The
advent of Trump has enlightened millions of people to the facts that very sick and
predatory psychology can hide in plain sight; can remain invisible to many other
millions; and can, in a paradox of infamy, be the source of great prestige and
"success” as they’re typically measured (power and wealth). President
Trump’s narcissistic disorder is revealed to be the newest member of a cardinal
group of societally impactful pathologies that include depression, anxiety,
sociopathy (psychopathy) and psychosomatic illness.** One benefit of this new
intelligence is that mental abuse victims of a narcissist may now realize they
are not evil or stupid – what the narcissist makes them feel – but
"crazy-made." Wives of narcissists may now be reviewing the websites***
and message boards that can help them combat the devastating effects of living
with a husband (or father) like this. So, there are positives.
In a related
matter – At the 2020 election, if Trump has somehow escaped deep shame, remarkable
political failure or legal consequences, the Democratic candidate will need to
know how to fight and disable narcissism. The president won the election
because of his narcissism, not because of his policies or thoughts or natural
superiority. The personality disorder contains within it qualities of drive and
necessity that are close to God-like. Imagine a glorious LSD trip or a wonderful
alcohol buzz in the context of winning the lottery or the Nobel Prize. Now add
the need for uber-human perfection and unique specialness that replace the
child’s identity loss, and the utter contempt and absence of empathy that come
from a loveless birth and early childhood. The resulting force is a complexity
that fuses into a transcendent ray of desperate victory which cannot be deflected.
If it were, he would implode to a little child, an inchoate soul that never got
to the starting gate of normal, human existence.
The Democratic
candidate would not be able to talk psychology: That always sounds ad hominem in the public arena. She or
he would need to coolly admonish Trump for the insults, possibly calling them
immature and childish; and reframe the narcissistic self-aggrandizement as confidence that has proven – by a litany
of policy failures and disappointments – to be misplaced time and time again.
More important
than these approaches will be the need to learn the psychology of narcissism
straight from the best books and videos on the subject. Masterson’s The Search for the Real Self and Psychotherapy of the Disorders of the Self,
and Sam Vaknin’s videos on narcissism would be top of the list. The reason
is that the candidate must learn the “humble” origins of the sickness, that it
comes out of childhood failure. And that the adult power-persona indeed masks the
“man-baby” that many people have already observed. This will enable him or her
to feel a kind of superior compassion and pity for its victim, rather than the otherwise
unavoidable emotional reactions of feeling hollowed-out, proven stupid,
infantilized: all weapons in the arsenal of the false god narcissist.
It is a strange
fact that the candidate who opposes Trump will either need to be possessed of a
Jesus-like serenity during debates, or through education and possibly his or her own narcissistic inebriation,
feel a superiority over him that is ascendant because it understands.
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* In the spirit
of fairness, the bad news: https://pessimisticshrink.blogspot.com/2018/02/trump-radical.html,
https://pessimisticshrink.blogspot.com/2017/08/mini-statement-don-one.html,
https://pessimisticshrink.blogspot.com/2018/06/answering-slatecoms-trump-is-undeniably.html,
https://pessimisticshrink.blogspot.com/2016/06/ad-hominem-of-my-dreams.html
and others.
** Dr. John E.
Sarno before a Senate Select Committee on Chronic Pain – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z4e6snUQARw.
*** Random selection:
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/stop-caretaking-the-borderline-or-narcissist/201306/are-you-married-narcissist,
https://pro.psychcentral.com/recovery-expert/2016/07/what-to-expect-when-you-marry-a-narcissist/,
https://thencmarriage.com/narcissist/signs-narcissism/your-marriage/,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dMMLGM5OmP8.
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Comments are welcome, but I'd suggest you first read "Feeling-centered therapy" and "Ocean and boat" for a basic introduction to my kind of theory and therapy.