Category Archives: mental illness

Watch the Republicans Continue To “Guzzle the Kool-aid”

Leave a reply

With Trump’s 2nd Impeachment trial before us, we are going to see a real time playing out of the prophetic skit by Saturday Night Live in 2013, “Mr Belvedere’s Fan Club,” starring Tom Hanks. I have blogged in the past about a reverie of someone lost in the lunacy of a man who believes the moon is made out of cheese. In that reverie, I make the point that anyone who believes anything….regardless of how crazy it is…if he believes it fully, as in “beyond the pale”, there is no getting through to him. I dealt with this in my clinical practice in a psychiatric hospital and we diagnosed these patients, “psychotic.” For psychosis is the term for one who is cut off from any external reference, being wholly intoxicated with his private field of reference. Put an individual like that in a group of like-minded souls, and one will find a political party led by people like Kevin McCarthy, Lindsey Graham, Jim Jordan, Matthew Gaetz, and technically led even yet, Donald J. Trump.

I grew up in a mind-set like this. Oh, in fairness to those good souls, metastasis had not set in. It took a Trump to bring that poison to fruition. But there was a smugness that I grew up in, a smugness which is simply an essential dimension of tribal coherence. The smugness rarely metastasize to the point we are witnessing in my country, a process the analysis of which is beyond the pale of this exploration. “Smugness” even has a place but it ever finds a Trump, “Katy, bar the door!!

Tomorrow we will witness well-educated men and women passionately oppose conviction of Trump in this trial. To argue with them about their enthrallment would be a foolish endeavor. They have “drank the kool-aid” which is a grim image to remind us of what can ensue when one gives into unquestioned unconscious biases, to override the brain’s capacity for metacognition. It is kind of like some of my past clinical patients who were in the grip of suicidal ideation; these patients had lost hope and were relentlessly driven by the the “only” hope they could imagine, jumping over the cliff. It was the greatest challenge of my clinical practice, trying to offer hope to those in the grip of hopelessness.

GOP’s “Hunkering-Down” is Tightening Up!

Leave a reply

This phenomenon always brings to my mind the David Koresh cult of 1993 which “hunkered down” near Waco, Texas and self-immolated. Cultic experience always ends in tragedy if no “out let” is found, such as in ancient times a sacrifice. (See Rene Girard, “Sacred and Violence.”)

The cult leader of the GOP and his minions cannot accept reality, that being a “shared” experience, not one that is “ex”-clusive. Registered voters are fleeing from the Republican Party in droves, mega-donors are “pulling the plug” from him, some Republican Party members are critical to him, if not completely excoriating of him. And now he can’t find a lawyer with only two days before he needs them to present his case. The lawyers that argued his case a year ago would have nothing to do with him this time, then a team of lesser-light attorneys that took on his case this time suddenly backed off on Friday. And if that is not enough, he and the GOP has to deal with the stench of Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene.

But the mindset of Trump and his stalwarts is always galvanized with disapproval which permits them to voice their feelings of beleaguerment. It is not possible to reason with people whose mind is made up so rigidly. Giving up, giving in to beseeching of others, would evoke an anguish in their heart that is staved off only by the rigid belief system which often finds a figurehead, the “cult-leader.”

So how shall we respond? Well, with”faith” which is a subject I will soon explore given a blog responder this morning. But the “faith” I have in mind is not regurgitation of rhetoric but venturing into one’s own heart and finding the anguish that is lingering there. That will allow us to meet them on a more level playing field without the condescension that is always our first response. These “cultic” individuals have been forced into these rigid beliefs because they could not find solace anywhere else in our culture. This will force us to address the bankruptcy of our modern world and have a “come to Jesus” moment in our culture.









					

		
		
	


	

				

			
						

				We Have A “Splinter in Our Brain” but Won’t Admit it.
			

										

					Leave a reply				

					


				

			

As individuals, things occasionally go awry.  Our life tosses us a lemon and the making of lemonade out of it does not seem possible.  We encounter loss, or a career setback, marital conflict, “acting out” children, or an illness and it seems like impending doom is near.  Something akin to this was underway with Emily Dickinson when she coined that expression, “a splinter in our brain” which I use so often. In my clinical background I worked with clients who could be described as having one of those “splinters” wreaking havoc, or at least some distress in their life.  They, or their parents, or the school, or the legal system noted something awry and referred them to me for counseling.  But what would often stand in the way of any resolution was an unwillingness to acknowledge, “Houston, we have a problem here.”  For, blaming someone else for our woes is a common human response; in some sense our culture teaches our children to resort to this avoidance mechanism.





“Houston,” my country “has a problem.”  I could then immediately blame Trump and his disciples but I recognize he is but a symptom.  Here I will not focus on the Republican Party, for which he is the mouthpiece of all they refuse to acknowledge; but, this can also be said about our entire country.  Our country has allowed a “cancer to grow in the White House” just as in the Nixon era but we are stymied from a simple extirpation of the cancer.  In the Nixon Watergate drama, it was Nixon’s own Republican Party who had the courage and patriotism to go to Nixon and tell him, “You gotta go.”  There is no one in the GOP that has the courage to confront this tyrant though, and the GOP acts as a deterrent for any Democratic intervention.  Consequently Trump is doing as his niece recently said he would do after losing the election, spending his time “breaking things.”  That is a common response for any two-year old who is being denied any of his baubles, especially the comfort of thinking, “the world is my oyster.”





This tragedy has helped me to realize that my country’s narcissism and arrogance is being put on display for the entire world.  This is not to trash my beloved country, but simply to recognize the very human-ness of our history and the present-moment we are living out.  We humans have a tendency to think “it is all about me” even if this arrogance might be camouflaged in religious piety, aka “hypocrisy.”  It is very challenging to allow this truth to sink into one’s heart, especially if piety has been his modus operandi most of his life–“c’est moi,” I confess!  I am currently reading Barak Obama’s marvelous new book, “The Promised Land” and he is very open in sharing about the dark side of his ascendency to the world stage.  This is because he has the humility to permit “internal dialogue” with himself, that quality which Hannah Arendt in “Life of the Mind” explains was egregiously absent in people like Adolph Eichmann.  This “internal dialogue” with oneself makes it possible to engage in dialogue with other people, even those with a different perspective on life, and seek common ground.  A brickbat is thereby thrown at the tyranny of certainty. And those of us who have to confront one of those “splinters” in our brain will often live through the experience of “brickbatting.”

					

		
		
	


	

				

			
						

				Mary Trump, “Too Much and Never Enough
			

										

					Leave a reply				

					


				

			

The Trump maelstrom is teetering on that abyss of darkness that gave rise to it in the first place.  His niece, Mary Trump, has just released her tell-all book (“Too Much and Never Enough”) about this uncle that she describes as “the most dangerous man in America.”  I’ve read excerpts from her book, and watched a powerful interview of her by Stephen Colbert on “The Late Show” in which she described the “currency” of the intimate dynamics of that modern “Robber Baron” family as being money rather than anything near love and respect for others.





The title of her book immediately triggered the Shakespearean dimension of my brain with a line from one of his sonnets, “mad in pursuit and more in possession so.” Shakespeare had his pulse on the human soul and revealed in this sonnet 129 the voracious appetite, one spawn of which is capitalism itself and that spawn’s offspring with characters such as individuals like Trump, the personal “toy of some great pain.”  Shakespeare in this sonnet explored this bottomless pit very elegantly and concluded that it leads to hell itself:





Th’ expense of spirit in a waste of shame





Is lust in action; and till action, lust





Is perjured, murd’rous, bloody, full of blame,





Savage, extreme, rude, cruel, not to trust,





Enjoyed no sooner but despisèd straight,





Past reason hunted; and, no sooner had





Past reason hated as a swallowed bait





On purpose laid to make the taker mad;





Mad in pursuit and in possession so,





Had, having, and in quest to have, extreme;





A bliss in proof and proved, a very woe;





Before, a joy proposed; behind, a dream.





All this the world well knows; yet none knows well





The heaven that leads men to this hell.

					

		
		
	


	

				

			
						

				Here I Elaborate Further on Recent Post About Hannah Arendt…
			

										

					2 Replies				

					


				

			
My last post was dense, convoluted, and “self-reflection” running amok.  That is ok as it was “me” and I shared from this “me” that has helped me stumble through “mite near” seven decades of life. But two days later, I’d like to simplify things…once again, “a mite”…and kick around for a moment “internal dialogue.”


Hannah Arendt described Adolph Eichman as totally bereft of this human quality, not able to stand apart from the mausoleum of thought that he was.  This character flaw of his was symptomatic of the Third Reich which Arendt, in assessing Eichman, described as “the banality of evil.”  This banality is what happens when we are so immersed in our cognitive grasp of the world that we disallow the possibility of other humans having a “cognitive grasp” of their own which deserves respect.


This internal dialogue is the capacity to have a vein of “self-talk” in our heart which allows us to occasionally pause, look at some of the things we are most certain of and ask ourselves, “Hmm.  Maybe this “rock of Gibraltar” in my consciousness merits another look-see.”


There are so many examples in life today of this malady, but I want to put on the table a trivial anecdote from decades ago.  A news clip in the mid-seventies described a man in Dallas, Texas who became so frustrated and angry when his Cowboys football team lost a game that he grabbed his shot gun and blew out the TV screen. This must have stunned his neighbors as a gun shot next door led them to calling the police. I love sports myself and the Dallas Cowboys were, and still are, my favorite team.  I have suffered many disappointments with them over the decades as too often I’ve suffered the ignominy of watching them get beaten.  BUT, I’ve never been THAT upset! That poor bloke, demonstrated what it is to be “a brain stem with arms and legs,” allowing his seat of emotions to overwhelm him and suspend judgement.  He acted without the presence of the “pauser reason”  that Shakespeare has given us. The Grace of God has equipped most of us with this discretion and we are able to check ourselves throughout the day and avoid “acting out” like that.  Without this taken-for- granted contrivance in our heart, we too would that “brain stems without arms and legs” and catastrophe would unfold.


The complicated machinations of the human heart that I wrote about two days ago can be simplified with Arendt’s notion of, “internal dialogue.”  It is this human quality that permits us to reduce that cognitive/emotional tumult with an automatic filter, of “common sense.”  Without this “common sense” that most of us comply with routinely we will wreak havoc on our world.  Only if  we happen to live in a world, or even a little corner of a world that has also suspended common sense and shut down this “internal dialogue,” we can get by with it.


“Lord, in your infinite Grace, help us.”

					

		
		
	


	

				

			
						

				Greta Thunberg is More Wise Than Steven Mnuchin.
			

										

					2 Replies				

					


				

			
Today U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin took a swipe at the climate change heroine Greta Thunberg, saying she is in no position to give advice on the matter since she has not been to college yet.  Well, let me point out he has been to college yet he works for a man who is so insecure that he had to reassure the nation and the world about the size of his penis and lacked self-awareness to the extent that there are numerous recordings of him clearly voicing his lecherous designs on his own daughter.  And these are but two “trivial” examples of Trump’s impaired judgement. Sometimes human judgement is less impaired when one has yet to be ensconced in the comfort zone of a group think that constitutes reality in her/his culture.  And yes, she is “autistic” and thus can be described as “mentally ill” given the “authority” of the DSM-V, but “mentally ill” is not so “mentally ill” in a culture that puts a mentally ill man at the helm of its government.  This brings to mind a note by Carl Jung, “If you find a sane man, bring him to me and I will cure him.”  Jung knew well that there was a “psychopathology to everyday life” that could produce madmen who would pass as “sane.”  From Thunberg’s “seclusion” in her very private world, she has not lost the ability to peer out and look upon this human comedy and offer critique, not unlike Shakespeare who noted so famously that, “Tomorrow and tomorrow creeps in its petty pace to the last syllable of recorded time. Life is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.”  Shakespeare saw the lunacy of his day and brought it to the attention of his fellow-travelers in 16th century England.  This lovely young 17- year old lady has the courage to offer a similar critique to our day; a prophetic vision always comes from beyond the pale.

					

		
		
	


	

				

			
						

				Perspectival Entrapment vs Reality
			

										

					Leave a reply				

					


				

			
The perspectival entrapment that I explored a couple of days ago is egregiously being played out currently in the impasse of our government.  This impeachment issue is proving very divisive as the Republicans and Democrats have pledged their troth rigidly to their “pony in the horse race.”  Yes, I certainly see the Republicans being more intransigent…blatantly so, but either side of a disputation like this must remember that on some level they too have a “pony in the race.”  Otherwise they are as ridiculous as the bizarre and inane Republcan Congressman Louie Gohmert, who last year pointed at a Democrat being interviewed, and passionately declared, “Just look at him!  Just look how biased he is!”  This brings to my mind the New Testament admonishment, “We see through a glass darkly.” How tragic if we see darkness in others and not our own.  That is called “projection.”


Having a perspective, and feeling passionate about it, is very human and even desirable.  But when one is “dug in at the heels” on an issue to the point that he is willing to totally disregard another view on the issue, his “dug-in (ness)” will reflect merely a self-serving ego investment; and ego, when pushed to an extreme, cannot back down.  That would be admitting he was “wrong” and acknowledging wrong is a something a very insecure, fragile, egomaniac cannot do  They are inclined to double-down, round up the troops on their side of the disputation, and argue with great passion and intensity.  In an extreme they will use violence rather than endure the sting of humiliation at being wrong, a sting which could be merely the dawning of a very noble human quality–humility.  It takes humility to admit, “Oh, I was not as right as I thought I was.  I wish I’d have listened to the admonishment of the bumper-sticker, ‘Don’t believe everything you think.’”


My concern with this political morass is more than mere politics.  This conflict is about the very definition of reality in our culture, what is real and unreal, what is true and what is untrue, what is acceptable and what is unacceptable.  Oh, of course, distinctions in these matters are always more nebulous that we like to think; but, there are some basic standards of human decency that are usually more or less maintained.  Beneath the surface of the “reality” that we take for granted, there is a substrate which I like to describe as Reality.  Yes, with the capitalized “R” I’m teasing with the notion of “god”, but words like god and the rest of “god-talk” which is usually mere rhetoric I can’t help today but grimace and groan about.  To illustrate my concern, I offer a quote from Shakespeare that describes just about the whole of my spiritual life and what passes for a lot of spiritual life today, “With devotions visage and pious action, they do sugar o’er the devil himself.”  Oh for those days when my perspectival enslavement kept me in the solace of that darkness!!!

					

		
		
	


	

				

			
						

				Will the Madness Ever End?
			

										

					2 Replies				

					


				

			
The White House intervened to prevent the U.S.S. McCain from being seen during the Trump visit to Japan.  The Wall Street Journal reported negotiations between the White House and the U. S. Navy to move this ship “out of sight” so that the President would not see it.  This is because of the rage that Trump has for this now deceased Senator who dared to be critical of him.  Trump denies having anything to do with this decision, of course. Trump may not have had anything to do with this silly decision…directly.  He does not need to as his handlers are completely in his thrall and automatically move to protect this two-year old child from anything that might make him uncomfortable or angry.  Can you imagine the time, energy, and expense that went into this decision-making process and negotiation between the White House and the Navy?  And they even bought a tarp to drape over the ship!


My concern here is not Trump.  He is but the symptom of the madness that is unfolding in our culture, a madness that is daily being aided and abetted by a supporting cast of handlers, aides, cabinet members, and Congress persons.  He has them in his grip and many of them do not have the “awareness” to know it.  Some of them are aware of this I suspect but are stymied by intimidation or black mail, and do not have the courage to speak out.


Trump’s two-year old narcissistic wound has been aided and abetted like this his whole life and he has always felt indomitable.  He still does!  And now he has what he sees as ultimate power, for he is the “duly elected” President of the United States!  Holding that office, to him and his supporting cast, is the ultimate validation of their beliefs and they support him steadfastly. BUT, the “hunger” of a frustrated and angry two-year old can never be satisfied unless an “adult in the room” will find the courage to set limits.  If the “parents” continue to indulge, a monster will be created and catastrophe will ensue.  In my clinical experience, this “catastrophe” often would find a “parent in the room” with my intervention which at times entailed hospitalization or juvenile court referral.  At times, this did not suffice and catastrophe did happen in the form of violence, often leading to incarceration.  The “acting out” of the two-year old, then running amok as a 16 year old, could not be contained other than by the strong arm of the law.  The phenomenon of a “brain-stem without arms and legs” in life is usually reined in by reality; but when “reality” allows it to occupy the Presidency, the peril for all is great.

					

		
		
	


	

				

			
						

				Reality Tightens its Noose on Trump.
			

										

					4 Replies				

					


				

			
I kick the subject of mental illness around a lot in this venue due to my career as a clinician which has given me a perspective to “sniff out” madness pretty readily.  Oh, we are all “mad” to some degree but then there are times when one’s madness goes beyond the pale and then the Shakespearean question is relevant, “What’s mad but to be anything else but mad.”  There are times when the ordinary madness of day to day life approaches the pale and threatens to go beyond it and enter the realm of “nothing else but mad.”


Trump is demonstrating this.  Here and in my other blogs I have noted often of his need to isolate himself in a private world, to cut off any criticism from those who see the world differently than he does, best illustrated with his hatred of, “fake news.”  But now as his “fake news,” known by most of us as “reality,” continues to tighten its noose on him, he is taking even more desperate moves.  The news about the non-disclosure agreements with his advisers and now the “cleaning house” with his staff and cabinet reveal a heightened need to cut off feedback from the outside.  Like Hamlet, overwhelmed with the duress of everyday life, expressed a desire to, “flee to a nutshell and there be the king of infinite spaces,” revealing Shakespeare’s knowledge of the human need to occasionally want a complete escape, even that of lunacy.

					

		
		
	


	

				

			
						

				“Logical Lunacy” Besets All of US (illustrated by cartoon)
			

										

					2 Replies				

					


				

			
 


Image may contain: 8 people, people smiling, text


 


W. H. Auden bemoaned having to put up with the folly of, “a logical lunatic.”  In this cartoon is illustrated a dimension of a rational mind that is meticulously “rational” as long as you are confined to the premise, “I support Trump.”  If you do not support Trump, you will “see through this” and understand the implicit “logical lunacy” of the reasoning process demonstrated.  HOWEVER, this same “splinter in the brain” besets us all and leads to the “lunacy” we witnessed last night when the U.S. Senate could not pass a bill which led to our government shutting down.  There is a tendency with us all to believe only what we want and refuse to consider there is another way of looking at the world.  It is only when both sides of a disagreement can trot out some degree of “meta-cognition” and recognize this that compromise can be found.  When this cannot happen, the opposing sides “hunker down” and draw swords, emphatically declaring, “I’m right!  You’re wrong.—it is always easier to see the “logical lunacy” of the “other guys.”


AN IMPORTANT AFTER THOUGHT–It is so much easier to see the “logical lunacy” of the other guys!