Between the World and Me

a skilled presentation artist, such that one never quite knows what to make of any single outrageous or scary statement. This is not to scrub him of all psychiatric or psychological problems, but much of what he says is for public consumption. My point here is that he may be chameleon-like and therefore difficult to pigeonhole into a single category. The entire list of personality disorders is often hijacked as a way of expressing moral disapproval of a person. The noted German philosopher–psychiatrist Karl Jaspers, in discussing abnormal personalities, which he considers as variants of human nature and not indicative of sickness, describes one type of abnormal personality as craving “to appear, both to themselves and others, as more than they are and to experience more than they are ever capable of. The place of genuine experience and natural expression is usurped by a contrived stage-act, a forced kind of experience” (Ref. 13, p 443). Descriptive labels change over the decades, but the basic condition is recognizable. In summary, this book addresses two publicly noted deficits. One the lack of learned psychiatric commentary on the nature of Mr. Trump’s dramatically unpresidential, mercurial, and troubling behaviors and his fitness to serve as president. The second is the lack of a substantial challenge to the APA’s Goldwater Rule, which seems to stifle psychiatrists from publicly commenting on his mental state. There has been excellent and thoughtful commentary on Mr. Trump from a variety of journalists, public intellectuals both liberal and conservative, and others, but our profession has been largely silent as a result of the Goldwater Rule. Dr. Lee, in this edited book has moved psychiatry into the public forum and, in doing so, has issued a challenge to the APA to open these critically important questions to public debate.