check for dangerousness. But then, we will be entering into controversial area. No political system will allow such examination of politicians. And who/how will examiners will be selected/appointed to make these examinations is also controversial discussion.
Trump is the extreme case of chaotically clown like leader dripping with so many disorders. But there are other types of politicians who conceal their real identity very well. Take someone like Putin who even the CIA believed to be very shrewd and calculated statesman. It turned out to be wrong as he finally demonstrated his dark side with Ukraine war & atrocious war crimes.
Dr Lee, can you outline some scale to measuring dangerousness? Because this is an ambiguous term. Though certainly clear in case of Trump but how it can be applied broadly to whole spectrum of politicians.
Read “The Gift of Fear” by Gavin DeBecker. He shares a link to the scientifically developed assessment tool they use to assess dangerousness of persons of concern for their clients ( largely members of congress and celebrities)
“Dr. Nassir Ghaemi, who runs the Mood Disorders Program at Tufts Medical Center in Boston, argues in his book, A First Rate Madness: Uncovering the Links between Leadership and Mental Illness, that leaders with some mental illnesses can actually perform well in times of crisis as they may be more prepared to deal with upheaval and uncertainty.”
I think the criteria for leadership should not be “the absence of mental illness”. It needs to be that the person maintains the capacity to think clearly and act wisely.
As we say in family medicine: it is not that functional families have no problems. What makes them functional is the speed and capacity with which they address with their problems.
In our hospital we developed a “Provider Impairment program “ with a specific process by which any provider who may be impaired can be referred for competent outside professional evaluation and process in which an impaired provider would be able to re-enter practice.
Your "speed and capacity" reminds me of what Dr. Paul Friday calls normal: Everybody has crazy thoughts, but normal people know it sooner! fridayslaws.com
The term, "mental illness," is way too broad. What we should screen for specifically, are sociopathic traits. Does this person display a capacity for caring about others or do they manifest traits of indifference, callousness, proneness to rage and violence, viciousness, superficial charm, impulsivity, self centeredness, a need to manipulate and dominate others, etc. It's a very specific criterion that separates dangerous individuals from the rest of us. Very often a person with a sociopathic drive for power is attracted to politics and other positions that legitimize their craving for unchallenged authority. Power in the hands of someone who doesn't have the capacity to care about others is the profile of all the vicious dictators who litter our history books.
I found three mental health screens for psychopathy online because I'm no expert on testing. Bandy, James Gilligan, and other violence experts would likely know which tests can and should be administered to candidates for positions of power over others. Please add or correct this list if you're knowledgable.
1) The Psychopathic Personality Traits Scale measures affective responsiveness, cognitive responsiveness, interpersonal manipulation, and egocentricity. (I would love for journalists to be very familiar with the last two terms, and be able to use them accurately in a sentence referring to Trump and others like him.)
2) The Psychopathy Checklist-Revised was originally created by Canadian psychologist, Robert Hare, who wrote the book, Without Conscience. It's a psychological assessment tool that is commonly used to assess the presence and extent of traits associated with psychopathy such as superficial charm, lack of empathy with others, sexual promiscuity, and sadistic and paranoid traits. This checklist is administered in the context of an interview with a well-trained mental health professional.
3) There is also the Triarchic Psychopathy Measure which catalogues traits under three headings: Boldness, Meanness, and Disinhibition. This scale fine-tunes measurements of traits like callousness, need to dominate, lack of empathy, irresponsibility, impulsiveness, destructive aggression, and many more.
Any of these screens, administered and scored by, perhaps, three randomly chosen experts would be helpful in ascertaining which individuals demonstrate characterological traits that could be dangerous to the citizenry.
Yikes! Who said, "We're going to start slitting throats?" That kind of overt statement reveals that the speaker is a narcissistically fragile person who, when their sense of self-worth is
threatened, resorts to images and threats of physical harm as compensation.
Trump displayed this reaction yesterday when he wrote, "If you're coming after me, I'm coming after you." This generic statement whose target remains unnamed, was supposedly aimed at Jack Smith, the special prosecutor who has leveled the latest indictment at TFG.
Narcissistically fragile people don't all respond aggressively when feeling threatened. Most of us suffer ordinary reactions like anxiety, shame, or degrees of depression when our good feeling about ourselves is compromised. But a percentage of the population responds with narcissistic rage...an annihilating fury intended to wipe out the person who so egregiously insulted them to the very core. These are the DANGEROUS people...the murderers, rapists, child abusers who overpower or annihilate others, physically or psychologically, in order to restore their own inner sense of potency and power.
These people can be categorized as sociopathic, because they display no concern for the harm they're doing to others, so intense is their need to focus exclusively on their own sense of personal empowerment. Sociopathy can be tested for, and diagnosed by properly trained mental health professionals. This is the type of mental health exam that any person in a position of power over others should be required to take. We, the people, have a right to know if anybody running for office has sociopathic tendencies because that level of psychopathology cannot be treated... it is characterological.
Dr Lee, Dianne Feinstein has become vegetable. Mitch McConnell is also on similar line. Yet, due to political compulsions, both parties are dragging them because of political motives & conveniences. And it's not just about political offices, the courts are also dysfunctional with lifetime appointments. Like RBG was in no shape to continue in later days of her illness but she was clinging to her SC seat because of political compulsions (& also her own obstinacy). This behavior by civil servants, politicians & political parties impairs proper govt functioning.
I totally agree! I advocated in 2015 for both a required non-partisan Mental Health Exam + an IQ test (to pass need to have above average, but not "gifted" level IQ) + a generic acceptance of the principles of democracy. Absolutely to be a candidate for President, and ideally for Congress as well. When you formed your World Mental Health Coalition, I thought this was a great idea! Starting with the USA, but globally ....having sane emotionally and mentally healthy leaders is NOT too much to ask!!! The goal of course isn't to weed out idiosyncratic mental health issues - it's a FUNCTIONAL exam designed to insure the candidate (and elected official) possesses the needed mental health for the job!!! It's an idea that is overdue ! Using the "broken record method" of repeating such ideas is needed - you can't share the idea just once. In our Capitalistic nation......... repetition sells!!!
I am completely in support of the changes you are offering. We live in dangerous and ever more complexe times. There seems to be a willing disregard of these facts. I remember people or should I say the media, saying they would prefer to have a beer with George W Bush than with Al Gore. The preposterous idea always stuck with me. Now I believe these deeply unqualified candidates are intentionally selected so as to be more easily controlled by the people with the highly highly sophisticated control technologies and methods.
The "Duty To Warn" provision was introduced to protect known potential victims when we find direct threat and intent to do physical exists. Rightwing Florida governor and 2024 presidential 2nd in line for the Republican party Ron DeSantis said that if elected to the White House, he would “start slitting throats” in the federal bureaucracy on his first day in power. A metaphor for some, but there are those who would be motivated to take action. Would there be a way to utilize such a process to bear responsibility on those doing the threatening?
Read “The Gift of Fear” by Gavin DeBecker. He lists a link to the scientifically developed assessment tool they use to assess dangerousness of persons of concern for their clients ( largely members of congress and celebrities).
Age limits, educational requirements, and mental tests are needed for all people seeking higher public office.
I wish! Unfortunately, there are multiple forces against having such an evaluation done. The notion of an evaluation seems to panic enough people--especially those already in power, as Dr. Lee alludes to here. People would take the line that it's too personal and might reveal things that could be unjustly held against a candidate. I'm thinking of the McGovern VP choice who, it was revealed, had ECT and had to drop out and be replaced. It was the "court of public opinion" and unfair to him, but there it is.
:(
Has Michael Flynn been taking this test and passing it?
Ha! I don't believe Michael Flynn could pass a psychopathic traits examination. Nor could Trump and most of the people with whom he surrounds himself.