Mental health professionals are warning that Donald Trump’s behaviour poses serious risks to democratic governance and international security – yet the media largely looks away.

“Collective fear stimulates herd instinct, and tends to produce ferocity toward those who are not regarded as members of the herd.” – Bertrand Russell, 1905.

The mainstream media has been concerned with the politics, policies, and propaganda of Donald Trump’s terms in office, but has virtually ignored the central question of his presidency: Is Trump psychologically fit to be president of the United States and commander in chief?

Various psychologists and psychiatrists have warned that our dangerously disordered president is a threat to domestic and international security. The threat has become more dire in recent weeks.

The mental health experts who have discussed these issues have not been interviewed by the press. They took some professional risk in ignoring the ethical principle of the American Psychiatric Association known as the ‘Goldwater Rule.’ This rule prohibits diagnosing public figures they have not personally interviewed. Trump’s recent public behaviour and his outrageous remarks suggest that the ‘duty to warn’ among psychologists and psychiatrists calls for greater scrutiny of Trump by the overall public, particularly members of the medical community and the media.

Trump’s signs of malignant narcissism are well known; he claims to know more than anyone else and........

© Pearls and Irritations