Join hosts Dr. John Gartner and Dr. Harry Segal for Shrinking Trump, a hit new weekly show dedicated to analyzing Donald Trump from a psychological point of view. As John puts it, “This is a place you'll be able to come and hear frank, honest, intelligent, educated discussions among professionals about Trump's mental health.”
In this episode, our guest is psychiatrist and psychoanalyst Dr. Lance Dodes, a retired assistant clinical professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School. Lance was also one of the original contributors to the book The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump, a collection of essays from psychiatrists and psychologists describing Trump’s mental health as a clear and present danger to the nation and individual well-being.
As a psychoanalyst, Dr. Dodes is focused primarily on the personality disorder component of Trump’s mental health. He explains to our listeners how dementia interacts with personality disorder, particularly when compounded with narcissism. As the dementia worsens, Dr. Dodes says, Trump “knows less and less because he can't add to knowledge or correct the things that he doesn't know, because that would be a narcissistic blow.”
Lance also warns our listeners that some of the greatest character defects Trump exhibits, like the lack of empathy, are made exponentially more dangerous by his worsening dementia. “And then, of course, if there was ever a chance to correct it, he can't,” Dodes said. “Because that would mean acknowledging that he had done something wrong.”
Why is Trump falling asleep in court? Will he actually attend the debates? What would a second term for Trump look like once he’s lost all impulse control? You won’t want to miss the team's psychological approach to answering these questions and more in this fantastic interview.
You’ll also want to buckle up for another wild segment of “Dementia Roundup,” where John and Harry analyze video clips of Trump’s most bizarre statements and behaviors from the week. Their conclusions, although often terrifying, help listeners better understand the nature of Trump’s rapid mental decline and why he says, and acts, the way he does.
Harry said it best to close out the show. “To understand someone, It takes a while to build a model of who they are. So I'm hoping that over time with each of our podcasts, everyone will start to have a more complex and integrated sense of who Trump is and how this process of mild cognitive impairment is affecting him.”
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