Does Donald Trump Have OCD?

a reply to: Indigent

And if W's protege, Condoleeza Rice, ran for president I would have a dumptruck full of money for her by lunch time...

She is a deity in my beloved home state....

-Christosterone

a reply to: ipsedixit

On top of Narcissistic Personality Disorder.

The man has problems.

He does seem obsessed with certain minutia over and over again. His thing about his tiny hands, his obsession with Megan Kelly, etc. Instead of giving details to outlandish ideas anybody with common sense knows is never going to happen. I am not sure if that is because he has some mental tick that causes that or if he simply would rather have people distracted by nonsense so he can not be pinned down on details.

He has that used car sales man carny thing going, 9 out 10 people see through it but, all he needs is that 1 our of every ten that buys in hook line and sinker.

His problems are common symptoms of Narcissistic Personality Disorder:

Narcissistic personality disorder is a mental disorder in which people have an inflated sense of their own importance, a deep need for admiration and a lack of empathy for others. But behind this mask of ultraconfidence lies a fragile self-esteem that's vulnerable to the slightest criticism.

I think it's dangerous to put a guy with a mental disorder like this in the most powerful position on the planet. A guy who puts his ego before his country and his people. Ego before all.

I was looking around for references to styles of conversation as symptomatic of abnormal mental states. Trump's speaking style is very tangential. He wanders off the point quite a bit. Tangential Conversation, from what I've read can be a product of brain damage, but in tangential conversation, the afflicted person often never comes back to the original point at issue.

Trump is not really like that. To me he fits closer into the definition of another kind of conversational oddity.

This quote is taken from a wikipedia.org article on what is called Circumstantial Speech:

en.wikipedia.org...

A person afflicted with circumstantiality has slowed thinking and invariably talks at length about irrelevant and trivial details (i.e. circumstances).[4] Eliciting information from such a person can be difficult since circumstantiality makes it hard for the individual to stay on topic. In most instances however, the relevant details are eventually achieved.

The disorder is often associated with schizophrenia and obsessive-compulsive disorder.[2]

It is necessary to read the Washington Post transcript of the interview of Donald Trump conducted by its editorial board to really see the significance of the quotation. The interview can be read at:

www.washingtonpost.com...

Hearing sound bites of Trump on TV news, or listening to him giving a speech, like his foreign policy speech, will not reveal the symptoms the way they come through in his off the cuff remarks at rallies. People should definitely read the linked transcript, where there is a lot of evidence of what I am suggesting, i.e., that Mr. Trump has OCD.

a reply to: spiritualzombie

I agree that he is narcissistic, but it is a completely unsubtle, exaggerated narcissism. It's way over the top. In my amateur opinion his narcissism is affected by what I think is Obsessive Compulsive Disorder.

Edit: I did some reading on Narcissistic Personality Disorder and I think that there is truth to what you say. He would be a compensatory narcissist, I think. That is one of the subtypes of the condition.

I still think he has OCD for reasons stated above. I think it would take a professional to be specific about whether and to what degree one or both of these personality disorders are present in Mr. Trump.

a reply to: ipsedixit

Yeah I don't doubt the OCD either. The two disorders fit well together.

It's extreme whatever it is. It's not normal-- and I think irresponsible and dangerous to elect a guy like that. I'll take the rigged status quo over that.

No, Trump has CSOB

Crazy son of a bitch

a reply to: spiritualzombie

I wonder if Donald Trump is in therapy or ever has been in therapy. I don't believe that every kind of mental imbalance debars one from high office, but some conditions, if known, certainly should.

Politics and business abound in psychopaths, we are told. Is Trump a psychopath or sociopath? Some people would say yes, based on his checkered history in business. He's very pushy and very selfish. He himself said that his father was a nicer guy than he is, in terms of giving people a little. The Donald prefers to take all.

How about a psychopath or sociopath with OCD, or a narcissistic psychopath or sociopath with OCD? I think we are getting into an area of concern here, particularly considering the sort of power wielded by the President of the United States.

What if impulsivity were added into the mix. According to wikipedia.org, there is a suspected link between OCD and Impulse Control disorder, ICD although they are usually considered polar opposites:

en.wikipedia.org...

OCD and ICD have traditionally been viewed as two very different disorders, the former one is generally driven by the desire to avoid harm whereas the later one driven “by reward seeking behaviour”. Still there are certain behaviours similar in both, for example the compulsiveness of skin pickings in ICD patients and the behaviour of reward seeking (for example hoarding) in OCD patients.[5]

www.psychiatrictimes.com...

Impulsive and compulsive features may present at the same time or at different times during the same illness.10 Although both compulsive and impulsive disorders may be related to prefrontal cortex dysfunction, compulsive disorders would be related to hyperactivity and impulsive disorders to hypoactivity of the prefrontal cortex. Compulsiveness appears to be associated with increased frontal lobe activity, while impulsiveness may be associated with reduced frontal lobe activity.

This is cherry picking data, but here is the conclusion taken from the abstract of a paper published in the International Journal of Psychiatry in Clinical Practice on impulsivity and OCD.

www.tandfonline.com...

Characterizing impulsivity profile in patients with obsessive–compulsive disorder

Conclusions. Present findings showed higher impulsivity levels in OCD patients versus controls, particularly in the attentional area, and ultimately suggest a potential cognitive implication.

It might be going off the track a little, but let's look at one of Mr. Trump's little conversational gambits, his refusal to disclose the details of what he is thinking. I recognize this kind of thing. I'm an old crammer from university, who never read the material in time for class, or rarely.

I think Trump is fooling people when he says that he doesn't want to get specific about what he is going to do in international relations because he doesn't want to telegraph his moves to America's enemies. This is just a variation on the notion of classifying material "for reasons of national security".

I think it is baloney. I don't think Mr. Trump has any well founded thoughts on international relations at all and is refusing to discuss this sort of thing in order to hide the fact.

He is a tactical thinker, at best, who is auditioning for a place at the head of the strategic table. He is fooling a lot of people, but he doesn't fool me, or the folks down at the Washington Post.

a reply to: ipsedixit

A clinical psychologist could make a monkey out of me in no time, but my (limited) understanding is that OCD is an anxiety driven mental disorder.

Nope! A clinical psychotherapist would say that you are precisely right!:

OCD is entirely an anxiety driven mental disorder. It is a neurosis, however, not a "psychosis." Now, if you get into the realm of Autism (like Rain Man) that's a whole different thing.

Neurotic OCD can be helped. Most of us are neurotic to some degree. Like myself - I like pictures to be hung straight - and furniture to line up with walls or floor tiles....assymetry drives me crazy. But I can deal with it.


What's your neurosis?
(Not necessarily you, ipsedixit, but anyone reading....)

a reply to: ipsedixit

He is a tactical thinker, at best, who is auditioning for a place at the head of the strategic table. He is fooling a lot of people, but he doesn't fool me, or the folks down at the Washington Post.

Donald Trump hasn't fooled any of the real power players. They can't trust him to carry out their plan. He won't be around very long if he lets his cult of personality go to his head.

The paradigm has shifted and Trump won't be tolerated if he tries to change the status quo.

originally posted by: BuzzyWigs

What's your neurosis?
(Not necessarily you, ipsedixit, but anyone reading....)

I'm obsessed with my peenie.

hmmm.

How many people above making these diagnoses have a degree in psychiatry?

hah, I know, I joined in with the type A post.

But really, the man has had success far beyond what a person with true issues would have.
I'm not saying he is perfect, but I think there is some severe exaggeration above.

a reply to: BlueAjah

People with disabilities can be successful. That's already been acknowledged, but just out of curiosity, have you read the transcript of the Post interview? If not, you really should.

originally posted by: BlueAjah
hmmm.

How many people above making these diagnoses have a degree in psychiatry?

hah, I know, I joined in with the type A post.

But really, the man has had success far beyond what a person with true issues would have.
I'm not saying he is perfect, but I think there is some severe exaggeration above.

I'm not that concerned with Trump. Trump is doing what the ultimate salesman does...sell... I'm concerned with his followers that buy his particular brand of racist, misogynistic, pie in the sky BS.



Back in the 30s there was another very charismatic leader in Germany that blamed all of Germanys troubles on the Jews...remember him?

www.letusreason.org...

a reply to: ipsedixit

I'm obsessed with my peenie.

*eyeroll*

You'll get over it.

a reply to: BuzzyWigs

That's what I thought. My only salvation is that nobody else is obsessed with it.