Trump on the Couch

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_Jersey Girl
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Re: Trump on the Couch

Post by _Jersey Girl »

Okay I am down for the count over here. G'night Gunnar. Nice talking to you in the wee hours.

Old times!
:-)
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_moksha
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Re: Trump on the Couch

Post by _moksha »

Trump's behavior and words can be found within the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual 5 under Narcissistic Personality Disorder, as well as other writings regarding malignant narcissism.
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_MeDotOrg
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Re: Trump on the Couch

Post by _MeDotOrg »

Gunnar wrote: * His inability to tolerate the pain of frustration has triggered his belief that omnipotence will finally remove it

I think the last 2-day tweetstorm has been a manifestation of exactly that. Remember, before Twitter he would call reporters and pretend to be a public relations person from Trumpworld named John Barron or John Miller. He can't do that anymore. So he calls Fox and Friends or tweets. He is trying desperately to control the spin.

Donald Trump does not understand government. The attempt to stop McGahn's testimony is classic. The White House wax ived any claim of Executive privilege when they allowed McGhan to talk with Mueller in the first place. There is no legitimate legal ground to deny his testimony. There is no legal principle to defend. It is merely a delaying tactic.

The irony is that McGahn was predisposed to be aligned with Trump. He was a champion of many of the conservative Judicial nominees that will be one of the most lasting effects of the Trump Presidency. Because McGahn was a loyalist and a lawyer, Trump thought McGahn would see their conversations as attorney/client conversations. If Trump had truly understood McGahn's ability to harm him he would have never let him testify before Mueller in the first place. And this goes to why he continually adds to the number of obstruction of justice charges against him. He may not understand government, but exhibits a hypersensitivity for any perceived threat to Donald Trump. And I really believe that in his own mind, anything he says in his own defense is legitimate. The 'harmless' stretching of the truth he describes in The Art of the Deal morphs into asking McGahn lie to the press, and write a memo to file to leave a paper trail lying about what Trump told him.
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_canpakes
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Re: Trump on the Couch

Post by _canpakes »

Jersey Girl wrote:I know I've said something like this on this forum previously. If someone were to pitch it to him in just the right way, basically...listen man, you'd go down in history as the man who saved the planet and win the global heroes cape for leading the world in environmental innovation, renewable energy sources, clean water...I think he'd buy it. ...

So who can we get to talk to Trump? ;-)

No. This will not work. Trump is not convinced to do anything by any one person, let alone for any single noble cause. He is driven by adulation from crowds. That’s all that matters to him.

You would need to convince a plurality of Republican Congresscritters of the logic of your position first so that they could approach Trump as a group ... and then, this might work only if his Base were on board. Your best result there is working from the bottom up on this one, not from the top down (unless your last name is Putin, lol).

If you could somehow tie this need to revamp critical infrastructure to illegal immigration fears, you might have a chance to get the Base on board. Maybe something along the lines of how illegal brown people are overloading our waste treatment plants with their illegal crapping, and that we need a wall built around our reservoirs, and maybe some new equipment.
_EAllusion
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Re: Trump on the Couch

Post by _EAllusion »

I obviously haven’t read this book, but the few comments in the OP just scream crackpot. “Cold mother” hypotheses for a lack of empathy in particular is notoriously bad psych.
_Jersey Girl
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Re: Trump on the Couch

Post by _Jersey Girl »

EAllusion wrote:I obviously haven’t read this book, but the few comments in the OP just scream crackpot. “Cold mother” hypotheses for a lack of empathy in particular is notoriously bad psych.


I'd be interested in reading the book but I wouldn't pay money to do it. As I said to Gunnar, how does the author know this?

* The absence of a strong maternal force during childhood has led to Trump’s remarkable lack of empathy and disregard for women’s boundaries;

I'm not entirely sure what a "strong maternal force" actually is. Does he mean a strong nurturing force? How would he know if Trump's mother was a nurturer? I can speculate about what the situation or dynamic that created Trump might have been but all I have is speculation. This is apparently a doctor who wrote the book. Not having personally evaluated Trump in a clinical setting, all the author has is speculation as well. He's no further along than I am in that regard except for the fact that he is likely more able to articulate a case for NPD than I am.

I have heard Trump describe his mother in public. We've all seen his public persona. We don't know anything about his private persona or anything about his intimate private relationships.

What we see is only what he projects outwardly to us. Is there a private Trump that differs from the Trump that we see? Cohen himself said that the man he sees in the White House isn't the Trump that he knew prior.

That and the fact that this doctor justifies violating professional ethics makes me wonder what the book is like and if he is credible. How could he be credible without clinically evaluating Trump?

Anyway, yes, the book is of interest to me.
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_subgenius
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Re: Trump on the Couch

Post by _subgenius »

Jersey Girl wrote:...

I'm not entirely sure what a "strong maternal force" actually is....

is it a gender specific strength or energy of a greater magnitude?
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_Gunnar
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Re: Trump on the Couch

Post by _Gunnar »

I just finished reading the book yesterday. My local county library ordered it for me and sent it to my house at no expense to me under a new grant program that paid for it all. The only provision I have to meet for them doing that is that I must turn it in to them to add to their collection after reading it before I can request any other books under this program or check out any other books from the library.

I found it a very interesting read and the author, Dr. Frank, to be very credible. What he was able to find out about Trump's history very plausibly explains how and why Trump turned out the way he did, though he included a caveat that his analysis and opinion expressed in the book is not a sure substitute for having actually had Trump on the couch as a patient. I recommend it to anyone. It confirms conclusions I have already come to about Trump, among which is that he is probably not consciously aware of the fact that he is a pathological liar, though on a subconscious level he dimly realizes it. His frequent use of the term "truthful hyperbole" which he proudly claims to have invented, and which is inherently self-contradictory, is an unconscious admission of that. It is similar to Kelly Ann Conway's "alternate facts."
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_Jersey Girl
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Re: Trump on the Couch

Post by _Jersey Girl »

Gunnar I have two questions.

1. What are his sources for the absence of a strong maternal force?

2. Are we (the public) the primary source of Trump's narcissistic supply?
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_Gunnar
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Re: Trump on the Couch

Post by _Gunnar »

Jersey Girl wrote:Gunnar I have two questions.

1. What are his sources for the absence of a strong maternal force?

2. Are we (the public) the primary source of Trump's narcissistic supply?

1. The sources of the absence of a strong maternal force, according to Dr. Frank, seem to be statements from Trump's childhood friends, neighbors and household servants. More details can be found on that mainly in chapter one of his book titled MOTHER, but also interspersed through the rest of the book.

2. I don't think that we (the public) are the primary source of Trump's narcissism. He was apparently a narcissist long before he became famous. Of course any praise or adulation he receives from the public certainly feeds that narcissism.
No precept or claim is more likely to be false than one that can only be supported by invoking the claim of Divine authority for it--no matter who or what claims such authority.

“If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; but if you really make them think, they'll hate you.”
― Harlan Ellison
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