This reminds me of a true story related by Robert Atkins, Member of Parliament in the U.K.:
Kruschev was discoursing at a meeting in Russia at great length over the iniquities of Stalin, when a voice yelled “As one of his colleagues why didn’t you stop him?”
Unbearable silence ensued after which Kruschev thundered:” Who said that?”
After a long silence, Kruschev said “ Now you know why.”
“The child who is not embraced by the village will burn it down to feel its warmth.”
That’s a brilliant description of Trump… and of the many (I’m almost afraid to think of how many there are) psychopaths in society today.
While I suffered from a lack of emotional support from my parents while growing up, I was lucky to find the support I needed in the larger community of my local public school, public library, and the natural history museum and public park I went to as a child. This probably explains why I feel more emotionally connected to nature and science than to people at times, although I have worked hard to overcome my reluctance to engage with people in the decades since.
One person I have been thinking about lately is Fred Rogers. Mr. Rogers Neighborhood offered children the emotional support they needed to become constructive members of society. I envy those children who were young enough to learn from Mr. Rogers and wish there was someone like him in the public eye today.
Thanks for hoping I had that. Sadly, my father was such a controlling monster that the family had no real contact with his parents or my mothers. Fortunately, there were very helping programs on television back in the 60s, including locally produced live programming many kids watched once they were home from school. It wasn't Mr Rogers. But it did help a lot.
“Why don’t you stop him?!?!” has been my response lately to every Democratic politician (I’m looking at you, Corey Booker) who thinks that decrying Trump’s behavior is enough. People like Booker have the power - due to their standing in society - to do much more than “speak out”. They should take a lesson from the Occupy Wall Street movement (as well as from John Lewis) and create continuous protests that also teach the public that Trump is a threat for the mental health reasons Dr Lee describes. Instead of 5 million protesting for one day, there should be a “tent city” of many millions that surrounds Washington DC permanently (let Jeff Bezos’s ex-wife cover the cost) to force news organizations to cover this story by teaching all who will listen how to defeat the Trump contagion that threatens the world!
A good, creative example of how ‘the fierce urgency of now’ can and must be met by the mind putting its body to work deploying the manifold arsenal of strategic nonviolent methods of action so meticulously and imaginatively delineated by the late ‘Machiavelli’ or ‘von Clausewitz’ of nonviolent warfare, Dr. Gene Sharp, whose copious writings helped inspire global nonviolent uprisings and revolutions from Burma to Eastern Europe (notably Serbia and Ukraine) to Egypt to Iran, etc., to Occupy Wall Street, as you mention, Steve. (Readers here might find this documentary film, and/o complementary book of the same title, about Gene Sharp and the practice of informed and disciplined nonviolent action around the world that I have previously cited here: “How to Start a Revolution” A good, creative example of how ‘the fierce urgency of now’ can and must be met by the mind putting its body to work deploying the the manifold arsenal of strategic nonviolent methods of action action so meticulously and imaginatively delineated by the late, great ‘Machiavelli’ or Von Clausewitz of nonviolent warfare, Dr. Gene Sharp whose corpus of writings helped inspire global nonviolent uprisings and revolutions from Burma to Eastern Europe (notably Serbia and Ukraine) to Egypt to Iran, etc., to Occupy Wall Street, as you mention, Steve. (Please watch this documentary film, and/or read the complementary book, about Gene Sharp and the practice of informed and disciplined nonviolent action around the world that I have previously cited here: “How to Start a Revolution” https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=EKnoUbDIpjo)
The multiple award-winning film, which runs 1 hr. 22 min., packs a literal punch of inspiration. It was released in 2011 during the Occupy Wall Street and Arab Spring nonviolent movements. Sharp was featured on the front page of The New York Times around that time as well.
YES!! I’m so tired of useless Democrats only doing speeches or shadow committees where those fired can complain while STILL nothing happens.
Dems need to start with the illegal election which even trump has admitted to rigging. This fear of speaking out against it is the exact strategy of the bogus “stop the steal” nonsense of 2020. If anyone points to THIS election being interfered with you’re branded a conspiracy theorist. No one seems to want to talk about it.
We need to get past that and do a deep investigation. If we can prove the election was rigged we could remove the entire illegal regime.
Where’s the courage? Where’s the good men NOT doing nothing?
The time for speeches ended on November 6. Now do some WORK!!!
"Extinction Level Event Headed Straight for Earth"
Our Psychological and Political Pandemic DR. BANDY X. LEE
🔸️Mental pathology in a president is a public matter. The more severe the mental pathology the less one will recognize that one is even ill.
🔸️Every other job that deals with life or death has a mental fitness evaluation as a requirement, even before one takes the position.
🔸️Without mental fitness evaluations, the public needs to know the danger of certified madness in politics. When dangerous mental pathologies are allowed to spread like a pandemic, an Extinction Level Event is headed straight for Earth. The U.S. could be a shining example of how to stop dangerous mental pathologies before they worm their way into politics but it is now left with "emergency cleanup on aisle madness'.
Linda make sure you are not isolating. Be with friends and family who think like you ♥️. Dr Lee is an expert in violence a forensicpsychiatrist. She is a beacon of hope.
Excellent and discomfiting analysis, as always, Dr. Lee. Your razor-sharp focus on the objective reality-inverting aspect of Trump’s -- and his cult minion’s -- mental pathology is being publicly echoed by some fascism experts, notably Timothy Snyder. In his just-posted video message, he cogently explains why Trump and Musk are projectively deploying their own deeply-rooted and pervasive antisemitism as the spear of their smear against American universities and free thought writ large, but Columbia in particular, in order to bring them to heel to Trump’s plan to destroy them. As he ironically points out, Columbia is known as the ‘Jewish Ivy’ by dint of having a student body whose composition is 20 percent Jewish. Snyder makes clear how crucial it is for the opposition to understand that Trump is deviously fomenting antisemitism by disingenuous pretending to be the defender of Jewish people against its ravages.
In this vein, it is entirely predictable that Trump’s defenders will continue to deny and rationalize his vicious antisemitism by reminding us, with the tired trope, that his daughter Ivanka and son in-law Jared Kushner are in fact Jewish. It strikes me how seamlessly this mimics Trump’s announcement today that electronics like smart phones and other items manufactured by China will be exempted from his tariff cudgel. But, of course, just the way his daughter and her husband have received a divinely authorized exemption from his human tariff of antisemitism wielded on behalf of his anti-intellectual, white Christian nationalist-theocratic base.
I have learned about malignant narcissism unfortunately in the past few years. The narcissist in-law took my family away from me because she lied about me to my family and they believed her and not me. I have not seen them in three years and they have not called or contacted me. I'm now 80 years old and live alone because of her. I want to warn everyone about the evil, lying, sadistic, hate-filled disease that is narcissism and the danger it brings. Don't believe the lies, the hate-mongering, the bullying, the sick oversized ego thar fuels the narcissist. Beware for they are evil and will do anything to further feed that ego.
My hear is breaking for you,. I wish my words could bring you some comfort and peace. My son, is also a narcissist, I have never been able to make even a suggestion to him, even though he shares some of his problems with me, I now ask why do you even involve me? His last response was...idk. so instead of recognizing that he is so closed minded to everything, he actually boasts of his narrow mindedness.
Several times in my life he has gone for years at a time with no communication with me.
It is such heartbreak to experience this and know that he is fine with it. Makes for a very lonely, unexpected life of unhappiness for me especially when I feel that I am udersrving of his treatment.
I have no choice but to accept this as my reality.
Not 80 yet but working on it and life is very sad without hope., at my age that is the only thing his egotistical attitude offers me.
Your 100% correct . A narcissist will do anything and go to any dangerous extreme to get their way .Then if their a narcissistic reactionist (as the leader now in charge) it's even worse because the pain they influct on you and others gives them a sense of leadership and self satisfaction . Like we saw when you know who gave the 2 1/2 hour speech ......saying nothing but ......his ranting and attention grabbing was his orgasm if self loathing love. Absolutely disguisting .
In the quiet moments when I reflect on your words, I hear not only the voice of a psychiatrist, but the moral clarity of a healing listener, and the moral clarity of psychiatrist Bessel van der Kolk bearing witness to trauma not just in the individual body, but in the body politic.
Your ability to see the deeper disease beneath the surface symptoms of our political collapse is rare, and profoundly necessary. As Leo Tolstoy might say, it is not enough to describe the evil—we must name its roots in the soul’s estrangement from truth, from love, and from the moral responsibility we bear to one another.
You have named it bravely: fascism as a pathology, a sickness of the soul masquerading as ideology.
Your insights echo a truth I'm beginning to grasp—that political systems are merely the outward expressions of our inner life. And when a nation tolerates the elevation of a man so clearly wounded, so consumed by the fire of unacknowledged inadequacy, it reveals the magnitude of its own spiritual confusion.
I honor the deep work you have done—connecting the dots not only in events, but in the psyche that drives them. You help us see that we are not merely witnessing a political struggle, but a civilizational reckoning: between delusion and reality, between selfishness and conscience, between the sickness of ego and the health of the soul. In the moral landscape you paint, I see not only Donald Trump, but a society addicted to denial. It sheds light on what can only be described as congressional cult member behavior.
The “child not embraced by the village” is not only a portrait of one man, but of a people who have abandoned the sacred duty to care for the least, to recognize truth, and to cultivate wisdom above spectacle. The rage that now threatens to burn the village down is not his alone. It is ours—unless we choose another way. As I write this I can't help but think of Senator Bernie Sanders and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez speaking in Los Angeles right now.
Your emphasis on self-care is not sentimental; it is radical. It calls us to begin the revolution where it matters most: within. As Tolstoy wrote, “Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself.” You are asking us to do both—beginning with clarity, courage, and the healing of our collective mind.
I write to thank you, and to tell you this: your work matters deeply. You are giving language to what many feel but cannot name. You are pulling back the veil when others have chosen silence or complicity. And you are doing so not with anger, but with the steady voice of conscience.
We will need many voices like yours in the months and years ahead, as we face not just a political fight, but a spiritual one—a fight for reality, for decency, for sanity. May you continue with strength, knowing that your words are not lost in the storm, but lighting a path forward.
People seem to be reluctant to talk about psychology because they can't "see" it like they can see a physical injury or difference. If every time he spoke and lied, green slime dribbled out of his mouth, then people could point to that and say, "look--this isn't right!"
However, I think more and more people are slowly realizing that psychopaths have risen to power, and aren't just serial killers hiding bodies in their crawlspaces or already in prison for life.
We also need an encyclopedia of Cults of the 21st Century and more awareness. People can be in cults that are within cults and not understand how this affects their ability to respond to threats.
The time is right to push forward with all of the points Dr. Lee has been making as I think the public is searching for answers as the problems mount.
I agree with you, Leslie. But I think prior to understanding the
Psychopathology of others we need to look at our own psychology. Therapy and the analysis and assessment of someone’s thoughts, feelings and actions can be sensitive, private or even taboo areas to examine about self or others. As a retired
Psychotherapist myself I think the more we are willing to reveal about ourselves via conversations with self, friends, family and therapists, the more we can liberate, accept and embrace who we are. The exchange or discussion of these parts of our nature publicly requires another level of openness, confidence and trust, That’s why Dr Lee’s willingness to share the psychosocial reality of our time with us regarding the impact that one’s persons psychological damage can have on an entire country is so important. And that’s even when her own National professional association (APA) is not willing to be nearly as forthright.
I agree that dealing with our current societal struggles needs to be prioritized now. My concern is that historically the need for introspection and social awareness has taken a back seat to the conflicts that ultimately arise because people are not aware of themselves or empathetic enough towards others. The ultimate consequence of this is war and autocracy.
So I agree that the likelihood of being a more self-aware citizenry will likely not occur if we are controlled by a totalitarian state. On the other hand, even if we overcome this crisis we face, my concern is that we will not prioritize mental wellness in the way societies have always avoided it up until now.
I wish I had the answers to how and when we might deal with the current threat to our freedom and our limited self-awareness as a country, but I don’t. The best I can do is address how they are both essential and linked with each other. Attaining self-awareness may be the single most important thing individuals can do to repel autocracy while re-enforcing democracy.
Dr Lee, I have followed you for a long time. It is clear and understandable to me that your rhetoric about what Americans are facing psychologically and existentially has rightly so gotten more imminent and critical with time.
It has become clear to
me that the APA has abdicated their responsibility to include the mental well being of all Americans as a
part of their mission.
It is not surprising to me that an established organization like the APA chooses self-interest and protection over a more altruistic position in which they advocate for the well being of American citizens. It is ironic that an institution like the APA chooses to sidestep the psychological truth about our current presidency and the Republican/MAGA party. That’s because as the APA leadership attempts to protect themselves from the financial or career wrath of the president, the president is systematically destroying all organizations that threaten him or even hint of disloyalty to him. Imagine the hypocrisy of an organization like the APA thinking that if they hide from the truth and
maintain neutrality they will be safe. Should the current presidency consolidate its rule such that it becomes a total autocracy, how long does the APA imagine it would continue to exist. It is an organization predicated in part on understanding the operation of the mind and its pathology. And this requires disseminating the truthful use of practitioners knowledge to help patients and the safety of the American citizenry. Yet it’s hard for me to image that those rejecting the psychological assessment of the president and his supporters has anything to do with a violation of professional impartiality or professional-patient anonymity. Don’t our citizens have the right to understand the mental status of the most exposed and powerful person in the world?
There are many things that are painful to experience about this presidency. But associations like the APA refuse to be truthful and forthright about our president. This president has given us more evidence to address the president’s mental pathology and instability than all the other presidents combined! Finally, if the leadership of the APA has chosen to bury their heads in the sand regarding the president’s mental status, how can people trust the therapeutic process as a means of attaining mental health utilizing clinical psychiatrists?
You spoke accurately when you said Trump’s “death spiral”; his political demise is growing daily, his physical demise is also growing daily. Question is: will he die before being ejected from power and imprisoned for treason, or live long enough to taste another bitter failure and humiliation.
We both know that he is not long in the world and his fate is eternal damnation.
America WILL recover and enact legislation to prevent this from happening again.
“We the People” will need your guidance for our nation’s mental health recovery.
Fascism as mental pathology in politics. Indeed. The fundamental conviction in fascism is that there is no truth, no morality, the world is simply structured around power and the will to apply it.
As Thucydides reported in the dialogues between the Athenian empire and the leaders of Melos, the Athenians dismissing Melian moral and epistemic pleas not to sack their community stating "The strong do what they can, the weak suffer what they must." This is not a world of right and wrong or true and false but simply a world of winners and losers.
The ugly spirit that underlies all this is what has been describe as "ressentiment:' managing the pain of being a sinful, mortal, and radically dependent being with grievances. Designating and punishing enemies, people that can be "blamed" for one's own inferiority/failure.
Dr. Lee: Is it likely that Trump’s draconian tariffs betray a deep, underlying call for help in setting limits on his behavior that he cannot himself control?
I think not. His pathology does not, above or below the surface of conscious awareness, have capacity for empathy even for self: no sense of being anything other than a terrified, hollow, vengeful creature given to survival pathologies — Desperate for adoration, adulation, validation and killing ( yes killing) any and all voices that may challenge that sense of entitled adoration.
It’s a thoroughly misshapen and incomplete pathological structure: not redeemable from within or without. Constraint is the sole recourse.
That is, he’s a dangerous fucking dimwit dolt loser with no conscience and no tether to human realities. A terminal fuckup and totally hateful subspecies that somehow missed revolutionary culling.
Jung said something else that applies in this context: "Love is the opposite of power".
As a country, we have just engaged in a profoundly pathological act, turning our back on a highly competent, extremely decent, president in favor of a grossly incompetent and malignant president who refuses to accept that he cannot 'talk over' reality itself.
Biden is ruled by love, Trump by power.
And what Biden was trying to correct was the concentration of power, including geographically,enabled by neoliberal policies, that has so sickened this country. People without power become consumed by resentment, which is easy to exploit. Trump is a master of this, if nothing else.
Lee is entirely right that a basic psychological 'literacy' is essential, yet lacking, as so many persist in projecting political systems of thought and analysis onto Trump. This misses far,far, too much.
Snyder tries to analyze Trump's policy decisions from his psychological pathology. Snyder does get some things right. Trump internally is a deeply broken man full of chaos and his thinking riddled with delusions. That is why he also projects these things outwards. Now world has become beholden to psychological pathology of this madman.
Yes. But. It’s not just him however. It’s a massive regime, this time.
Have you seen this? A new graphic novel offers a warning about autocracy to a generation with short attention spans.
Recently released “You Must Take Part In Revolution” (Street Noise Books), a dystopian graphic novel by Badiucao, a Chinese activist artist living in Australia, and Emmy-nominated journalist Melissa Chan, a Hong Kong-born American journalist who in 2012 was the first foreign correspondent in more than a decade to be expelled from China after reporting on subjects such as the country’s “black jails.” The novel takes Hong Kong’s 2019 protests
“Pay attention or prepare to be next.” Graffiti warning of the global threat to freedom from China’s Communist Party appeared on walls around Hong Kong during the protests of 2019.
“It was a prescient message, though not for the reasons the spray-painters might have imagined.
“Five years after the city’s democracy movement was crushed, authoritarianism is rising around the world — but in most cases the threat is coming from within.”
Fully agree with the importance of self-care. First aid responders including myself are taught first to keep themselves safe because, if they are injured, they can't help others.
Clearly Trump is unwell, his malignant narcissism has crippled his ability to respond humanely to others. Trump regards compromise as weakness and an invitation to continue persecuting
I doubt if his illness is curable. The best option would be to restrain him from doing more harm. He appears to meet the criteria - probably will harm others or himself - to warrant forced admission to a mental hospital.
He will happily kill us all unless stopped. Like a serial killer he is ramping for a conclusive event - plus, he has dementia so his erratic conduct can only worsen.
If I may change the focus a bit Dr Lee, why have we not looked at the over abundance of pornography in our world and what it teaches us? Seems to me it teaches the men who watch it that women are stupid. They have no soul or persona so they are unaffected by
abuse and thus the consequences
just disappear never to be seen again. If we treat half the population of the world in this manor is it not possible to create great psychosis? We hide our need for love
and abuse our egos in the process. We definitely need more Mr. Rogers, who’s greatest gift I thought was the teaching of kindness, to ourselves and all beings.
Why don't they speak up?
This reminds me of a true story related by Robert Atkins, Member of Parliament in the U.K.:
Kruschev was discoursing at a meeting in Russia at great length over the iniquities of Stalin, when a voice yelled “As one of his colleagues why didn’t you stop him?”
Unbearable silence ensued after which Kruschev thundered:” Who said that?”
After a long silence, Kruschev said “ Now you know why.”
“The child who is not embraced by the village will burn it down to feel its warmth.”
That’s a brilliant description of Trump… and of the many (I’m almost afraid to think of how many there are) psychopaths in society today.
While I suffered from a lack of emotional support from my parents while growing up, I was lucky to find the support I needed in the larger community of my local public school, public library, and the natural history museum and public park I went to as a child. This probably explains why I feel more emotionally connected to nature and science than to people at times, although I have worked hard to overcome my reluctance to engage with people in the decades since.
One person I have been thinking about lately is Fred Rogers. Mr. Rogers Neighborhood offered children the emotional support they needed to become constructive members of society. I envy those children who were young enough to learn from Mr. Rogers and wish there was someone like him in the public eye today.
Fred Rogers was a saint of sorts - a model of compassion and understanding that we need so badly.
We need Sesame Street too!!
Too noisy. Not enough reality.
I recently thought of how much I miss Fred Rogers
He was awesome in his love and understanding of children. Let’s play those ‘films’ again and everyone can learn from him this time!!
Good on you!! Sounds like you’re a very smart person and you’ve overcome a LOT. Much respect. Wishing you the very best. 👏
Thanks so much for the support and encouragement!
Hope you had loving caring grandparents. Makes a big difference!
Thanks for hoping I had that. Sadly, my father was such a controlling monster that the family had no real contact with his parents or my mothers. Fortunately, there were very helping programs on television back in the 60s, including locally produced live programming many kids watched once they were home from school. It wasn't Mr Rogers. But it did help a lot.
Who among those living today can we look to as role models, if anyone?
I think young people should be asked this question. I might help us older folks understand what kind of crisis they are in.
“Why don’t you stop him?!?!” has been my response lately to every Democratic politician (I’m looking at you, Corey Booker) who thinks that decrying Trump’s behavior is enough. People like Booker have the power - due to their standing in society - to do much more than “speak out”. They should take a lesson from the Occupy Wall Street movement (as well as from John Lewis) and create continuous protests that also teach the public that Trump is a threat for the mental health reasons Dr Lee describes. Instead of 5 million protesting for one day, there should be a “tent city” of many millions that surrounds Washington DC permanently (let Jeff Bezos’s ex-wife cover the cost) to force news organizations to cover this story by teaching all who will listen how to defeat the Trump contagion that threatens the world!
Booker told us true stories of how the cruelty has affected their lives. We needed to hear them. We needed to know.
A good, creative example of how ‘the fierce urgency of now’ can and must be met by the mind putting its body to work deploying the manifold arsenal of strategic nonviolent methods of action so meticulously and imaginatively delineated by the late ‘Machiavelli’ or ‘von Clausewitz’ of nonviolent warfare, Dr. Gene Sharp, whose copious writings helped inspire global nonviolent uprisings and revolutions from Burma to Eastern Europe (notably Serbia and Ukraine) to Egypt to Iran, etc., to Occupy Wall Street, as you mention, Steve. (Readers here might find this documentary film, and/o complementary book of the same title, about Gene Sharp and the practice of informed and disciplined nonviolent action around the world that I have previously cited here: “How to Start a Revolution” A good, creative example of how ‘the fierce urgency of now’ can and must be met by the mind putting its body to work deploying the the manifold arsenal of strategic nonviolent methods of action action so meticulously and imaginatively delineated by the late, great ‘Machiavelli’ or Von Clausewitz of nonviolent warfare, Dr. Gene Sharp whose corpus of writings helped inspire global nonviolent uprisings and revolutions from Burma to Eastern Europe (notably Serbia and Ukraine) to Egypt to Iran, etc., to Occupy Wall Street, as you mention, Steve. (Please watch this documentary film, and/or read the complementary book, about Gene Sharp and the practice of informed and disciplined nonviolent action around the world that I have previously cited here: “How to Start a Revolution” https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=EKnoUbDIpjo)
Thank you for suggesting the book “how to start a revolution“. I’ll get a copy soon… maybe also watch the video
The multiple award-winning film, which runs 1 hr. 22 min., packs a literal punch of inspiration. It was released in 2011 during the Occupy Wall Street and Arab Spring nonviolent movements. Sharp was featured on the front page of The New York Times around that time as well.
YES!! I’m so tired of useless Democrats only doing speeches or shadow committees where those fired can complain while STILL nothing happens.
Dems need to start with the illegal election which even trump has admitted to rigging. This fear of speaking out against it is the exact strategy of the bogus “stop the steal” nonsense of 2020. If anyone points to THIS election being interfered with you’re branded a conspiracy theorist. No one seems to want to talk about it.
We need to get past that and do a deep investigation. If we can prove the election was rigged we could remove the entire illegal regime.
Where’s the courage? Where’s the good men NOT doing nothing?
The time for speeches ended on November 6. Now do some WORK!!!
Is EVERYONE aftaid of trump???
Good idea. Let’s !!!
This sounds oddly familiar.
Hope it does not get to your example.
Wow. Thats powerful. I thought K was a very thoughtful man. Saved us from our madness a few times.
Bandy X Lee is an outstanding heroine in our troubled time. Please support her by circulating her messages! Thank you, Bandy Lee.
"Extinction Level Event Headed Straight for Earth"
Our Psychological and Political Pandemic DR. BANDY X. LEE
🔸️Mental pathology in a president is a public matter. The more severe the mental pathology the less one will recognize that one is even ill.
🔸️Every other job that deals with life or death has a mental fitness evaluation as a requirement, even before one takes the position.
🔸️Without mental fitness evaluations, the public needs to know the danger of certified madness in politics. When dangerous mental pathologies are allowed to spread like a pandemic, an Extinction Level Event is headed straight for Earth. The U.S. could be a shining example of how to stop dangerous mental pathologies before they worm their way into politics but it is now left with "emergency cleanup on aisle madness'.
https://open.substack.com/pub/bandyxlee/p/our-psychological-and-political-pandemic?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&r=280c3q
Looks like we’re started !!! Thank you everyone !!
I am so frightened. 😔
Linda make sure you are not isolating. Be with friends and family who think like you ♥️. Dr Lee is an expert in violence a forensicpsychiatrist. She is a beacon of hope.
How did you know I’ve been struggling with isolating? It is like a huge wet blanket. I will remind myself to “stop and smell the roses”. Thank you.
Go to your nearest forest. Sit. Listen. Your adult self will respond.
Yes. That sounds inspiring. As a Washingtonian I actually have many nearby. Thank you
ACTIONS BY EVERYONE GROWS FREEDOM
How to Prevent "GOP MASS PSYCHOSIS - How an Entire Population Becomes MENTALLY ILL"
❤️ Discredit totalitarian propaganda everywhere
🤣 Mock GOP worship of dictators
❤️ Grow joyful unifying structures
❤️ c 1st 📈
Watch video to Oppose Totalitarianism
https://youtu.be/09maaUaRT4M
Excellent and discomfiting analysis, as always, Dr. Lee. Your razor-sharp focus on the objective reality-inverting aspect of Trump’s -- and his cult minion’s -- mental pathology is being publicly echoed by some fascism experts, notably Timothy Snyder. In his just-posted video message, he cogently explains why Trump and Musk are projectively deploying their own deeply-rooted and pervasive antisemitism as the spear of their smear against American universities and free thought writ large, but Columbia in particular, in order to bring them to heel to Trump’s plan to destroy them. As he ironically points out, Columbia is known as the ‘Jewish Ivy’ by dint of having a student body whose composition is 20 percent Jewish. Snyder makes clear how crucial it is for the opposition to understand that Trump is deviously fomenting antisemitism by disingenuous pretending to be the defender of Jewish people against its ravages.
In this vein, it is entirely predictable that Trump’s defenders will continue to deny and rationalize his vicious antisemitism by reminding us, with the tired trope, that his daughter Ivanka and son in-law Jared Kushner are in fact Jewish. It strikes me how seamlessly this mimics Trump’s announcement today that electronics like smart phones and other items manufactured by China will be exempted from his tariff cudgel. But, of course, just the way his daughter and her husband have received a divinely authorized exemption from his human tariff of antisemitism wielded on behalf of his anti-intellectual, white Christian nationalist-theocratic base.
Link to the above-cited Timothy Snyder post, ‘Fomenting Antisemitism, not combatting it’:https://open.substack.com/pub/snyder/p/fomenting-antisemitism? https://substack.com/home/post/p-161117849?source=queue&autoPlay=true
I have learned about malignant narcissism unfortunately in the past few years. The narcissist in-law took my family away from me because she lied about me to my family and they believed her and not me. I have not seen them in three years and they have not called or contacted me. I'm now 80 years old and live alone because of her. I want to warn everyone about the evil, lying, sadistic, hate-filled disease that is narcissism and the danger it brings. Don't believe the lies, the hate-mongering, the bullying, the sick oversized ego thar fuels the narcissist. Beware for they are evil and will do anything to further feed that ego.
My hear is breaking for you,. I wish my words could bring you some comfort and peace. My son, is also a narcissist, I have never been able to make even a suggestion to him, even though he shares some of his problems with me, I now ask why do you even involve me? His last response was...idk. so instead of recognizing that he is so closed minded to everything, he actually boasts of his narrow mindedness.
Several times in my life he has gone for years at a time with no communication with me.
It is such heartbreak to experience this and know that he is fine with it. Makes for a very lonely, unexpected life of unhappiness for me especially when I feel that I am udersrving of his treatment.
I have no choice but to accept this as my reality.
Not 80 yet but working on it and life is very sad without hope., at my age that is the only thing his egotistical attitude offers me.
Your 100% correct . A narcissist will do anything and go to any dangerous extreme to get their way .Then if their a narcissistic reactionist (as the leader now in charge) it's even worse because the pain they influct on you and others gives them a sense of leadership and self satisfaction . Like we saw when you know who gave the 2 1/2 hour speech ......saying nothing but ......his ranting and attention grabbing was his orgasm if self loathing love. Absolutely disguisting .
Dear Dr. Lee,
In the quiet moments when I reflect on your words, I hear not only the voice of a psychiatrist, but the moral clarity of a healing listener, and the moral clarity of psychiatrist Bessel van der Kolk bearing witness to trauma not just in the individual body, but in the body politic.
Your ability to see the deeper disease beneath the surface symptoms of our political collapse is rare, and profoundly necessary. As Leo Tolstoy might say, it is not enough to describe the evil—we must name its roots in the soul’s estrangement from truth, from love, and from the moral responsibility we bear to one another.
You have named it bravely: fascism as a pathology, a sickness of the soul masquerading as ideology.
Your insights echo a truth I'm beginning to grasp—that political systems are merely the outward expressions of our inner life. And when a nation tolerates the elevation of a man so clearly wounded, so consumed by the fire of unacknowledged inadequacy, it reveals the magnitude of its own spiritual confusion.
I honor the deep work you have done—connecting the dots not only in events, but in the psyche that drives them. You help us see that we are not merely witnessing a political struggle, but a civilizational reckoning: between delusion and reality, between selfishness and conscience, between the sickness of ego and the health of the soul. In the moral landscape you paint, I see not only Donald Trump, but a society addicted to denial. It sheds light on what can only be described as congressional cult member behavior.
The “child not embraced by the village” is not only a portrait of one man, but of a people who have abandoned the sacred duty to care for the least, to recognize truth, and to cultivate wisdom above spectacle. The rage that now threatens to burn the village down is not his alone. It is ours—unless we choose another way. As I write this I can't help but think of Senator Bernie Sanders and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez speaking in Los Angeles right now.
Your emphasis on self-care is not sentimental; it is radical. It calls us to begin the revolution where it matters most: within. As Tolstoy wrote, “Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself.” You are asking us to do both—beginning with clarity, courage, and the healing of our collective mind.
I write to thank you, and to tell you this: your work matters deeply. You are giving language to what many feel but cannot name. You are pulling back the veil when others have chosen silence or complicity. And you are doing so not with anger, but with the steady voice of conscience.
We will need many voices like yours in the months and years ahead, as we face not just a political fight, but a spiritual one—a fight for reality, for decency, for sanity. May you continue with strength, knowing that your words are not lost in the storm, but lighting a path forward.
With respect, gratitude, and solidarity, Carmella
People seem to be reluctant to talk about psychology because they can't "see" it like they can see a physical injury or difference. If every time he spoke and lied, green slime dribbled out of his mouth, then people could point to that and say, "look--this isn't right!"
However, I think more and more people are slowly realizing that psychopaths have risen to power, and aren't just serial killers hiding bodies in their crawlspaces or already in prison for life.
We also need an encyclopedia of Cults of the 21st Century and more awareness. People can be in cults that are within cults and not understand how this affects their ability to respond to threats.
The time is right to push forward with all of the points Dr. Lee has been making as I think the public is searching for answers as the problems mount.
I agree with you, Leslie. But I think prior to understanding the
Psychopathology of others we need to look at our own psychology. Therapy and the analysis and assessment of someone’s thoughts, feelings and actions can be sensitive, private or even taboo areas to examine about self or others. As a retired
Psychotherapist myself I think the more we are willing to reveal about ourselves via conversations with self, friends, family and therapists, the more we can liberate, accept and embrace who we are. The exchange or discussion of these parts of our nature publicly requires another level of openness, confidence and trust, That’s why Dr Lee’s willingness to share the psychosocial reality of our time with us regarding the impact that one’s persons psychological damage can have on an entire country is so important. And that’s even when her own National professional association (APA) is not willing to be nearly as forthright.
Sounds good and maybe that’s the conversation we need to have for the next 30+ years to bring people up to speed.
However, it also seems like we may have a much shorter time frame (if it even exists) to prevent our country completely losing democracy.
For sure our nation needs an expansion of mental health awareness, harm reduction and psychic healing.
I appreciated past discussions of the Hare assessment scale, especially as it applies here.
I agree that dealing with our current societal struggles needs to be prioritized now. My concern is that historically the need for introspection and social awareness has taken a back seat to the conflicts that ultimately arise because people are not aware of themselves or empathetic enough towards others. The ultimate consequence of this is war and autocracy.
So I agree that the likelihood of being a more self-aware citizenry will likely not occur if we are controlled by a totalitarian state. On the other hand, even if we overcome this crisis we face, my concern is that we will not prioritize mental wellness in the way societies have always avoided it up until now.
I wish I had the answers to how and when we might deal with the current threat to our freedom and our limited self-awareness as a country, but I don’t. The best I can do is address how they are both essential and linked with each other. Attaining self-awareness may be the single most important thing individuals can do to repel autocracy while re-enforcing democracy.
What’s the solution, then? What’s the next step? Can it be rolled out to millions of people?
Dr Lee, I have followed you for a long time. It is clear and understandable to me that your rhetoric about what Americans are facing psychologically and existentially has rightly so gotten more imminent and critical with time.
It has become clear to
me that the APA has abdicated their responsibility to include the mental well being of all Americans as a
part of their mission.
It is not surprising to me that an established organization like the APA chooses self-interest and protection over a more altruistic position in which they advocate for the well being of American citizens. It is ironic that an institution like the APA chooses to sidestep the psychological truth about our current presidency and the Republican/MAGA party. That’s because as the APA leadership attempts to protect themselves from the financial or career wrath of the president, the president is systematically destroying all organizations that threaten him or even hint of disloyalty to him. Imagine the hypocrisy of an organization like the APA thinking that if they hide from the truth and
maintain neutrality they will be safe. Should the current presidency consolidate its rule such that it becomes a total autocracy, how long does the APA imagine it would continue to exist. It is an organization predicated in part on understanding the operation of the mind and its pathology. And this requires disseminating the truthful use of practitioners knowledge to help patients and the safety of the American citizenry. Yet it’s hard for me to image that those rejecting the psychological assessment of the president and his supporters has anything to do with a violation of professional impartiality or professional-patient anonymity. Don’t our citizens have the right to understand the mental status of the most exposed and powerful person in the world?
There are many things that are painful to experience about this presidency. But associations like the APA refuse to be truthful and forthright about our president. This president has given us more evidence to address the president’s mental pathology and instability than all the other presidents combined! Finally, if the leadership of the APA has chosen to bury their heads in the sand regarding the president’s mental status, how can people trust the therapeutic process as a means of attaining mental health utilizing clinical psychiatrists?
Dr. Lee,
You spoke accurately when you said Trump’s “death spiral”; his political demise is growing daily, his physical demise is also growing daily. Question is: will he die before being ejected from power and imprisoned for treason, or live long enough to taste another bitter failure and humiliation.
We both know that he is not long in the world and his fate is eternal damnation.
America WILL recover and enact legislation to prevent this from happening again.
“We the People” will need your guidance for our nation’s mental health recovery.
What physical demise are you seeing, may I ask?
Obesity, faltering steps, cognitive decline, irrational behavior, inability to process new information,…
If he were my father, he’d be in a nursing home, not a white house.
Fascism as mental pathology in politics. Indeed. The fundamental conviction in fascism is that there is no truth, no morality, the world is simply structured around power and the will to apply it.
As Thucydides reported in the dialogues between the Athenian empire and the leaders of Melos, the Athenians dismissing Melian moral and epistemic pleas not to sack their community stating "The strong do what they can, the weak suffer what they must." This is not a world of right and wrong or true and false but simply a world of winners and losers.
The ugly spirit that underlies all this is what has been describe as "ressentiment:' managing the pain of being a sinful, mortal, and radically dependent being with grievances. Designating and punishing enemies, people that can be "blamed" for one's own inferiority/failure.
Dr. Lee: Is it likely that Trump’s draconian tariffs betray a deep, underlying call for help in setting limits on his behavior that he cannot himself control?
I think not. His pathology does not, above or below the surface of conscious awareness, have capacity for empathy even for self: no sense of being anything other than a terrified, hollow, vengeful creature given to survival pathologies — Desperate for adoration, adulation, validation and killing ( yes killing) any and all voices that may challenge that sense of entitled adoration.
It’s a thoroughly misshapen and incomplete pathological structure: not redeemable from within or without. Constraint is the sole recourse.
That is, he’s a dangerous fucking dimwit dolt loser with no conscience and no tether to human realities. A terminal fuckup and totally hateful subspecies that somehow missed revolutionary culling.
The curse of our species.
MAGA are like out of control children pushing toward a boundry, which our institutions proved incapable of providing.
Jung said something else that applies in this context: "Love is the opposite of power".
As a country, we have just engaged in a profoundly pathological act, turning our back on a highly competent, extremely decent, president in favor of a grossly incompetent and malignant president who refuses to accept that he cannot 'talk over' reality itself.
Biden is ruled by love, Trump by power.
And what Biden was trying to correct was the concentration of power, including geographically,enabled by neoliberal policies, that has so sickened this country. People without power become consumed by resentment, which is easy to exploit. Trump is a master of this, if nothing else.
Lee is entirely right that a basic psychological 'literacy' is essential, yet lacking, as so many persist in projecting political systems of thought and analysis onto Trump. This misses far,far, too much.
Snyder tries to analyze Trump's policy decisions from his psychological pathology. Snyder does get some things right. Trump internally is a deeply broken man full of chaos and his thinking riddled with delusions. That is why he also projects these things outwards. Now world has become beholden to psychological pathology of this madman.
https://snyder.substack.com/p/trumps-psychological-vulnerability
Yes. But. It’s not just him however. It’s a massive regime, this time.
Have you seen this? A new graphic novel offers a warning about autocracy to a generation with short attention spans.
Recently released “You Must Take Part In Revolution” (Street Noise Books), a dystopian graphic novel by Badiucao, a Chinese activist artist living in Australia, and Emmy-nominated journalist Melissa Chan, a Hong Kong-born American journalist who in 2012 was the first foreign correspondent in more than a decade to be expelled from China after reporting on subjects such as the country’s “black jails.” The novel takes Hong Kong’s 2019 protests
It's 2035. The US and China are at war. America is a proto-fascist state. https://www.streetnoisebooks.com/you-must-take-part-in-revolution
“Pay attention or prepare to be next.” Graffiti warning of the global threat to freedom from China’s Communist Party appeared on walls around Hong Kong during the protests of 2019.
“It was a prescient message, though not for the reasons the spray-painters might have imagined.
“Five years after the city’s democracy movement was crushed, authoritarianism is rising around the world — but in most cases the threat is coming from within.”
Fully agree with the importance of self-care. First aid responders including myself are taught first to keep themselves safe because, if they are injured, they can't help others.
Clearly Trump is unwell, his malignant narcissism has crippled his ability to respond humanely to others. Trump regards compromise as weakness and an invitation to continue persecuting
I doubt if his illness is curable. The best option would be to restrain him from doing more harm. He appears to meet the criteria - probably will harm others or himself - to warrant forced admission to a mental hospital.
He will happily kill us all unless stopped. Like a serial killer he is ramping for a conclusive event - plus, he has dementia so his erratic conduct can only worsen.
If I may change the focus a bit Dr Lee, why have we not looked at the over abundance of pornography in our world and what it teaches us? Seems to me it teaches the men who watch it that women are stupid. They have no soul or persona so they are unaffected by
abuse and thus the consequences
just disappear never to be seen again. If we treat half the population of the world in this manor is it not possible to create great psychosis? We hide our need for love
and abuse our egos in the process. We definitely need more Mr. Rogers, who’s greatest gift I thought was the teaching of kindness, to ourselves and all beings.
I suddenly think of dolphins.
There are other conversations going on concerning 47’s undiagnosed condition - in substacks Search option, type in 25thAmendment Section 4 -