While Rep. Karen Bass (D- Culver City) and others might think that Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump should be required to take a mental fitness test, the American Psychiatry Assn. is prohibiting its members from going that far.
But one Culver City resident thinks having all candidates for public office— including and perhaps especially Trump— is an idea that has merit.
Bass challenged the businessman’s mental competence in a series of Tweets recently after perhaps Trump’s worst week since he was officially named the Republic nominees last month.
In the span of five days, he asked the mother of an infant to remove her crying baby from one of his rallies, attacked the Gold Star family Khizer and Ghazala Khan, whose son was killed in Iraq in 2004, claimed to have seen footage of a nonexistence airplane with alleged ransom money for American hostages in Iran and quipped after a veteran gave him his Purple Heart— given to servicemen and women who were injured in battle— “I always wanted to get the Purple Heart. This was much easier.”
Bass started a petition on Change.org (www.change.org/p/diagnosetrump) soliciting signatures in favor of having Trump evaluated. As the News went to press, the petition had nearly 31,000 supporters.
“Medical professionals must step up and demand a fitness test for the Republican presidential nominee,” the congresswoman Tweeted on Aug. 3. “It is our patriotic duty to raise the question of his mental stability to be the commander in chief and leader of the free world.”
Due perhaps to the highly-contested presidential race and its increasingly combative tone, the American Psychiatric Assn. is seeking to sidestep any controversy around Trump’s alleged mental deficiencies.
“This year, the election seems like anything but a normal contest that has at times devolved into outright vitriol,” said association president Maria A Oquendo. “The unique atmosphere of this year’s election cycle may lead some to want to psychoanalyze the candidates, but to do so would not only be unethical, it would be irresponsible.”
While the association is wary of its members offering evaluations on Trump’s mental competence, Culver City resident Dr. Suzanne DeBenedittis thinks assessing the mental health of all high-level politicians is a good idea. “I have for many years been concerned about the lack of such screening for all candidates for public office,” said DeBenedittis, a recently retired psychotherapist. “I am grateful that Rep. Karen Bass has taken the initiative on this. It is long overdue and needs to be addressed.”
Just as “driving tests are required before issuing a driver’s license,” DeBenedittis feels anyone who has a fiduciary responsibility for the wellbeing of the public should be required to take the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI), which she calls the “gold standard” psychometric test for both adult personality and psychotherapy.
An interview with a clinical psychologist typically takes place prior to administering the test, which has between 500 to 600 questions. It is the most widely used test for adult personality and psychopathology.
DeBenedittis understands why the psychiatric organization asked its members not to give public diagnoses of Trump’s mental fitness.”[It’s] important advice in order to avoid lawsuits, as it is unethical to diagnose without encountering the individual,” the psychotherapist noted.
But she pointed out that the Minnesota test is often used for screening candidates in personnel selection.
“Thus there should be no stigma to require Trump, [former Secretary of State and Democratic presidential nominee Hillary] Clinton and all the presidential candidates to take the MMPI,” DeBenedittis reasoned. “If they believe they are of sound mind, this inventory will validate them, just as a physical health checkup does for physical health. And it would help avert tragedy.”
Bass, who supports Clinton, is not alone in questioning Trump’s mental capacity.
“With each passing week he displays the classic symptoms of medium-grade mania in more disturbing forms: inflated self-esteem, sleeplessness, impulsivity, aggression and a compulsion to offer advice on subjects he knows nothing about,” conservative New York Times columnist David Brooks wrote recently. “His speech patterns are like something straight out of a psychiatric textbook.”
And although Brooks is not a psychiatrist, conservative political commentator Charles Krauthammer, a frequent guest on the Fox New cable channel, is.
“It’s that he can’t help himself. His governing rule in life is to strike back when attacked, disrespected or even slighted. To understand Trump, you have to grasp the General Theory: He judges every action, every pronouncement, every person by a single criterion — whether or not it/he is ‘nice’ to Trump,” Krauthammer, who has also been highly critical of Clinton’s policies, said in an interview on the conservative network. “This is beyond narcissism…His needs are more primitive, an infantile hunger for approval and praise, a craving that can never be satisfied. He lives in a cocoon of solipsism where the world outside himself has value — indeed exists — only insofar as it sustains and inflates him.”
Bass, a former physician assistant and clinical health instructor at the University of Southern California, said Trump “appears to exhibit all the symptoms of the mental disorder narcissistic personality disorder. We deserve to have the greatest understanding of Mr. Trump’s mental health status before we head to the polls on Nov. 8, 2016.”
DeBenedittis believes the test could assuage the public about Trump’s and others ability to lead the United States, especially with international terrorism as a major concern for many voters.
“Given the fact that all of humanity and life as we know it is at stake with one call from the Oval Office, I urge all the candidates, especially Donald Trump, to voluntarily take the MMPI and publish its results,” she said. “Then his publicly taking the [psychological test] and publishing the results would lay to rest all rumors and concerns about his ability to govern the people of the United States of America.”
Gary Walker contributed to this story.
