“A new book by a prominent Washington psychoanalyst says President George W. Bush is a ‘paranoid meglomaniac’ as well as a sadist and ‘untreated alcoholic.’ The doctor’s analysis appears to confirm earlier reports the President may be emotionally unstable.
Dr. Justin Frank, writing in Bush on the Couch: Inside the Mind of the President, also says the President has a ”lifelong streak of sadism, ranging from childhood pranks (using firecrackers to explode frogs) to insulting journalists, gloating over state executions … [and] pumping his fist gleefully before the bombing of Baghdad.’
Even worse, Dr. Frank concludes, the President’s years of heavy drinking ”may have affected his brain function – and his decision to quit drinking without the help of a 12-step program [puts] him at far higher risk of relapse.’
Dr. Frank’s revelations comes on the heels of last week’s Capitol Hill Blue exclusive that revealed increasing concern by White House aides over Bush’s emotional stability.”
As a psychiatrist, I am of two minds about Dr. Frank’s conduct here. On the one hand, it is a central ethical tenet of the profession that we not diagnose people from a distance, outside of a treatment relationship with them. Furthermore, Dr. Frank’s language here is nothing short of sensationalistic. On the other hand, the mental health of the President of the United States is of abiding public concern. In a sense, since his behavior is in the public domain, so too should be observers’ opinions about his psychiatric health. By assuming the role of President, perhaps one can argue that he abdicates a right to immunity from public speculation about his mental health. There have been calls to mandate an annual psychiatric checkup whose conclusions on the President’s emotional fitness and stability would be made public, much as we feel we have a right to know of his physical health. It is arguably especially important for qualified individuals to raise informed concerns about suggestions of grave instability. Apart from the ethical qualms that may be raised, scientific ones arise as well. No one believes psychoanalytic conclusions about a subject’s “character” as much as the psychoanalysts, and character diagnosis is what Frank is doing here. The psychoanalytic situation is specially designed to elicit evidence of the deep character structure and dynamics of the subject; through a delicate balance between empathy and reserve, the analyst creates the unique relationship with the subject that encourages a ‘transference’ of deep unconscious ways of perceiving and relating to others, shaped by earlier experience, to a trained observer skilled at discerning the pattern in them. So character analysis without an analytic treatment alliance and access to Bush’s transference material is on shaky ground indeed. (Not having read Dr. Frank’s book, I hope it includes a lengthy discussion of the merits and limits of the inferences he draws.) Frank is more justified, in my opinion, whem he raises concerns about the impact of Bush’s alcohol abuse on his brain function and cognitive competency. And as to Dr. Frank’s conclusion that
“our sole treatment option — for his benefit and for ours — is to remove President Bush from office . . . before it is too late”,
well, it doesn’t take a shrink to reach such a conclusion — or to agree with it.
