[quote]pushharder wrote:
While I disagreed with Bush’s politics in several aspects I believe deep down he is a good man. I do not think the same about Clinton and Obama.[/quote]
Bush was terribly misguided and I’m not sure I would call him a “good man” since he wasn’t terribly competent but I don’t think he meant any harm.
Clinton and Obama just seem to crave power.
james
They ALL craved power.
No one cuts a path to the White House without it.
[quote]DBCooper wrote:
Provide me with examples of pathological narcissism. We’re all narcissistic to a certain extent. Where does Obama cross the line into pathology?
[/quote]
Dr Sam Vaknin, author of Malignant Self Love on Obama’s clinical narcissism:
The DSM doesn’t include psychopathy. It attributes psychopathic traits to narcissistic personality disorder.
Clearly you don’t know much about Obama. In one of his autobiographies he describes his cocaine “addiction” as being so bad he can’t remember an entire year of his high schooling.
Obama described himself as a cocaine “addict.” You obviously don’t know enough about him to meaningfully contribute.
His father abandoned him shortly after he was born and went back to Kenya to live with his other wife.
I’ve already gone into detail about how his psychopathy manifests itself.
This is nonsense. You only need to look at his speeches and the hysterical personality cult he created to see that he is a demagogue and unlike any other president in history.
It’s the extent of his blame shifting in conjunction with all the other traits that suggest illness.
That’s a biased interpretation. They shut down the government due to Obama’s refusal to negotiate.
[quote]
My point is that while, yes, some of the behavior you describe is certainly the sign of personality disorders of various types, this is behavior that virtually ALL of us are guilty of to certain extents. It becomes psychosis when a person has these qualities on a pathological level. Where is the evidence of Obama’s pathology?[/quote]
Right in front of your eyes if you’re willing to see it.
[quote]DBCooper wrote:
I remember when President Bush was asked if there were any regrets he had or any mistakes he made as President. He said he couldn’t think of any. Must be a psychotic.[/quote]
Are there any regrets you have or mistakes you’ve made in this thread?
Okay, SexMachine, one by one.
First of all, Vaknin may be an authority on narcissism, but he is wholly unqualified to make any sort of significant diagnosis. He hasn’t psychologically analyzed Obama. That was the inherent problem with the OSS reports from Murray and Langer; they never once spoke with the subject of their analysis. Vaknin would readily admit this shortcoming, just like he’s readily admitted that his views on narcissism are not widely accepted within the academic community (cue anti-intellectual discourse now).
Again, point me to the section in the DSM-V that lists glib and superficial charm as a sign of pathological personality disorders. I’ll wait.
Is Obama still a cocaine addict? Since when is a short phase in your high school years a sign of pathology in middle age? You obviously don’t know anything about addiction.
Again, where are the outward signs that his father’s abandonment has led to pathology? What things has Obama done in his life that are clear indications that he suffers from some sort of pathology due to his father abandoning him? What evidence do you have to suggest that that particular event is manifesting itself in a personality disorder?
And no, you have not provided evidence of this manifestation. Contrary to popular belief around here, being a liberal is not a sign of pathology.
His hysterical cult of personality? Based on what? Your obviously biased interpretations? You aren’t even remotely impartial enough to offer up any sort of analysis in this respect, and your lack of any significant experience in the world of psychology only magnifies this.
I won’t bother with the rest. It’s clear that your politics are coloring your analysis. You’ve simply come up with a diagnosis that you have already admitted to being wholly unqualified to make, and now you’re trying to fit his behavior into this diagnosis.
You should have just stopped when you brought up Loudon. That in and of itself is crystal-clear proof that you aren’t capable of making anything close to an impartial analysis of Obama’s “pathology”.
[quote]SexMachine wrote:
[quote]DBCooper wrote:
I remember when President Bush was asked if there were any regrets he had or any mistakes he made as President. He said he couldn’t think of any. Must be a psychotic.[/quote]
Are there any regrets you have or mistakes you’ve made in this thread?[/quote]
Yes. I regret getting sucked into a thread by someone who thinks that Gina Loudon is an authority on psychology.
[quote]DBCooper wrote:
Okay, SexMachine, one by one.
[/quote]
Even so Langer was able to make some remarkably accurate predictions such as:
As the war turns against him, his rages will intensify and become more frequent, and his public appearances will become less and less, because he’s unable to face a critical audience.
There might be an assassination attempt on him by the German aristocratic officer corps, because of his superhuman self-confidence in his military judgment.
There will be no surrender, capitulation, or peace negotiations. The course he will follow, will almost certainly be the sureties road to immortality, and that at the same time, reaches the greatest vengeance on a world he despises.
From what we know of his psychology, the most likely possibility is that he will commit suicide. It’s probably true he has an enormous fear of death, but being a psychopath he would undoubtedly screw himself up into the superman character, and perform the deed.
I’ve already answered that. The DSM V doesn’t recognise psychopathy as a distinct illness. Glib and superficial charm are characteristics listed in Robert Hare’s famous psychopathy checklist.
I wouldn’t know.
Addiction to stimulants - cocaine, nicotine - is extremely common in psychopaths. On its own it means nothing but together with all the other symptoms it helps build a profile.
Again, on its own it means nothing but together with all the other symptoms it helps build a profile.
I can name hundreds of liberals I don’t like but I wouldn’t class them as mentally disturbed.
Anyone who denies the bizarre demagoguery and personality cult of Obama’s first presidential campaign is clearly delusional or dishonest. It was completely unprecedented in the first world.
[quote]
You should have just stopped when you brought up Loudon. That in and of itself is crystal-clear proof that you aren’t capable of making anything close to an impartial analysis of Obama’s “pathology”.[/quote]
Okay. Thanks for dropping by.
SM, you’re being absolutely ridiculous. You yourself said you aren’t qualified to psychoanalyze anyone, and yet, here you are psychoanalyzing someone whom you have never met. You’re right. Murray and Langer were amazingly accurate with their predictions regarding Hitler. They also had access to a whole slew of people who regularly interacted with Hitler and knew him about as well as anyone possibly could know that wacko.
You, on the other hand, have literally zero access to anyone who knows/knew Obama. You’re guided solely by your own bias and that of people like Gina Loudon and Dr. Vaknin. And what do you know? Those two have based their diagnoses solely on their own observations of Obama, which are strictly limited to public appearances.
You should be embarrassed to even bring those two up. My mother, whom I am visiting right now, has a doctoral degree in clinical psychology. I showed her this thread and even she, an arch-conservative, is literally laughing at your pathetic assessment and your “sources” right now. You cannot even begin to make any sort of diagnosis about Obama without the chance to interview him or at least conduct literally hundreds of interviews with his closest confidants. It amazes me that you don’t understand this and continue to insist that Obama shows signs of psychopathy.
[quote]DBCooper wrote:
SM, you’re being absolutely ridiculous. You yourself said you aren’t qualified to psychoanalyze anyone, and yet, here you are psychoanalyzing someone whom you have never met. You’re right. Murray and Langer were amazingly accurate with their predictions regarding Hitler. They also had access to a whole slew of people who regularly interacted with Hitler and knew him about as well as anyone possibly could know that wacko.
You, on the other hand, have literally zero access to anyone who knows/knew Obama. You’re guided solely by your own bias and that of people like Gina Loudon and Dr. Vaknin. And what do you know? Those two have based their diagnoses solely on their own observations of Obama, which are strictly limited to public appearances.
You should be embarrassed to even bring those two up. My mother, whom I am visiting right now, has a doctoral degree in clinical psychology. I showed her this thread and even she, an arch-conservative, is literally laughing at your pathetic assessment and your “sources” right now. You cannot even begin to make any sort of diagnosis about Obama without the chance to interview him or at least conduct literally hundreds of interviews with his closest confidants. It amazes me that you don’t understand this and continue to insist that Obama shows signs of psychopathy.[/quote]
Again, I’m not attempting to diagnose Obama. I’m just pointing out what appears to me - as a layman - the remarkable affinity between Obama’s behaviour and the symptoms of psychopathy/narcissistic personality disorder. As a side note, I don’t hold the fields of psychology or sociology in much regard.
[quote]DBCooper wrote:
Some of your criticisms are sound and I readily admit it. Others like the one above show that you are extraordinarily biased yourself. I can provide numerous descriptions of Obama’s personality cult from the most liberal sources on the web - Huff Post, Daily Kos etc.
“…a light will shine through that window, a beam of light will come down upon you, you will experience an epiphany … and you will suddenly realize that you must go to the polls and vote for Obama” - Barack Obama Lebanon, New Hampshire. January 7, 2008.
[quote]SexMachine wrote:
[quote]DBCooper wrote:
Some of your criticisms are sound and I readily admit it. Others like the one above show that you are extraordinarily biased yourself. I can provide numerous descriptions of Obama’s personality cult from the most liberal sources on the web - Huff Post, Daily Kos etc.
“…a light will shine through that window, a beam of light will come down upon you, you will experience an epiphany … and you will suddenly realize that you must go to the polls and vote for Obama” - Barack Obama Lebanon, New Hampshire. January 7, 2008.
[/quote]
I’m not arguing that Obama isn’t grandiose at times. Where is the pathology? Where is the psychotic behavior? The thread is titled “Is Obama Clinically Psychotic”. You are arguing that he is, and yet you are providing evidence that is completely insufficient to make such a determination.
And you toss around the term “cult of personality” without quite understanding what it is. First of all, I can’t remember who it was now, but there are three distinct types of cults of personality. Which one does Obama fit into?
It sounds to me like you would put him in the “dominantly charismatic” group. Well, that doesn’t even begin to apply to Obama. His decisions literally never go unquestioned anymore. His own followers have lost faith in him in droves. He certainly doesn’t lead by the sheer force of his personality.
So, is he perhaps a better fit for “traditional domination”? Of course not, since that is almost exclusively the domain of legitimate monarchies. Besides, another hallmark of this type of cult of personality is a lack of challenges to the power of the leader. That definitely doesn’t apply here.
Now, I suppose he might fit into the “legal-rational domination” category, but if that is the case, so does every other President since Washington by definition.
[quote]SexMachine wrote:
[quote]DBCooper wrote:
SM, you’re being absolutely ridiculous. You yourself said you aren’t qualified to psychoanalyze anyone, and yet, here you are psychoanalyzing someone whom you have never met. You’re right. Murray and Langer were amazingly accurate with their predictions regarding Hitler. They also had access to a whole slew of people who regularly interacted with Hitler and knew him about as well as anyone possibly could know that wacko.
You, on the other hand, have literally zero access to anyone who knows/knew Obama. You’re guided solely by your own bias and that of people like Gina Loudon and Dr. Vaknin. And what do you know? Those two have based their diagnoses solely on their own observations of Obama, which are strictly limited to public appearances.
You should be embarrassed to even bring those two up. My mother, whom I am visiting right now, has a doctoral degree in clinical psychology. I showed her this thread and even she, an arch-conservative, is literally laughing at your pathetic assessment and your “sources” right now. You cannot even begin to make any sort of diagnosis about Obama without the chance to interview him or at least conduct literally hundreds of interviews with his closest confidants. It amazes me that you don’t understand this and continue to insist that Obama shows signs of psychopathy.[/quote]
Again, I’m not attempting to diagnose Obama. I’m just pointing out what appears to me - as a layman - the remarkable affinity between Obama’s behaviour and the symptoms of psychopathy/narcissistic personality disorder. As a side note, I don’t hold the fields of psychology or sociology in much regard.[/quote]
[quote]SexMachine wrote:
[quote]DBCooper wrote:
SM, you’re being absolutely ridiculous. You yourself said you aren’t qualified to psychoanalyze anyone, and yet, here you are psychoanalyzing someone whom you have never met. You’re right. Murray and Langer were amazingly accurate with their predictions regarding Hitler. They also had access to a whole slew of people who regularly interacted with Hitler and knew him about as well as anyone possibly could know that wacko.
You, on the other hand, have literally zero access to anyone who knows/knew Obama. You’re guided solely by your own bias and that of people like Gina Loudon and Dr. Vaknin. And what do you know? Those two have based their diagnoses solely on their own observations of Obama, which are strictly limited to public appearances.
You should be embarrassed to even bring those two up. My mother, whom I am visiting right now, has a doctoral degree in clinical psychology. I showed her this thread and even she, an arch-conservative, is literally laughing at your pathetic assessment and your “sources” right now. You cannot even begin to make any sort of diagnosis about Obama without the chance to interview him or at least conduct literally hundreds of interviews with his closest confidants. It amazes me that you don’t understand this and continue to insist that Obama shows signs of psychopathy.[/quote]
Again, I’m not attempting to diagnose Obama. I’m just pointing out what appears to me - as a layman - the remarkable affinity between Obama’s behaviour and the symptoms of psychopathy/narcissistic personality disorder. As a side note, I don’t hold the fields of psychology or sociology in much regard.[/quote]
You’re pointing out what appears to you to be signs of psychopathy…except that you are not even remotely qualified to make that assessment. Like I said earlier, that’s sort of like Stevie Wonder pointing what appears to him to be a beautiful sunset, even though it’s 11 in the morning.
You don’t know anything about Obama’s behavior nor about how to interpret anyone’s personality from a psychological standpoint, AND you don’t think much of the discipline to begin with. And you STILL insist on pointing out signs of his pathology?
You’re unreal, pal.
The fact that Obama hasn’t completely flipped out and turned into a fullblown psychotic by now is actually evidence that he ISN’T psychotic. You might have missed this part of the OSS report, but one of the points Langer makes is that Hitler is able to function because he faced virtually zero opposition. He was surrounded not only by advisers who validated him, but by an entire country. Granted, Hitler never had the wholesale support of Germany. But those who vocally opposed him were far and few between, virtually non-existent.
If Obama has narcissistic personality disorder on a psychotic level, he would have completely snapped by now. He faces immense criticism all the time, even when his approval rating was still within sniffing distance of 50%. The sorts of vocal, public, and regular criticism he receives would be FAR too much for a pathological narcissist to handle. It would literally be impossible for Obama to maintain anything close to a veneer of sanity. And he wouldn’t have to be anywhere close to Hitler’s level of psychosis for this facade to disappear.
[quote]DBCooper wrote:
[quote]SexMachine wrote:
[quote]DBCooper wrote:
Some of your criticisms are sound and I readily admit it. Others like the one above show that you are extraordinarily biased yourself. I can provide numerous descriptions of Obama’s personality cult from the most liberal sources on the web - Huff Post, Daily Kos etc.
“…a light will shine through that window, a beam of light will come down upon you, you will experience an epiphany … and you will suddenly realize that you must go to the polls and vote for Obama” - Barack Obama Lebanon, New Hampshire. January 7, 2008.
[/quote]
I’m not arguing that Obama isn’t grandiose at times. Where is the pathology? Where is the psychotic behavior? The thread is titled “Is Obama Clinically Psychotic”. You are arguing that he is, and yet you are providing evidence that is completely insufficient to make such a determination.
And you toss around the term “cult of personality” without quite understanding what it is. First of all, I can’t remember who it was now, but there are three distinct types of cults of personality. Which one does Obama fit into?
It sounds to me like you would put him in the “dominantly charismatic” group. Well, that doesn’t even begin to apply to Obama. His decisions literally never go unquestioned anymore. His own followers have lost faith in him in droves. He certainly doesn’t lead by the sheer force of his personality.
So, is he perhaps a better fit for “traditional domination”? Of course not, since that is almost exclusively the domain of legitimate monarchies. Besides, another hallmark of this type of cult of personality is a lack of challenges to the power of the leader. That definitely doesn’t apply here.
Now, I suppose he might fit into the “legal-rational domination” category, but if that is the case, so does every other President since Washington by definition.[/quote]
They aren’t cult of personality types. They’re Max Weber’s political leadership types. I have studied personality cults and the psychology of mass movements - Gustav Le Bon’s The Crowd, Vilfredo Pareto’s The Mind and Society - and the father of 20th century personality cults Gabriele D’Annunzio. No other US president has cultivated a cult of personality.
[quote]DBCooper wrote:
The fact that Obama hasn’t completely flipped out and turned into a fullblown psychotic by now is actually evidence that he ISN’T psychotic. You might have missed this part of the OSS report, but one of the points Langer makes is that Hitler is able to function because he faced virtually zero opposition. He was surrounded not only by advisers who validated him, but by an entire country. Granted, Hitler never had the wholesale support of Germany. But those who vocally opposed him were far and few between, virtually non-existent.
If Obama has narcissistic personality disorder on a psychotic level, he would have completely snapped by now. He faces immense criticism all the time, even when his approval rating was still within sniffing distance of 50%. The sorts of vocal, public, and regular criticism he receives would be FAR too much for a pathological narcissist to handle. It would literally be impossible for Obama to maintain anything close to a veneer of sanity. And he wouldn’t have to be anywhere close to Hitler’s level of psychosis for this facade to disappear.[/quote]
Obama shields himself from criticism by surrounding himself with sycophants, throwing parties and spending his time on the golf course or playing basketball. His public appearances are carefully orchestrated. It’s also revealing that he feels the need to respond to things like Clint Eastwood’s empty chair routine. Anyone else would just ignore something like that but Obama’s ego drives him to respond.
[quote]SexMachine wrote:
[quote]DBCooper wrote:
[quote]SexMachine wrote:
[quote]DBCooper wrote:
Some of your criticisms are sound and I readily admit it. Others like the one above show that you are extraordinarily biased yourself. I can provide numerous descriptions of Obama’s personality cult from the most liberal sources on the web - Huff Post, Daily Kos etc.
“…a light will shine through that window, a beam of light will come down upon you, you will experience an epiphany … and you will suddenly realize that you must go to the polls and vote for Obama” - Barack Obama Lebanon, New Hampshire. January 7, 2008.
[/quote]
I’m not arguing that Obama isn’t grandiose at times. Where is the pathology? Where is the psychotic behavior? The thread is titled “Is Obama Clinically Psychotic”. You are arguing that he is, and yet you are providing evidence that is completely insufficient to make such a determination.
And you toss around the term “cult of personality” without quite understanding what it is. First of all, I can’t remember who it was now, but there are three distinct types of cults of personality. Which one does Obama fit into?
It sounds to me like you would put him in the “dominantly charismatic” group. Well, that doesn’t even begin to apply to Obama. His decisions literally never go unquestioned anymore. His own followers have lost faith in him in droves. He certainly doesn’t lead by the sheer force of his personality.
So, is he perhaps a better fit for “traditional domination”? Of course not, since that is almost exclusively the domain of legitimate monarchies. Besides, another hallmark of this type of cult of personality is a lack of challenges to the power of the leader. That definitely doesn’t apply here.
Now, I suppose he might fit into the “legal-rational domination” category, but if that is the case, so does every other President since Washington by definition.[/quote]
They aren’t cult of personality types. They’re Max Weber’s political leadership types. I have studied personality cults and the psychology of mass movements - Gustav Le Bon’s The Crowd, Vilfredo Pareto’s The Mind and Society - and the father of 20th century personality cults Gabriele D’Annunzio. No other US president has cultivated a cult of personality.[/quote]
Okay, but where does the DSM-V list the development of a cult of personality amongst its criteria for clinical psychosis? Actually, I should refer to the DSM-IV since the DSM-V is still not widely used yet. Does the term “cult of personality” even exist in the DSM-IV?
And just to play devil’s advocate, I would argue that JFK had a cult of personality. Camelot? C’mon. That was an easy one.
Also, your insistence that drug addiction is a potential sign of psychosis is laughable. Correlation does not imply causation. There are a SHITLOAD of addicts of all types out there. There are a SHITLOAD of stimulant addicts. There are NOT a shitload of psychotics. If there is as strong a link between addiction and psychosis as you have implied there is, why is there not a stronger correlation between the number of addicts and psychotics out there?
[quote]SexMachine wrote:
[quote]DBCooper wrote:
The fact that Obama hasn’t completely flipped out and turned into a fullblown psychotic by now is actually evidence that he ISN’T psychotic. You might have missed this part of the OSS report, but one of the points Langer makes is that Hitler is able to function because he faced virtually zero opposition. He was surrounded not only by advisers who validated him, but by an entire country. Granted, Hitler never had the wholesale support of Germany. But those who vocally opposed him were far and few between, virtually non-existent.
If Obama has narcissistic personality disorder on a psychotic level, he would have completely snapped by now. He faces immense criticism all the time, even when his approval rating was still within sniffing distance of 50%. The sorts of vocal, public, and regular criticism he receives would be FAR too much for a pathological narcissist to handle. It would literally be impossible for Obama to maintain anything close to a veneer of sanity. And he wouldn’t have to be anywhere close to Hitler’s level of psychosis for this facade to disappear.[/quote]
Obama shields himself from criticism by surrounding himself with sycophants, throwing parties and spending his time on the golf course or playing basketball. His public appearances are carefully orchestrated. It’s also revealing that he feels the need to respond to things like Clint Eastwood’s empty chair routine. Anyone else would just ignore something like that but Obama’s ego drives him to respond.
[/quote]
I don’t deny any of that. But you are still forgetting the key point here, and I’ll directly quote the DSM-IV.
â??Many highly successful individuals display personality traits that might be considered narcissistic. Only when these traits are inflexible, maladaptive, and persisting and cause significant functional impairment or subjective distress do they constitute Narcissistic Personality Disorder.â??
Where is the significant functional impairment? There are 9 prerequisites for narcissistic personality disorder to be present. I’m not going to list them all here, but the fact is that you simply cannot make an evaluation about Obama in this respect without extensive interviews with him or with those who know him best.
People with narcissistic personality disorder are wholly incapable of maintaining anything even resembling a normal relationship with, say, a wife. Obama has one of those.
They also invariably react with rage and violence toward those who contradict them. I’ve never seen Obama burst into a fit of rage over criticism of his policies. Has he shown some anger in this respect? Sure. Has he perhaps restrained himself from completely flipping out at criticism? Maybe.
But someone suffering from narcissistic personality disorder would be incapable of such restraint. In fact, the concept of restraint would be entirely foreign to them.
Another mark of the pathological narcissist is the inability to associate with anyone who might be “superior” to them, lest they risk damage to their own ego. I would say that the world of politics in the U.S. would be impossible for a narcissist of such a degree to operate within.
[quote]DBCooper wrote:
[quote]SexMachine wrote:
[quote]DBCooper wrote:
[quote]SexMachine wrote:
[quote]DBCooper wrote:
Some of your criticisms are sound and I readily admit it. Others like the one above show that you are extraordinarily biased yourself. I can provide numerous descriptions of Obama’s personality cult from the most liberal sources on the web - Huff Post, Daily Kos etc.
“…a light will shine through that window, a beam of light will come down upon you, you will experience an epiphany … and you will suddenly realize that you must go to the polls and vote for Obama” - Barack Obama Lebanon, New Hampshire. January 7, 2008.
[/quote]
I’m not arguing that Obama isn’t grandiose at times. Where is the pathology? Where is the psychotic behavior? The thread is titled “Is Obama Clinically Psychotic”. You are arguing that he is, and yet you are providing evidence that is completely insufficient to make such a determination.
And you toss around the term “cult of personality” without quite understanding what it is. First of all, I can’t remember who it was now, but there are three distinct types of cults of personality. Which one does Obama fit into?
It sounds to me like you would put him in the “dominantly charismatic” group. Well, that doesn’t even begin to apply to Obama. His decisions literally never go unquestioned anymore. His own followers have lost faith in him in droves. He certainly doesn’t lead by the sheer force of his personality.
So, is he perhaps a better fit for “traditional domination”? Of course not, since that is almost exclusively the domain of legitimate monarchies. Besides, another hallmark of this type of cult of personality is a lack of challenges to the power of the leader. That definitely doesn’t apply here.
Now, I suppose he might fit into the “legal-rational domination” category, but if that is the case, so does every other President since Washington by definition.[/quote]
They aren’t cult of personality types. They’re Max Weber’s political leadership types. I have studied personality cults and the psychology of mass movements - Gustav Le Bon’s The Crowd, Vilfredo Pareto’s The Mind and Society - and the father of 20th century personality cults Gabriele D’Annunzio. No other US president has cultivated a cult of personality.[/quote]
Okay, but where does the DSM-V list the development of a cult of personality amongst its criteria for clinical psychosis? Actually, I should refer to the DSM-IV since the DSM-V is still not widely used yet. Does the term “cult of personality” even exist in the DSM-IV?
And just to play devil’s advocate, I would argue that JFK had a cult of personality. Camelot? C’mon. That was an easy one.
Also, your insistence that drug addiction is a potential sign of psychosis is laughable. Correlation does not imply causation. There are a SHITLOAD of addicts of all types out there. There are a SHITLOAD of stimulant addicts. There are NOT a shitload of psychotics. If there is as strong a link between addiction and psychosis as you have implied there is, why is there not a stronger correlation between the number of addicts and psychotics out there?[/quote]
Cult leaders are invariably psychopaths/narcissists - in fact I cannot think of one who is/was not. Charles Manson = psychopath. Jim Jones = psychopath/NPD. Marshall Applewhite = psychopath/NPD. Shoko Asahara = psychopath/NPD.
I never implied a causal relationship or even close association between stimulant abuse and psychopathy. I merely said psychopaths are more susceptible to it.
[quote]DBCooper wrote:
[quote]SexMachine wrote:
[quote]DBCooper wrote:
The fact that Obama hasn’t completely flipped out and turned into a fullblown psychotic by now is actually evidence that he ISN’T psychotic. You might have missed this part of the OSS report, but one of the points Langer makes is that Hitler is able to function because he faced virtually zero opposition. He was surrounded not only by advisers who validated him, but by an entire country. Granted, Hitler never had the wholesale support of Germany. But those who vocally opposed him were far and few between, virtually non-existent.
If Obama has narcissistic personality disorder on a psychotic level, he would have completely snapped by now. He faces immense criticism all the time, even when his approval rating was still within sniffing distance of 50%. The sorts of vocal, public, and regular criticism he receives would be FAR too much for a pathological narcissist to handle. It would literally be impossible for Obama to maintain anything close to a veneer of sanity. And he wouldn’t have to be anywhere close to Hitler’s level of psychosis for this facade to disappear.[/quote]
Obama shields himself from criticism by surrounding himself with sycophants, throwing parties and spending his time on the golf course or playing basketball. His public appearances are carefully orchestrated. It’s also revealing that he feels the need to respond to things like Clint Eastwood’s empty chair routine. Anyone else would just ignore something like that but Obama’s ego drives him to respond.
[/quote]
I don’t deny any of that. But you are still forgetting the key point here, and I’ll directly quote the DSM-IV.
â??Many highly successful individuals display personality traits that might be considered narcissistic. Only when these traits are inflexible, maladaptive, and persisting and cause significant functional impairment or subjective distress do they constitute Narcissistic Personality Disorder.â??
Where is the significant functional impairment? There are 9 prerequisites for narcissistic personality disorder to be present. I’m not going to list them all here, but the fact is that you simply cannot make an evaluation about Obama in this respect without extensive interviews with him or with those who know him best.
People with narcissistic personality disorder are wholly incapable of maintaining anything even resembling a normal relationship with, say, a wife. Obama has one of those.
They also invariably react with rage and violence toward those who contradict them. I’ve never seen Obama burst into a fit of rage over criticism of his policies. Has he shown some anger in this respect? Sure. Has he perhaps restrained himself from completely flipping out at criticism? Maybe.
But someone suffering from narcissistic personality disorder would be incapable of such restraint. In fact, the concept of restraint would be entirely foreign to them.
Another mark of the pathological narcissist is the inability to associate with anyone who might be “superior” to them, lest they risk damage to their own ego. I would say that the world of politics in the U.S. would be impossible for a narcissist of such a degree to operate within.[/quote]
Psychopaths are able to compartmentalise their behaviour like Jekyll and Hyde, and only release their bad sides in certain situations. Ted Bundy described the process in interviews with psychiatrists. Many famous psychopaths had wives/long term girlfriends who knew nothing about their double lives. Robert Hare estimated that there are two million psychopaths in the US and that they are drawn to high power positions in politics, finance and industry. Unlike the sociopath the psychopath is likely to be intelligent and in many cases successful.