Does Bush Have a Psychopathic Personality
- Thread starter INRM
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crimresearch
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According to Professor Hare....
“Wherever you find money, prestige and power you will find them. The most important thing is to be aware you are working with a psychopath. Then you are in better position to deal with them.â€
http://www.internetidiot.net/socially-dangerous-psychopathy-links.htm
“Wherever you find money, prestige and power you will find them. The most important thing is to be aware you are working with a psychopath. Then you are in better position to deal with them.â€
http://www.internetidiot.net/socially-dangerous-psychopathy-links.htm
INRM said:
No, he does not. I'm not making a political argument or judgment about his decision-making abilities here, just stating what I believe to be the case. Besides, there's not really any such thing as a psychopathic "personality". There are three personality clusters: A, B, and C. The mnemonic to remember them, in order, is "weird, wild, worried."
What a lay person might consider as a "psychopathic personality" would be a Cluster B-type. In Cluster B, there are four pathologic personality types: antisocial, histrionic, borderline, and narcissistic. Each type has its own predominating features, but Cluster B's in general tend to be predominately self-interested and motivated towards gaining only for themselves motivated in self-reward, often with disregard or care with how their actions affect others. This is different from Cluster A and C, where they may simply be unaware of how their actions affect others. It seems that Cluster B types just don't care, even when brought to their attention.
You could make an argument that Bush falls along the "Cluster B" continuum, but I don't think his behavior is pathologic or what would constitute a "disorder". Does he lack the ability for self-criticism along with appearing to be missing a high level of self-awareness? Sometimes it seems so. But, a lot of high functioning people do, and just because someone is not deeply self-reflective does not make them a psychopath.
Now, if you want to talk about Rumsfield and Cluster B, that could be an interesting discussion (i.e., I think he is almost a textbook example of a narcissistic personality).
-TT
crimresearch
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Do you mean Cleckley's checklist for psychopathy?
And while it is very trendy to toss off zingers like, 'there is no such thing as psychopathy', interdisciplinary turf wars aside, Bush, like many politiicans, nominally matches many of the facets of partial psychopathy.
And while it is very trendy to toss off zingers like, 'there is no such thing as psychopathy', interdisciplinary turf wars aside, Bush, like many politiicans, nominally matches many of the facets of partial psychopathy.
Re: Re: Does Bush Have a Psychopathic Personality
Oh yeah? And just where did YOU attend medical school, buster? Oh..... [litella]Never mind.[/litella]
On a more serious note:
I've never seen this particular taxonomy and mnemonic before. Would you mind letting me know where I can do some reading on this topic that won't take four years of my life and require me to sit boards at the end?
ThirdTwin said:
Oh yeah? And just where did YOU attend medical school, buster? Oh..... [litella]Never mind.[/litella]
On a more serious note:
I've never seen this particular taxonomy and mnemonic before. Would you mind letting me know where I can do some reading on this topic that won't take four years of my life and require me to sit boards at the end?
crimresearch said:
You didn't carefully read what I said or what the OP wrote. I'm not trying to be pedantic, but just to be precise about terms, especially ones loosely tossed around by pundits and repeated on Internet forums.
To clarify again - there's no such thing as psychopathic personality. In psychiatric terms, there are mood disorders, thought disorders, and personality disorders. "Psychopathy" falls under the realm of thought disorder, not personality disorder. It intimates loss of touch with reality, or psychosis (which is, by definition, impaired reality testing). So, if Bush suddenly presented at a press conference talking about how little green men told him that he should start bombing North Korea immediately or he otherwise lost touch with reality and took the football and started dialing in the launch codes, then you could say he was psychopathic.
I think the term the OP was perhaps looking for and may have been more appropriate in trying to make a case is"sociopathic", which would actually fall nosologically into "antisocial personality" under Cluster B. But, I don't think Bush explicitly exhibits such traits. An antisocial personality will do anything to satisfy his/her own desires, often lies and manipulates to achieve their own personal goals, blatantly ignores social rules and laws, and is involved in illegal or illicit activities with a pervasive pattern of disregard of the rights of others. People may jokingly criticize Bush using such terms, but his personality pattern just doesn't fit psychiatrically. I've worked closely and therapeutically with the "pre-antisocial" group, also known as Oppositional Defiant and Conduct Disorder teenagers. These are the ones who grow into the antisocial personalities when they mature. Until you meet a truly manipulative antisocial type and are forced to interact with them for more that 5 minutes, you can't possibly understand the frustration. They care nothing about you or anything you have to say unless it directly benefits them. "Compromise" is not a word in their vocabulary.
One could, perhaps, make an argument that Bush is "delusional", namely that he persists in a belief despite strong evidence to the contrary. However, delusional states are not typically considered "pathologic" unless they cause the person to act out harmfully against another, for example, the erotomanic delusional type who believes that Brad Pitt is secretly in love with her, and goes on to kill Angelina Jolie because she believes her to be the competition, etc. In that case, it could be said that the person who "acts out" is psychopathic because their delusion has caused them to lose touch with reality and cross over into a pathologic state, in psychiatry being defined in causing harm to oneself or others. The problem with defining a "delusional" state in someone comes when there is complicity in the delusion. For example, if everyone agreed that my girlfriend was not, in fact, cheating on me and there was no absolutely zero evidence that she was, I could fairly be said to be "delusional" if I still persisted in my belief that she was. However, if a couple of my buddies said, "Yeah, we think she's cheating on you too," she still may not be but this blurs the margins of the delusion. Are we all delusional? Or, are we just justifiably (or maybe not so) suspicious? How certain the belief is in the mind of the believer, as well, matters. You can see the problem with calling Bush "delusional" because a lot of people happen to believe that he was right in his actions, and that his beliefs are merited.
Anyway, just wanted to be clear on the concept that "psychopathic" and "personality disorder" are not conjoined concepts. You may have a person with a personality disorder who also exhibits psychopathology, but there is no such thing as "psychopathic personality".
-TT
Re: Re: Re: Does Bush Have a Psychopathic Personality
Well, after a quick Googling, I think the Merck manual will probably do it the most justice. The classifications are in the DSM as well, but this link (Merck) will provide you with the best overview.
http://www.merck.com/mmhe/sec07/ch105/ch105a.html
Just remember it this way - defining personality "disorders" is predicated on the way that people interact with other people. The person labeled with the disorder often perceives nothing to be wrong with them. They often present to the GP or the psychiatrist with the complaint "why does nobody like me" or "why can't I seem to get along with anyone." Personality disorders are notoriously difficult to treat because they require some change on behalf of the person at a fundamental level of how they perceive themselves as a person, remembering that they often don't perceive anything to be "wrong" with themselves in the first place. Personality disorders mainly affect the way in which the person interacts with other people and how other people perceive them, and change only comes if they person with the disorder wants to change that pattern. We're not talking about minor quirks along the continuum of human interaction (that we all possess) when we define a "disorder". We're talking about significant impairment of human interaction.
My "quick and dirty" way of remembering them:
Cluster A - "weird" - out-of-touch behavior; strange affect, bizarre thoughts
Cluster B - "wild" - self-directed behavior; almost out of control, disregard for others feelings or needs, concerned only about self
Cluster C - "worried" - self-obsessed behavior; overly concerned with perceived faults or shortcomings, inability to effectively cope with day-to-day nuances of life
(Note that in Cluster C, "Obsessive-Compulsive Personality" disorder will probably be changed in the DSM-V, when published, to "Anancastic Personality" disorder to draw a distinction between it and Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, which falls more along the lines of a thought disorder.)
-TT
new drkitten said:
Well, after a quick Googling, I think the Merck manual will probably do it the most justice. The classifications are in the DSM as well, but this link (Merck) will provide you with the best overview.
http://www.merck.com/mmhe/sec07/ch105/ch105a.html
Just remember it this way - defining personality "disorders" is predicated on the way that people interact with other people. The person labeled with the disorder often perceives nothing to be wrong with them. They often present to the GP or the psychiatrist with the complaint "why does nobody like me" or "why can't I seem to get along with anyone." Personality disorders are notoriously difficult to treat because they require some change on behalf of the person at a fundamental level of how they perceive themselves as a person, remembering that they often don't perceive anything to be "wrong" with themselves in the first place. Personality disorders mainly affect the way in which the person interacts with other people and how other people perceive them, and change only comes if they person with the disorder wants to change that pattern. We're not talking about minor quirks along the continuum of human interaction (that we all possess) when we define a "disorder". We're talking about significant impairment of human interaction.
My "quick and dirty" way of remembering them:
Cluster A - "weird" - out-of-touch behavior; strange affect, bizarre thoughts
Cluster B - "wild" - self-directed behavior; almost out of control, disregard for others feelings or needs, concerned only about self
Cluster C - "worried" - self-obsessed behavior; overly concerned with perceived faults or shortcomings, inability to effectively cope with day-to-day nuances of life
(Note that in Cluster C, "Obsessive-Compulsive Personality" disorder will probably be changed in the DSM-V, when published, to "Anancastic Personality" disorder to draw a distinction between it and Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, which falls more along the lines of a thought disorder.)
-TT
crimresearch
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Actually, I did read the OP, and for some reason, I got the impression that he was talking about psychopathy as used by people like Hare...any idea how I could have jumped to that conclusion? 
Particularly since the APA equates the term with AntiSocial Personality Disorder.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Psychopathy and Antisocial Personality Disorder: A Case of Diagnostic Confusion
by Robert D. Hare, Ph.D.
Psychiatric Times February 1996 Vol. XIII Issue 2
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
"A Secret Service agent recently asked if I was familiar with a 1992 FBI report that almost half of the killers of law enforcement officers met the criteria for antisocial personality. I replied that I had not seen the report but that the finding did not seem surprising or noteworthy to me. My comment was based on the assumption that the report had used antisocial personality as a synonym for antisocial personality disorder (ASPD), a category listed in the fourth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV) and applicable to the majority of criminals.
However, the agent explained that the description of the killers in question indicated to him that they matched the profile of the psychopath defined by the Psychopathy Checklist-Revised (Hare 1991). When I later saw a copy of the FBI report, I realized that he was correct in his assessment and that the report's findings were indeed noteworthy and chilling, particularly for law enforcement officers.
The killers' characteristics referred to as antisocial personality in the FBI report were as follows: sense of entitlement, unremorseful, apathetic to others, unconscionable, blameful of others, manipulative and conning, affectively cold, disparate understanding of behavior and socially acceptable behavior, disregardful of social obligations, nonconforming to social norms, irresponsible. These killers were not simply persistently antisocial individuals who met DSM-IV criteria for ASPD; they were psychopaths- remorseless predators who use charm, intimidation and, if necessary, impulsive and cold-blooded violence to attain their ends.
The distinction between psychopathy and ASPD is of considerable significance to the mental health and criminal justice systems. Unfortunately, it is a distinction that is often blurred, not only in the minds of many clinicians but in the latest edition of DSM-IV..."
http://www.psychiatrictimes.com/p960239.html
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
So yeah, I'm going to go waaaaaaaaay out on a limb, and suggest that in the context of the OP, you might want to turn your Pedant-O-Ray down to stun...
Particularly since the APA equates the term with AntiSocial Personality Disorder.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Psychopathy and Antisocial Personality Disorder: A Case of Diagnostic Confusion
by Robert D. Hare, Ph.D.
Psychiatric Times February 1996 Vol. XIII Issue 2
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
"A Secret Service agent recently asked if I was familiar with a 1992 FBI report that almost half of the killers of law enforcement officers met the criteria for antisocial personality. I replied that I had not seen the report but that the finding did not seem surprising or noteworthy to me. My comment was based on the assumption that the report had used antisocial personality as a synonym for antisocial personality disorder (ASPD), a category listed in the fourth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV) and applicable to the majority of criminals.
However, the agent explained that the description of the killers in question indicated to him that they matched the profile of the psychopath defined by the Psychopathy Checklist-Revised (Hare 1991). When I later saw a copy of the FBI report, I realized that he was correct in his assessment and that the report's findings were indeed noteworthy and chilling, particularly for law enforcement officers.
The killers' characteristics referred to as antisocial personality in the FBI report were as follows: sense of entitlement, unremorseful, apathetic to others, unconscionable, blameful of others, manipulative and conning, affectively cold, disparate understanding of behavior and socially acceptable behavior, disregardful of social obligations, nonconforming to social norms, irresponsible. These killers were not simply persistently antisocial individuals who met DSM-IV criteria for ASPD; they were psychopaths- remorseless predators who use charm, intimidation and, if necessary, impulsive and cold-blooded violence to attain their ends.
The distinction between psychopathy and ASPD is of considerable significance to the mental health and criminal justice systems. Unfortunately, it is a distinction that is often blurred, not only in the minds of many clinicians but in the latest edition of DSM-IV..."
http://www.psychiatrictimes.com/p960239.html
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
So yeah, I'm going to go waaaaaaaaay out on a limb, and suggest that in the context of the OP, you might want to turn your Pedant-O-Ray down to stun...
Jeff Corey
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Useful reference. I found his citation of Bibiak (1995) about the infiltration of people with these behaviors into, "business, politics, law enforcement, government, academia and other social structures" to be reminiscent of Machiavelli.
A real prince of a guy.
A real prince of a guy.
crimresearch said:So yeah, I'm going to go waaaaaaaaay out on a limb, and suggest that in the context of the OP, you might want to turn your Pedant-O-Ray down to stun...
Hey, I'm (going to be very soon) paid to get it right.
Besides, no matter what you want to call it, I still don't think Bush is psychopathic or has a personality disorder. He just doesn't meet the criteria.
-TT