Psychoanalyst describes Bush as "paranoid megalomaniac," "untreated alcoholic"
Capitol Hill Blue
June 14, 2004
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.
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."
Aides, who spoke only on condition that their names be withheld, told stories of wide mood swings by the President who would go from quoting the Bible one minute to obscenity-filled outbursts the next.
Bush shows an inability to grieve -- dating back to age 7, when his sister died. "The family's reaction -- no funeral and no mourning -- set in motion his life-long pattern of turning away from pain [and hiding] behind antic behavior," says Frank, who says Bush may suffer from Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder.
Other findings by Dr. Frank:
. His mother, Barbara Bush -- tabbed by some family friends as "the one who instills fear" -- had trouble connecting emotionally with her son, Frank argues.
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George H.W. Bush's "emotional and physical absence during his son's youth triggered feelings of both adoration and revenge in George W."
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The President suffers from "character pathology," including "grandiosity" and "megalomania" -- viewing himself, America and God as interchangeable.
Dr. Frank has been a psychiatrist for 35 years and is director of psychiatry at George Washington University. A Democrat, he once headed the Washington Chapter of Physicians for Social Responsibility.
In an interview with The Washington Post's Richard Leiby, Dr. Frank said he began to be concerned about Bush's behavior in 2002.
"I was really very unsettled by him and I started watching everything he did and reading what he wrote, and watching him on videotape. I felt he was disturbed," Dr. Frank told Leiby. Bush, he said, "fits the profile of a former drinker whose alcoholism has been arrested but not treated."
Dr. Frank's expert recommendation? "Our sole treatment option -- for his benefit and for ours -- is to remove President Bush from office ... before it is too late."
White House spokesman Scott McClellan refused to comment on the specifics of Dr. Frank's book or the earlier story by Capitol Hill Blue.
"I don't do book reviews," McClellan said, even though he last week recommended the latest book by the Washington Post's Bob Woodward to reporters at the daily press briefing.
Excerpt from Bush on the Couch: Inside the Mind of the President
by Justin A. Frank, M.D.
Introduction: "Curious about George"
If one of my patients frequently said one thing and did another, I would want to know why. If I found that he often used words that hid their true meaning and affected a persona that obscured the nature of his actions, I would grow more concerned. If he presented an inflexible worldview characterized by an oversimplified distinction between right and wrong, good and evil, allies and enemies, I would question his ability to grasp reality. And if his actions revealed an unacknowledged -- even sadistic -- indifference to human suffering, wrapped in pious claims of compassion, I would worry about the safety of the people whose lives he touched.
For the past three years, I have observed with increasing alarm the inconsistencies and denials of such an individual. But he is not one of my patients. He is our president.
George W. Bush is a case study in contradiction. All of us have witnessed the affable good humor with which he charms both supporters and detractors; even those of us who disagree with his policies may find him personally likeable. As time goes on, however, the gulf between his personality and those policies -- and the style with which they are executed -- grows ever wider, raising serious questions about his behavior:
. How can someone so friendly and playful be the same person who cuts funds from government programs aiding the poor and hungry?
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How is it that our deeply religious president feels free to bomb Iraq -- and then celebrate the results with open expressions of joy?
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How can a president send American soldiers into combat under false pretenses and then proceed to joke about the deception, finding humor in the absence of weapons of mass destruction under his Oval Office desk?
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How can someone promise to protect the environment on the one hand and allow increased arsenic in the public water supply on the other? And why does he feel he can call his plan to lift logging restrictions in national forests the "Healthy" Forest Initiative?
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If the president's interpersonal skills are strong enough to earn him the reputation of being a "people person," why is he so unwilling and even unable to talk to world leaders, such as Jacques Chirac or Gerhard Schroeder, who disagree with him?
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How can the president sound so confused and yet act so decisively? And given the regularity with which he confuses fact with fantasy, how can he justify decisions based largely on his own personal suspicions with such unwavering certainty?
As a citizen, I worry about what these contradictions and inconsistencies say about the president's ability to govern; as a psychoanalyst, I'm troubled by their implications for the president's current and long-term mental health, particularly in light of certain information we know about his past. Naturally, the occasional misstatement or discrepancy between word and deed may be dismissed as politics as usual. But when the most powerful man on the planet consistently exhibits an array of multiple, serious, and untreated symptoms -- any one of which I've seen patients need years to work through -- it's certainly cause for further investigation, if not for outright alarm.
President Bush is not my patient, of course, but the discipline of applied psychoanalysis gives us a way to make as much sense of his psyche as he is likely ever to allow. At its simplest level, applied psychoanalysis means the application of psychoanalytic principles to anybody outside one's own consulting room. The tradition of psychoanalyzing public figures dates back almost as far as psychoanalysis itself; Freud based some of his most important theories on his observations of individuals he could never get onto his couch, Moses and Leonardo da Vinci most notable among them.
Indeed, if Freud were alive in the second half of the twentieth century, he might well have been recruited to offer his genius in the service of the U.S. intelligence effort. Somewhere in the bowels of the George H. W. Bush Center for Central Intelligence in Langley, Virginia, psychoanalysts are currently reviewing audio recordings, videotapes, and biographical information on dozens of contemporary world leaders, using the principles of applied psychoanalysis to develop detailed profiles for use by the CIA and the U.S. government and military. According to political psychiatrist Jerrold M. Post, M.D., who has chronicled the history of "at-a-distance leader personality assessment in support of policy," the marriage of psychoanalysis and U.S. intelligence dates back to the early 1940s, when the Office of Strategic Services commissioned two studies of Adolf Hitler. The effort was regarded as enough of a success that it was institutionalized in the 1960s, Post writes, first under the aegis of the Psychiatric Staff of the CIA's Office of Medical Services, which "led to the establishment of the Center for the Analysis of Personality and Political Behavior" (CAPPB), which Post founded within the Directorate of Intelligence.
As Post reveals, CIA psychological profiles of Anwar Sadat and Menachem Begin played an important role in Jimmy Carter's handling of the 1978 Camp David negotiations. And applied psychoanaly-sis continues to enjoy a privileged place in the intelligence universe.
"At the time of his confirmation hearings, Secretary of the Defense Donald Rumsfeld identified as his nightmare [the possibility of] not understanding the intentions of dangerous adversaries," Post writes. "Accentuated by some of the recent intelligence ‘surprises,' the need to have a robust applied political psychology capability has been highlighted and increased resources are currently being applied to human intelligence and to the study of the personality and political behavior of foreign leaders, both national leaders and terrorists."
A vote of confidence from today's CIA, of course, might be described as a mixed blessing. Nevertheless, applied psychoanalysis remains a vital tool for understanding political leaders. And since one can scarcely imagine Bush Center resources being committed to a Bush son's psychological profile, this must be an independent inquiry, albeit one that is informed by the CAPPB goal as articulated by its founder, Jerrold M. Post: "to understand shaping events that influenced core attitudes, political personality, leadership and political behavior."
New information shows Bush indecisive, paranoid, delusional
by Teresa Hampton,
June 17, 2004
The carefully-crafted image of George W. Bush as a bold, decisive leader is cracking under the weight of new revelations that the erratic President is indecisive, moody, paranoid and delusional.
“More and more this brings back memories of the Nixon White House,” says retired political science professor George Harleigh, who worked for President Nixon during the second presidential term that ended in resignation under fire. “I haven’t heard any reports of President Bush wondering the halls talking to portraits of dead Presidents but what I have been told is disturbing.”
Two weeks ago, Capitol Hill Blue revealed that a growing number of White House aides are concerned about the President’s mental stability. They told harrowing tales of violent mood swings, bouts with paranoia and obscene outbursts from a President who wears his religion on his sleeve.
Although supporters of President Bush dismissed the reports as “fantasies from anonymous sources,” a new book by Dr. Justin Frank, director of psychiatry at George Washington University, raises many similar questions about the President’s mental stability.
"George W. Bush is a case study in contradiction," Dr. Frank writes in Bush On The Couch: Inside the Mind of the President. "Bush is an untreated ex-alcoholic with paranoid and megalomaniac tendencies."
In addition, a new film by documentary filmmaker, and frequent Bush critic, Michael Moore shows the President indecisive and clearly befuddled when he learned about the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001.
While conservative critics who have not yet seen Fahrenheit 9/11 dismiss the work as an anti-Bush screed, Roger Friedman of the normally pro-Bush Fox News Network has seen the film and calls it “a tribute to patriotism, to the American sense of duty - and at the same time a indictment of stupidity and avarice.”
Friedman also says the films “most indelible moment” comes when Bush, speaking to a group of school kids in Florida, is first informed of the 9/11 attacks.
“Instead of jumping up and leaving, he instead sat in front of the class, with an unfortunate look of confusion, for nearly 11 minutes,” Friedman says. “Moore obtained the footage from a teacher at the school who videotaped the morning program. There Bush sits, with no access to his advisers, while New York is being viciously attacked. I guarantee you that no one who sees this film forgets this episode.”
Dr. Frank says the episode is typical of how Bush deals with death and tragedy. He notes that Bush avoids funerals.
“President Bush has not attended a single funeral - other than that of President Reagan. In my book I explore some possible reasons for that, whether or not it is "presidential". I am less interested in judging his behavior on political grounds than I am in thinking about its meaning both to him and to the rest of us,” Dr. Frank says. “He has spent a lifetime of avoiding grief, starting with the death of his sister when he was 7 years old. His parents didn't help him with what must have been confusing and frightening feelings. He also has a history of evading responsibility and perhaps his not attending funerals has to do with not wanting to see the damage his policies have wrought.”
In his book, Dr. Frank also suggests Bush resents those in the military.
“Bush's behavior strongly suggests an unconscious resentment toward our own servicemen, whose bravery puts his own (nonexistent) wartime service record to shame,” he wrote.
Supporters of President Bush dismiss Frank’s book as the work of a Democrat who once headed the Washington Chapter of Physicians for Social Responsibility, but his work has been praised by other prominent psychiatrists, including Dr. James Grotstein, Professor at UCLA Medical Center, and Dr. Irvin Yalom, MD, Professor Emeritus at Stanford University Medical School.
Dr. Carolyn Williams, a psychoanalyst who specializes in paranoid personalities, is a registered Republican and agrees with most of Dr. Frank’s conclusions.
“I find the bulk of his analysis credible,” she said in an interview. “President Bush grew up dealing with an absent but demanding father, a tough mother and an overachieving brother. All left indelible impressions on him along with a desire to prove himself at all cost because he feels surrounded by disapproval. He behavior suggests a classic paranoid personality. Additionally, his stated belief that certain actions are 'God's Will' are symptomatic of delusional behavior.”
Ryan Reynolds, a childhood friend of Bush, concurs.
“George wanted to please his father but never felt he measured up, especially when compared to Jeb,” Reynolds said.
Dr. Williams wonders if the Iraq war was not Bush’s way of “proving he could finish something his father could not by deposing Saddam Hussein.”
But Bush's desire to please his father may have backfired. Former President George H.W. Bush has remained silent publicly about the war, saying he will only discuss it with his son "in private." Close aides say that is because he disapproves of his son's actions against Iraq.
"Former President Bush does not support the war against Iraq," says former aide John Ruskin. "It is as simple at that."
While current White House aides and officials would not allow their names to be used when commenting about Bush’s erratic behavior, others like former Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill confirm concerns about Bush’s mood swings.
O’Neill says Bush was moody in cabinet meetings and would wander off on tangents, mostly about Saddam Hussein and Iraq. Bush, O’Neill says, seemed more focused on Iraq than on finding Osama bin Laden and would lash out at anyone who disagreed with him.
Harleigh says it is not unusual for White House staffers to refuse to go public with their concerns about the President’s behavior.
“We saw the same thing in the Nixon years,” he says. “What is unusual is that the White House has not been able to trot out even one staffer who is willing to go public and say positive things about the President’s mental condition. That says more than anything else.”
Dr. Frank, the Democrat, says the only diagnosis he can offer for the President’s condition is removal from office.
Dr. Williams, the Republican, says she must “reluctantly agree.”
“We have too many unanswered questions about the President’s behavior,” she says. “You cannot have those kinds of unanswered questions when you are talking about the leader of the free world.”
"Our sole treatment option -- for his benefit and for ours -- is to remove President Bush from office ... before it is too late."
What is going on in the White House?
by Dan Froomkin,
on-line, The Washington Post
June 16, 2004
What's going on inside the White House? Ask Dan Froomkin, who writes the White House Briefing column for washingtonpost.com. He'll answer your questions, take your comments and links, and point you to coverage around the Web.
Dan Froomkin: Justin, Thanks for much for joining us today. Your book is clearly generating some buzz. Before we get to the reader questions, give me a quick sense of what sort of reaction you've gotten thus far.
Justin Frank: Thank you for having me online. So far the reaction I've received has been positive from colleagues as well as media people. I had an interview last evening on Air America on the Garofolo/Seder show which was lively and informed. Reviews of the book are just starting to come in.
Email from Arlington, Va.: Do you think your initial bias against the President has caused you to grasp for facts that fit a preconceived conclusion? I think I see this happening in at least excerpt from the linked summary of your book:
"His comfort living outside the law, defying international law in his presidency as boldly as he once defied DUI statutes and military reporting requirements."
I don't think Bush has lived outside international law any more than other world leaders (Clinton fighting in Kosovo without UN approval, Chiraq sending troops to Africa without UN aproval, Truman going to Korea without UN approval). I also don't think, as sad as it is, that he is all that uncommon for getting a DUI. The "military reporting requirements" bit is just absurd in my mind because there is substantial evidence that he did fulfill these requirements.
Do you really have a scientific methodology for coming to your conclusions, or are you just on a fishing expedition to make the President look bad?
Justin Frank: You raise some very important questions. I was concerned about policies promulgated by President Bush before I started my study of him. However, there have been other presidents whose policies I have also disagreed with. What was different about Bush was his patterns of behavior -- to use your question, a pattern of living outside the law. Other people have been arrested for DUI, as you note. Not many go on drinking for ten years after that, nor do they run for president. But I agree, he is not unique as a person. He is unique as a president, however.
Email from Boone, N.C.: To Justin Frank: Has your assessment of Bush's behavior received endorsements from your colleagues and/or other psychologists or psychoanalysts?
Justin Frank: I have received endorsements from other psychoanalysts and psychiatrists, most notably from Dr. James Grotstein, MD who is Professor at UCLA Medical Center. He gave high praise for the book and for its scholarship. I also received endorsement from Dr. Irvin Yalom, MD, Professor Emeritus at Stanford University Medical School. He wrote that the book is "compelling and persuasive and downright frightening."
Email from Coral Gables, Fla.: What's your response to this Blog Post by "Respectful of Otters"?
Quote:
"....Frank told us yesterday that his opinions are based on publicly available materials, adding, "I've never met the president or any members of his family."
This kind of garbage is forbidden by the ethics code of my own profession. It took about ten minutes with Google to determine that it also violates the ethical code of psychiatrists.
" On occasion psychiatrists are asked for an opinion about an individual who is in the light of public attention or who has disclosed information about himself/herself through public media. In such circumstances, a psychiatrist may share with the public his or her expertise about psychiatric issues in general. However, it is unethical for a psychiatrist to offer a professional opinion unless he or she has conducted an examination and has been granted proper authorization for such a statement."
You don't diagnose a patient you haven't examined. You don't discuss your diagnoses without the patient's permission. And if your only defense against the latter rule is that the person you've publicly diagnosed isn't really your patient, that alone ought to let you know that you've strayed far from the requirements of professional ethics. A psychiatric diagnosis is a clinical tool, not a rhetorical device; to treat it otherwise substantially undermines the reputation of psychiatry and psychology. Frank is a former leader of the Physicians for Social Responsibility, but there is simply nothing socially responsible about using psychiatric terminology as a stick with which to beat your political enemies. There's nothing socially responsible about misusing the mantle of the professional expert. I am appalled.
Justin Frank: This is an important question concerning the fact that I never met with George W
Bush personally. I am using the technique of applied psychoanalysis which was first introduced by Freud in his analyses of Leonardo, Moses, and Little Hans. That technique, applying psychoanalytic principles to available material, is now used by CIA psychiatrists hired by the US Government who work at the George H.W. Bush Center in Langly VA. I think these techniques should be available to the American public as well. Therefore the APA guidelines you cite do not pertain to my work --Bush on the Couch is not about being "asked for an opinion about an individual" but rather it is an in depth study of writings, videotapes, biographies, news reports, of an individual.
Dan Froomkin: After his speech at MacDill Air Force Base near Tampa, Fla., today, Bush was to have met with 11 families of troops who died in Iraq or Afghanistan. He's done this about a dozen times, all told. But he's not attended a single funeral. He banned photographs of the coffins returning from Iraq. And he has really, by and large, avoided talking about the dead. Some people think that's not very presidential.
You write in your book that "Bush's behavior strongly suggests an unconscious resentment toward our own servicemen, whose bravery puts his own (nonexistent) wartime service record to shame." But that's a pretty brutal thing to say about the Commander in Chief, isn't it?
Justin Frank: President Bush has not attended a single funeral -- other than that of President Reagan. In my book I explore some possible reasons for that, whether or not it is "presidential". I am less interested in judging his behavior on political grounds than I am in thinking about its meaning both to him and to the rest of us. He has spent a lifetime of avoiding grief, starting with the death of his sister when he was 7 years old. His parents didn't help him with what must have been confusing and frightening feelings. He also has a history of evading responsibility and perhaps his not attending funerals has to do with not wanting to see the damage his policies have wrought.
It would take too long for me to answer your question about his unconscious resentment toward our own servicemen -- probably the rest of this online session. Too many playwrights describe old men sending the young to die, making Bush not at all unique. But there is something about envy of the young, envy of their strength, envy of their courage. He also envied his father who was a military hero himself. It is a complex issue but one worth exploring.
Email from Tinseltown: Forget that cue card reading figurehead George W. Bush: let me ask about someone American really care about. How would you analyze Tony Soprano?
Justin Frank: There is already a book written analyzing Tony Soprano, written by Glen Gabbard, MD.
Email from Harrisburg, Pa.: Freud made psychological observations of famous people without personally observing them. How accurate is this field of psychological observation from a distance, what are its limitations, and what are its advantages?
Justin Frank: Thank you for this question. The limitations of not making direct clinical observations of patients are great: we are not able to avail ourselves of the powerful tools of transference and countertransference -- the patient's feelings about us and ours in relation to them. We do not get to see what is replayed from their childhood conflicts that get expressed in the consulting room.
On the other hand, I never get to observe my patients outside the consulting room. With Bush I get to see all his speeches, press conferences, photo ops, read his speeches, read biographical material as well. I find that much of applied psychoanalysis is "accurate" in that it helps us see patterns of behavior and gives us tools to think about those patterns. It is not conclusive -- and therefore functions in the realm of interpretation. Interestingly enough, Bush seems to continue to write my book after it has been printed -- just two weeks ago he denied knowing the now-discredited Chalabi despite having invited him to sit with Laura at the State of the Union address this year. I called this denial mechanism the KWD, or the "Kenny Who Defense" which he used so widely when asked if he knew Ken Lay of Enron. That was the same Ken Lay who was a chief contributor to Bush's 2000 election bid.
Email from Arlington, VA: You replied to me that George Bush is "unique as a president" because of his "pattern of living outside the law." The problem is, you are starting out with a set of assumptions that are colored by your political views. Many people would not agree that Bush is displaying this pattern of behavior. Some might argue that Bill Clinton had even greater troubles with the law, leading him to commit the felony of perjury. I don't recall your book on his psychological background.
Justin Frank: I am answering this because you are concerned about my bias.
I did not analyze Clinton, and he certainly had/has his share of character flaws. He did not take money earmarked for Afghanistan and use it to prepare for a war in Iraq. This is not just outside the law but outside the Constitution. There are numerous examples of similar behavior seen in Bush. But I am not here to compare but to look in depth into What we see in this president.
Email from Washington, D.C.: Let me see if I've got this straight: one can't quit drinking, except with the help of 12-steppers or a professionals such as yourself? Sounds like more blather from the Recovery Industry.
Justin Frank: I don't think anybody makes money from 12-step recovery. It is not much of an industry. But what is important is that the "ism" part of alcoholism was not treated ever and he has no capacity to take responsibility for his behavior which he dismisses as "youthful indescretions". Until forty?
One needs a president who can look inside himself and think about matters of grave importance to the nation and to the world. Black and white thinking results most often from untreated alcoholism.
Email from Santa Clara, Calif.: Dr. Frank,
A few weeks ago we learned that Pres. Bush has Saddam's handgun in a case in a room off the oval office. Apparently he proudly shows it off to visitors. Given all the negative events that have transpired since Hussein's capture what do you make of this disconnect?
Justin Frank: I think that the Bush who proudly shows off Saddam's handgun to visitors is the
same Bush who proudly pranced aboard the aircraft carrier last year declaring that the war in Iraq was over. His behavior is similar to that of an eight-year-old boy playing superman and believing that he won a war all by himself, that he captured Saddam by himself. The behavior is "disconnected" not only from current events, but from a fundamental understanding of self.
Email from Washington, D.C.: What do you hope to accomplish with this book? Is it your conclusion that the President's psychiatric limitations should disqualify him from holding the office -- or at the very least, that voters should conclude from your analysis that alternative candidates should be selected?
Justin Frank: I hope to enrich the discussion about our choices for president in 2004. Until this book there has been a sense that employers at MacDonalds know more about the psychological profiles of their employees than we do about the people we select to hold the most important job in our nation.
I hope that the book will help us think about patterns of behavior that we see, that it will help us watch our leaders more closely. And that it will help us think.
Email from Columbus, Ohio: Is Chapter I about Bush or Reagan? After a week of nauseating tributes to the president who claimed ketchup is a vegetable for poor children in the school lunch program, and who unilaterally kicked people off disability until they could prove eligibility (during which time some people died), I am intrugued -- and terrified -- by the parallels.
Justin Frank: I appreciate your comment comparing Bush's behavior toward children with Reagan's. Both were relatively absent fathers, detached from their own children. What Reagan started in the 1980s (really in the 1970s in California) Bush is continuing, though the chapter was explicitly about George W. Bush.
Email from Philadelphia, PA: This is more of a comment than a question, but I read a review of your book yesterday that mentioned the death of Bush's sister and the possible effects of the suppression of his feelings about that. Frankly, it's one of the few times I've felt some real compassion for him. I also lost a sister, when I was 8 and she was 7, more than 40 years ago, and it was also true in my family that no one seemed to notice that I might feel responsible for death. With some help I managed to figure it out too many years later. (Fortunately, I wasn't holding an important public office during the time I was struggling with it unconsciously.) I have since learned that the most important thing a parent can do is to help a child be responsible for his or her feelings. I don't forsee any help like that for Bush, since he's already been "saved," but hopefully your book will raise others' awareness of how much damage one repressed person can accomplish.
Justin Frank: Your comment is so moving that I want to include it in my response: "I have since learned that the most important thing a parent can do is to help a child be responsible for his or her feelings. I don't forsee any help like that for Bush, since he's already been "saved," but hopefully your book will raise others' awareness of how much damage one repressed person can accomplish."
I, too, was moved when reading about what Bush must have gone through. He did have nightmares for several months afterward, but from what I can tell there was no discussion of his feelings -- no place to talk about guilt, normal aggression and relief, and terrible loss itself. Parents must pay attention to their children, and I have the feeling that Bush received little, if any, such attention. I also think that helps me understand why it is easy for him to pay little attention to the real and palpable losses of the American people -- from 911 to Afghanistan to Iraq. He thinks only of revenge for 911 or else of continuing to live life as one normally might do.
Email from Houston, Texas: I'm not a Bush fan, but your approach does seem like shooting fish in a barrel. By applying various psychological symptoms and neuroses from such an external standpoint, couldn't you make virtually anyone look a little crazy?
Justin Frank: Yes I could make anyone look crazy. And I'm a target for that as well. We all are.
I hope that if you read the book you will see that I am not just pulling out all the psychiatric stops to "get" Bush.
His behavior calls for examination.
Email from Pomona, Calif.: I would be interested in seeing your methods of analysis applied to John Kerry's pattern of changing his position on issues based on the political expediency of the moment. Surely there must be some deep wound from his childhood that prevents him from developing a principled position and sticking with it in the face of criticism. And what are the implications for how he would govern, given this pattern of indecision?
Justin Frank: I would love to apply my method of analysis to John Kerry. I think this kind of exploration is warranted with all people who hold such immense responsibility.
Again, I am not looking for causes as much as for patterns and meaning of those patterns.
Email from Chicago, Ill.: I've read articles about Bush that describe him as a "dry drunk." Do you think he's still an alcoholic, or that the stress of not drinking contributes to his problems?
Do you think there's a point when the straw will finally break the camel's back and Bush will start decompensating?
Dan Froomkin: Lots of readers are asking about this "dry drunk" hypothesis.
Justin Frank: I was concerned in the April 13 Press Conference that Bush had begun to decompensate. He was unable to anwswer the question about whether or not he thought he'd made mistakes in the prosecution of the Iraq war. In some ways he gave his most honest answer -- a halting and defensive one, but genuine. He couldn't think and needed written questions in advance.
I have no idea whether or not Bush is drinking -- I would doubt it as he must be under scrutiny by so many people. But the issue again is about the "ism" part of alcoholism -- the need he has to order his internal chaos. This need at times borders on the desperate -- rigid schedules, repeated prayer meetings, excessive time away from Washington, and even fears of testifying alone in front of the 911 Commission.
Email from Long Beach: Greetings from California,
May I suggest to those who question your ability or right to observe the president that they remember the fate of Vladimir Bekhterev, who diagonosed Stalin as a paranoid, and was quickly poisoned by his "fearless leader"? BTW, Bekhterev would be a good dedication in your book.
Justin Frank: Thank you for your warning. Several of my firends said that they would consult during the writing but did not want to be acknowledged by name in print.
I hope that is an acceptable response to your comment.
I do get anxious more about followers than about Bush himself. Stalin he is not.
Email from Monticello, New York: Dr. Frank,
I understand you learned that Bush exploded firecrackers inside of frogs as a youngster. How did you learn that, what does it indicate to you about the pathology of the youngster, and how do you think that pathology has manifested itself in the behavior of the adult? Thank you.
Justin Frank: There were several articles about Bush's childhood in which his friends were interviewed describing his having blown up frogs. This was after rainy periods in the otherwise dry Midland world. He also used beebee guns to shoot them, one friend reported. A group of them did.
As a fraternity man at Yale he branded pledges on the buttocks with a hot coat-hanger. This was written up in the NYTimes in 1967 and he was interviewed then about it.
His smirk as an adult, his mimicry of patients on death row while he was Governor are all part of a similar pattern.
Everyone has sadistic bits in his personality. The job of a mature person is to recognize those elements and control them or channel them in some way other than inflicting harm on others.
Email from Undisclosed Location, Suburban Maryland: My more psychodynamically-informed co-workers and I have from time to time engaged in debate as to exactly where our president fits into the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual for mental disorders (DSM-IV). So I herald the arrival of your book (and this chat) with great interest.
My personal take on Mr. Bush has been one of Antisocial Personality Disorder (DSM code 301.7) as he meets the threshold of three criteria for that diagnosis: deceitfulness (item 2), impulsivity or failure to plan ahead (3), and consistent irresponsibility (6) -- although evidence for lack of remorse (7) is certainly in abundance as well.
However, I will concede that his association with the neocons who hijacked our foreign policy (flushing 40 years of multilateralism down the drain in favor of a "high country sheriff" game) suggests Shared Psychotic Disorder (297.3).
Then there is a nagging sense, too, of something on the Autistic Disorder spectrum (299.90). He appears to meet five criteria: (1b) failure to develop peer relationships (see diplomatic failures); (2a) delay in, or total lack of, the development of spoken language; (2c) stereotyped and repetitive use of language (responds "9/11 changed everything" to any questioning of his policies); (3a) encompassing preoccupation with one or more interest that is abnormal in intensity or focus (see Iraq obsession); and (3b) apparently inflexible adherence to specific, nonfunctional routines (see same).
And finally, there is the unclassifiable, but intense, sense of arrested development. The insistence on seeing the world in black and white is characteristic of a child who simply hasn't yet begun to perceive the complexities of the adult world.
You've obviously done a lot of thinking on this as well. So we'd be grateful if you could help us sort all this out (and maybe settle some bets?). Thanks!;
Justin Frank: In my book I did not make a DSM diagnosis of President Bush.
My book is about character and behavior patterns to take note of, not about diagnosis. It is aimed at helping people to think about his competence to govern and his method of governing rather than to put him in a category.
As much has I have been willing to examine his character in depth, I do not feel that trying out a diagnosis will serve any useful purpose.
Email from Hunsterville, NC: Justin, any word from the White House on your book? Official or otherwise?
Justin Frank: No official word form the White House, other than twice being told they "don't do book reviews."
I have no idea. I am talking about Bush in a different way, but I think the White House is more concerned with people who have specific goods on them -- people like O'Neill and Clarke.
Dan Froomkin: Justin, thanks for joining us today. You sparked a great conversation here, and I suspect in many other places as well. Readers, thanks for all your terrific questions -- sorry we couldn't get to all of them. Justin Frank: Thank you for having me. I enjoyed this format -- something completely new to me. I hope it hasn't been too argumentative but is rather in the service of deepening discussion and thought.
Editor's Note: Washingtonpost.com moderators retain editorial control over Live Online discussions and choose the most relevant questions for guests and hosts; guests and hosts can decline to answer questions.
As a citizen, I worry about what these contradictions and inconsistencies say about the president's ability to govern; as a psychoanalyst, I'm troubled by their implications for the president's current and long-term mental health, particularly in light of certain information we know about his past.
Naturally, the occasional misstatement or discrepancy between word and deed may be dismissed as politics as usual.
But when the most powerful man on the planet consistently exhibits an array of multiple, serious, and untreated symptoms -- any one of which I've seen patients need years to work through -- it's certainly cause for further investigation, if not for outright alarm.
in·san·i·ty n. 1 a : a deranged state of the mind usually occurring as a specific disorder (as schizophrenia) and usually excluding such states as mental retardation, psychoneurosis, and various character disorders
b : a mental disorder
2 : such unsoundness of mind or lack of understanding as prevents one from having the mental capacity required by law to enter into a particular relationship, status, or transaction or as removes one from criminal or civil responsibility
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