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E-mail itSoviet-style abuse of psychiatry is now practiced in the US
Comrade Psychiatrist is unhappy with Mr. Trump's "delusional reformism"
By Oleg Atbashian | First published in Bombthrowers
American progressives have been enamored with many Soviet ideas in their time, trying to transplant them to the U.S. -- from government diktat and central planning to academic indoctrination and propaganda through entertainment. And while the Soviet Union has gone the way of the dodo, its glorious socialist legacy is still up for the picking.
One of these unparalleled Soviet achievements is the use of psychiatry to silence dissent and delegitimize political opposition, allowing the KGB to lock up dissidents in mental hospitals nicknamed psikhushkas.
In the United States today hundreds of zealous progressive psychiatrists are similarly diagnosing Donald Trump "in absentia" with a variety of incapacitating diseases, from narcissism to neurosyphilis, demanding that he be deposed (and hopefully locked up in a psikhushka along with his supporters).
First, some history. From the 1950s through the 1980s, thousands of Soviet dissenters were incarcerated in mental hospitals. This helped the Communist government to destroy its critics both physically and mentally without the potentially messy trials, while at the same time discrediting all political dissent as the product of ill minds.
According to the acclaimed Sovietologist Robert van Voren, the political abuse of psychiatry in the USSR "originated from the concept that persons who opposed the Soviet regime were mentally ill because there was no other logical explanation why one would oppose the best sociopolitical system in the world."
In theory Soviet psychiatry was guided by Karl Marx's "dialectical materialism" (as such, it rejected psychotherapy as "American pseudo-science" that stood in the way of scientific progress). In practical terms, its first duty was to serve the Party and the government in building the communist society. To that end leading Soviet psychiatrists fabricated a convenient disease called "sluggish schizophrenia." The "sufferers" didn't necessarily need to be psychotic; they could maintain productive careers and have families without anyone noticing their unusual behavior. The symptoms of the disease were pessimism, depression, delusional rejection of progressive ideas, obsessive criticism of the government, and paranoid thoughts about being watched by the KGB.
The government psychiatrists were especially concerned with diagnosing and treating the so-called delusion of "reformism" -- persistent ideas about reforming the Soviet political and economic system.
No doubt, American progressive psychiatrists would be only too happy to diagnose "reformist" delusion in Trump and his supporters, who are known for their persistent calls to "drain the swamp." The rationale behind the "mental disorder" diagnosis seems familiar: no sane person who has attended public schools and watched CNN would oppose Obama's "fundamental transformation of America" or the candidacy of the honest, intelligent, healthy, and mentally stable Hillary Clinton.
Therefore, only the mentally ill would challenge political correctness, the growth of government, redistribution of wealth, socialized healthcare, man-made climate change, multiculturalism, open borders, the media's trustworthiness, and the Democratic Party in general.
American progressive psychiatrists don't necessarily need to copy their Soviet colleagues. Having their minds attuned to the same progressive brainwaves should be enough to produce similar results. If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.
There is an old Soviet joke about a man who worked at a secret military plant which was disguised as a sewing machine factory. He stole some parts hoping to build his wife a sewing machine at home, but every time he assembled the parts he ended up with a machine gun. Similarly, progressivism disguised as psychiatry (or as any other science for that matter) will only end up with more psikhushkas.
It started with a trickle.
Back in 2009, a conference of British "eco-psychologists" argued that "climate change denial" should be classified as a form of "mental disorder" -- a notion cheered on by American progressives.
In 2012, a professor of sociology and environmental studies at the University of Oregon addressed a major international science conference in London with a message that any "resistance" to the man-made climate change theory "must be recognized and treated."
In 2014 Psychology Today published an article by a "therapist turned advocate" who listed symptoms of climate-change denial to help identify this "disorder," and thought that her job was to induce climate-change-related terror and anxiety in her patients who didn't already exhibit these conditions, openly bragging about breaking the Hippocratic oath to "do no harm."
In July 2015, Clinton-appointed U.S. District Judge Richard M. Berman already applied the idea of psychiatric treatment of political dissent in the sentencing of the well-known conservative author and filmmaker, Dinesh D’Souza.
Enter Donald Trump.
In November 2015, as Trump became a frontrunner in the GOP primaries, Vanity Fair ran with this story: Is Donald Trump Actually A Narcissist? Therapists Weigh In! "As his presidential campaign trundles forward, millions of sane Americans are wondering: What exactly is wrong with this strange individual? Now, we have an answer."
In June 2016, when it became clear that Trump had a clear path to the Republican nomination, the Atlantic published a long "research" piece titled, The Mind Of Donald Trump: "Narcissism, disagreeableness, grandiosity -- a psychologist investigates how Trump’s extraordinary personality might shape his possible presidency."
Almost simultaneously, the Huffington Post weighed in with Too Sick To Lead: The Lethal Personality Disorder Of Donald Trump.
In August 2016, Politico amplified Mika Brzezinski's plea: A psychiatrist needs to examine Trump.
In January this year, the New York Daily News quoted a number of progressive psychiatrists in President Trump exhibits classic signs of mental illness, including 'malignant narcissism,' shrinks say.
The same month, the Independent published 'Malignant narcisissm' [sic]: Donald Trump displays classic traits of mental illness, claim psychologists: "More and more mental health experts are sharing their diagnoses to warn the public."
This February has seen a deluge of articles with repetitive headlines accusing Trump of psychiatric and personality disorders -- from Common Dreams to Scientific American to U.S. News.
There have been at least two online petitions regarding Trump's mental health. One such petition bears a title in the unmistakable style of Soviet government psychiatrists: Mental Health Professionals Declare Trump is Mentally Ill And Must Be Removed. It was posted by John Gartner Ph.D., who claims, without ever meeting the president in person, that "Donald Trump manifests a serious mental illness that renders him psychologically incapable of competently discharging the duties of President of the United States."
Another petition by Dr. Lance M. Dodes, M.D., written in the form of an open letter to the editors of the New York Times, stated that "Mr. Trump’s speech and actions demonstrate an inability to tolerate views different from his own, leading to rage reactions. His words and behavior suggest a profound inability to empathize. Individuals with these traits distort reality to suit their psychological state, attacking facts and those who convey them." The letter, as published in the New York Times, concludes that all of the above "makes him incapable of serving safely as president."
The petition was signed by 35 medical professionals, who had never seen Mr. Trump in person. Their diagnosis could only be based on observing their progressive patients who couldn't stop ranting about Trump's derangement and whose maniacal obsession with Trump contributed so much to the therapists' bank accounts that the doctors were compelled to "give back to the community" and signed the anti-Trump petition as a way to relieve their guilt. (We've never met these people, which makes our psychoanalysis of them just as credible as the psychoanalysis of President Trump published in the New York Times.)
With so many psychiatrists suddenly arriving at a "scientific consensus," it seemed that the world was ready for another award-winning Inconvenient Truth movie declaring that "the science is settled" and that "97 percent of psychiatrists believe that Trump's mental illness is real." Their opponents were this close to being labeled as flat-earthers and science-deniers.
Soviet citizens had reached a consensus that they were on a bus heading towards a beautiful communist future (an example of sane behavior).
Just then the eminent psychiatrist Allen Frances, who wrote a book on psychiatric disorders, dumped a bucket of cold water on his colleagues, calling them "amateur diagnosticians" who "disregarded professional ethics."
In a letter to The New York Times, published under the title, An Eminent Psychiatrist Demurs on Trump’s Mental State, the snarky Dr. Frances gave Trump a clean bill of health, saying that "he may be a world-class narcissist, but this doesn’t make him mentally ill," and noting that "It is a stigmatizing insult to the mentally ill (who are mostly well behaved and well meaning) to be lumped with Mr. Trump (who is neither)." We can only add that in the Soviet book of Political Psychiatry, Dr. Frances would be denounced as a revisionist bootlicker and a pseudo-scientist, and rewarded with an involuntary stay in a psikhushka for deviating from the Party doctrine.
The festival of psychiatric progressivism still culminated with the left-wing New Republic's publication of A Medical Theory for Donald Trump’s Bizarre Behavior: "Many mental health professionals believe the president is ill. But what if the cause is an untreated STD?" Its author, Dr. Steven Beutler, M.D., an infectious disease specialist who must have missed the memo from Dr. Frances, refers to the above "scientific consensus" and offers a theory that Trump may be suffering from untreated syphilis -- a sexually transmitted disease that can destroy the human mind and personality. The logic is bulletproof: "[Trump] was sexually promiscuous in the 1980s, a period when syphilis cases were rapidly increasing in the U.S."
No word on whether Trump could have contracted syphilis from sexual contacts with Vladimir Putin, but given the number of media headlines exposing the alleged Trump-Putin "bromance," a Pulitzer Prize is in the cards for a journalist-turned-psychiatrist (or vice versa) who can prove that both Trump and Putin exhibit the same symptoms of mental derangement stemming from a sexually transmitted disease they gave each other during a past secret "bromance" (dates and locations to be provided by a self-described former British intelligence officer).
Perhaps progressive psychiatrists can also explain the sudden, psychologically improbable switch from admiration of Russia to fear and paranoia of Holy Mother Russia that surpasses the cartoonish Red Scare. Our own diagnosis suggests that what the progressives loved most about Russia was not its people but the socialist system the Russians lived under, experiencing all the sluggish schizophrenia and delusional reformism conjured up by government psychiatrists. On that grandiose scale the people were unimportant; they might as well be monkeys or penguins. Now that the Russians have torn down socialism, their country is suddenly ripe for demonization. Putin's authoritarianism alone can't explain such disgust; the progressives have embraced worse monsters in the past. A more likely explanation is that Putin's regime is much less progressive than the old Soviet one. No socialism, no love. And Putin likes Trump. The horror.
"Trump isn't crazy," argues Dr. Frances on his blog in Psychology Today. "The urge among amateur diagnosticians to mislabel Trump as mentally ill is perfectly understandable," he writes in another blog post. Dr. Frances understands the motives of his progressive colleagues because he resents Trump just as much as they do. The difference is that he has been able to keep his sanity, while his colleagues' obsession with Trump has caused them to lose touch with reality, along with their ability to distinguish between opinions and facts.
It is logical to ask then, why doesn't the good doctor diagnose the obvious insanity of his colleagues, at least in generic terms, as a medical phenomenon? He might even discover a link to the sluggish schizophrenia of the progressive movement.
Such a proposition isn't all that unthinkable. In the Los Angeles Times, of all places, there appeared an op-ed titled, Do you suffer from Trump Derangement Syndrome? with helpful descriptions of the symptoms and stages of the disease.
The template for diagnosing TDS is readily available. Take, for example, the petition Dr. Dodes references in the New York Times and replace "Mr. Trump" with "Dr. Dodes":
Dr. Dodes's speech and actions demonstrate an inability to tolerate views different from his own, leading to rage reactions. His words and behavior suggest a profound inability to empathize [with fellow Americans]. Individuals with these traits distort reality to suit their psychological state, attacking facts and those who convey them. We believe that the grave emotional instability indicated by Dr. Dodes's speech and actions makes him incapable of serving safely as a psychiatrist.
Without a doubt the efforts of the remaining few sane psychiatrists in America would be best spent on trying to find treatment for this debilitating mental disorder.
Money quote from a Salon.com opinion piece on the LA Times' opinion piece on Trump Derangement Syndrome (emphasis and links in original):
Ironically, efforts to pathologize or psychologize those who oppose Donald Trump actually reflect deeper problems with both him as a candidate and now president-elect, as well as his supporters. Psychologists and other observers have concluded that Donald Trump may suffer from narcissistic personality disorder. He is an egomaniac with delusions of grandeur. Trump is also profoundly ignorant, and as the Atlantic pointed out in a blistering condemnation during the 2016 campaign, “he appears not to read.” His movement possesses the attributes of a political cult. Trump is now also the leader of a Republican Party (and broader conservative movement) that acts more like a religion than a functional political organization interested in responsible governance.
In other words:
- Those who call us deranged are the truly deranged ones, i.e. the old "I'm rubber, you're glue" argument
- Half a dozen experts, and several other people who have no idea what they're talking about, have come to the definitive conclusion that Trump may be a pathological narcissist
- He's also deluded
- And he's stupid, as well
- So are his followers, and the entire Republican Party, who're obviously high on the opiate of the people
One could easily rewrite that quote thusly:
Ironically, efforts to pathologize or psychologize those who oppose Barack Obama actually reflect deeper problems with both him as a president, as well as his supporters. Psychologists and other observers have concluded that Barack Obama may suffer from narcissistic personality disorder. He is an egomaniac with delusions of grandeur. Obama is also profoundly ignorant, and as the American Thinker pointed out in a blistering condemnation in 2011, he's “grammatically challenged.” His movement possesses the attributes of a political cult. Obama is now also the leader of a Democrat Party (and broader progressive movement) that acts more like a religion than a functional political organization interested in responsible governance.
Abusing your standing as a psychiatrist to serve a political agenda should lead to a loss of licencing. It degrades psychiatry as an independent and respected science-based specialty of medicine, it degrades real psychiatric patients, it goes against all medical training to diagnose people based on tv-images or speeches without thorough physical examination. I do not understand why these people are not punished by their governing bodies.
Minitrue
I do not understand why these people are not punished by their governing bodies.They are not punished because their supporters in the governing body are even more insane. They have concluded that any punishment meted out would reflect poorly upon themselves. Thus, we have the insane being authorized by the more insane to pretend they're not insane. It's insanity!
Captain Craptek
[W]e have the insane being authorized by the more insane to pretend they're not insane. It's insanity!Insanity is now reason, apparently.
I don't even want to contemplate what an Islamic psychiatrist will look like when he/she/it diagnoses me with Islamophobia.
In my estimate most progressives suffer from an irrational fear of being diagnosed with Islamophobia. I call it Islamophobia-phobia. It manifests itself in lying to Islamic psychiatrists about their real feelings, but nobody can fool an Islamic psychiatrist.
A lecturer visits the mental hospital and gives a lecture about how great communism is. Everybody claps loudly except for one person who keeps quiet. The lecturer asks: "Why aren't you clapping?" and the person replies "I'm not a psycho, I just work here."
(NORMALO-)ISLAMOPHOBES AND (NON-ISLAMIC-)SHRINKS ‒ UNITE !
CNN: Yale psychiatrist briefed members of Congress on Trump's mental fitness
Quote:
(CNN)A dozen lawmakers from the House and Senate received a briefing from Yale psychiatrist Dr. Bandy X. Lee on Capitol Hill in early December about President Donald Trump's fitness to be president -- and Lee has been asked to speak with additional lawmakers, worried about the President's mental state, later this month."Lawmakers were saying they have been very concerned about this, the President's dangerousness, the dangers that his mental instability poses on the nation," Lee told CNN in a phone interview Thursday, "They know the concern is universal among Democrats, but it really depends on Republicans, they said. Some knew of Republicans that were concerned, maybe equally concerned, but whether they would act on those concerns was their worry."
(but Trump? America! America first! MAGA!)
A true statesman would ask UN High Commissioner for World Peace to initiate an Initiative-2018 for World Peace-2018, from on high.
(but Trump? Wall! I build the wall! And see Dow-Jones!)
A true statesman would appeal to the World Community to, maybe, congress intercontinentally in a trans-collective celebration or sumptin?... like, in planetary athletics?
(but Trump? Button! Give me the button! I press the button, and Little Rocket Man sets a world record in pole vault, sans pole!)
Comrade!
If that trumpish boorishness and boorish trumpishness doesn't make you hyperventilate, then you are ready to be propelled to Gulag - by applying Commissarka Pinkie's most whacky whacks as propellant!
the MTE states that when she was SOS, she advocated getting some leverage with the Russians because they weren't going to come to the negotiating table unless there is some leverage OVER them. She continues to state (blather) how she stood up to Russia and Putin.
I am left to deduce that 'leverage' was 20% of Amerikkkan uranium and 'standing up to Russia and Putin' meant she was getting her personal coffers filled.
This leaves me with a dilemma as this is inkorrect and unacceptable thinking.
Should I voluntarily admit myself to the psikhushka for treatment? What kind of drugs do they have there? (I will need STRONG hallucinogens to see the korrect truth.) Can I take my offended couch with me?
(Someone, not a CUBIST, always tells me I axe too many questions.)
Clara Illbustyourballs Zetkin
(Raising hand) I have a few observations that need clarification............. (Someone, not a CUBIST, always tells me I axe too many questions.)
Comrade Clara - whether you axe questions, or even ask them, that's not a problem at all!
See, asking/axing questions, especially too many of them - that's a straight way to psikhushka!
Red Square
Almost a year later, they won't let go:CNN: Yale psychiatrist briefed members of Congress on Trump's mental fitness
Quote:
(CNN)A dozen lawmakers from the House and Senate received a briefing from Yale psychiatrist Dr. Bandy X. Lee on Capitol Hill in early December about President Donald Trump's fitness to be president -- and Lee has been asked to speak with additional lawmakers, worried about the President's mental state, later this month."Lawmakers were saying they have been very concerned about this, the President's dangerousness, the dangers that his mental instability poses on the nation," Lee told CNN in a phone interview Thursday, "They know the concern is universal among Democrats, but it really depends on Republicans, they said. Some knew of Republicans that were concerned, maybe equally concerned, but whether they would act on those concerns was their worry."
This must have been a very secretive meeting in Dec. The only brave soul I have seen come forward and tell us about this meeting is Dimocratic Rep. Jamie Raskin who was brave enough to give an interview to CNN's Jake Tapper............................
What people didn't see right before the interview was Rep. Raskin emerging from the the briefing with Dr. Bandy X. Lee so distraught from her findings that he threw himself against a wall and proceeded to bang his head against it in extreme angst. Unbeknownst to Raskin, a maintenance electrician person had removed an outlet cover to do some work and his finger slipped into the socket, hence the hair.
(This was written in the NEW accepted Wolff writing style so it may or may not be true.)
If the electric socket wasn't responsible for Mr. Raskin's hair style then one might come to the conclusion that a person who wears their hair looking like feces flinging monkeys have been searching for lice in it, might have mental instability.
Imperatorskiy Pingvin
Insanity is now reason, apparently.WAR IS PEACE
FREEDOM IS SLAVERY
INSANITY IS REASON
Only,
1) it wasn't "Russian prostitutes", but a Cuban waitstaff
2) it wasn't "golden shower", but orange juice
3) and it wasn't "peed" on "Messiah bed", but served on a Mar-a-Lago tray (plus two scoops!).
Feel free to apply that Fajgenbaum Model to, indeed, any "exotic" "news" about DJT/P45.
"The story is correct, only it should read "Pianist Zooper" instead of "Zionist Pooper."
As for the Fajgenbaum Model, there were many versions of that joke, mostly in the "Armenian Radio" series.
Listeners ask: Is is true that Petrossian won a 1,000 rubles in a lottery?
We answer: Yes, it's true, only not Petrossian but Sarkissian, and not a 1,000 but a fiver, and not in a lottery but in a card game, and not won but lost.
Red Square
... many versions of that joke, mostly in the "Armenian Radio" series ...hahaha, good ol' Radio Erewań, Radio Jerewan, Radio Eriwan, Rádio Jerevan, ... across the Soviet Orbit.
TPC Comrades ask: Is it true that Trump goes in 2018 to jail for concocting a financial glut?
Radio Yerevan answers: V printsipye da (Basically, yes). Only, not 2018 but 2016, and not jailed but acquitted, and not for "financial glut" but for "industrial glue", and not Trump but Atbashian.
(if need be, a "glue" refresher.)
Genosse Dummkopf
(if need be, a "glue" refresher.)When is Comrade Direcktor's Show Trial? I have been collecting many soaps on ropes for him to take to the gulag.
Oh, why can't we, here in this backwards and obtuse AmeriKKKa, be more like Europe?!
https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/268966 ... -atbashian
Clara Illbustyourballs Zetkin
... When is Comrade Direcktor's Show Trial? ...Ask not what a Show Trial can do to Comrade Director, ask what Comrade Director can be done to by psikhushka-obsessed Progress (resp. Khalifa Al-Prog wa Al-Gressa).
Red Square
This article was republished today in FontPage -https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/268966 ... -atbashian
Well played, Komrade Direktor!
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