If you know the path to success, you also know the path to neurosis. This is not a metaphor at all, but psychological wisdom. Successful people are often very specific. Not surprisingly, the most successful one may not be very "normal". This is well known to Western scholars who like to understand the psychopathology of their national leaders. Russia has almost no similar research, so today nude science talks about the "diagnosis" of the US president and its consequences.
Barack Obama, Joe Biden and Donald Trump
In this post, for the most part, the conversation is of course about psychological biases that have not yet reached the stage of psychiatric illness - hallucinations or obvious inappropriate behavior (although they are also about them). After all, everyone has certain psychological problems, but the degree is different.
However, this degree is important. For some, the "diagnosis" is only about compulsive hand washing, while for others, the "diagnosis" is about creating an environment where millions of people die.
No conscience
One of the most common and obvious conditions can be called psychosis and narcissism. Most psychologists and psychotherapists share these concepts, but define them as distal ends of roughly the same range. For example, Otto Kernberg, one of the most famous psychoanalysts, does not distinguish these pathologies at all. Very conditionally, narcissism can be called a “lighter” form of psychosis. However, no psychiatric disorder is mentioned in either diagnosis—modern experts tend to call them “moral madness.”
has completely complete intelligence, and such a person has almost no emotional empathy - not only has the ability to empathize and compassion, but also in principle puts himself in another person's position. Nevertheless, narcissists and psychopaths possess developed cognitive transference skills—they have been observing other people’s emotions throughout their lives, and they learn to imitate their performance as accurately as possible and truly master it in this matter.
Usually, narcissism is understood as an extreme degree of narcissism. This is not completely correct, or it is not completely correct. Narcissism is more extensive and more complex. In general, narcissists do have a sense of their own exclusivity and grandeur. However, it is often hidden under the appearance of showing off modesty and self-doubt. Furthermore, even the “big” (i.e., obvious, not hidden) narcissist can realize deep in his heart that his worthlessness is a protection.
The difference between a narcissist and a truly unsafe person (depressed or masochist) is the lack of emotional empathy and human feelings, such as love or affection. They can only portray these emotional reactions in the presence of someone who is “necessary” to them. Instead of the “warm” emotions inherent to most of us, they mainly experience jealousy, anger, pain and shame. Although for a short period of time, they may be pleasant or blindly idealized. People like
prefer to defend themselves at the expense of others (on the one hand, they consider these people worthless, and on the other hand, they feel secretly jealous of them), they are selfish (because they believe in their hearts that all others are similar arrangements but “pretend”) and have a so-called false self-swelling self-conceited in the context of hidden inferiority, shame and emptiness of painful experiences. Furthermore, the images of narcissists and psychopaths are often impeccable: they are charming, confident and able to impress people.
Due to their manipulativeness and lack of conscience, they skillfully manipulate others and love power, so they often succeed in their careers and become leaders and outstanding experts in various fields. One of them is the power at the highest level. Therefore, the indicators of managers' narcissism have become one of the most popular research topics for scientists.
For example, in February last year, an Italian team of experts from Polytechnic University and Bocen-Bolzano Free University published a study in the Leadership Quarterly where they found that narcissistic people are promoted faster on the career ladder.The researchers' survey involved 172 volunteers - CEOs of businesses and companies.
Scientists concluded that those who scored the highest on indicators such as confidence, authoritarianism, dominance and other signs of narcissistic disorders were promoted faster on the career ladder than those who did not possess these qualities. Generally speaking, an increase in narcissism increases the likelihood of holding leadership positions in an organization. Other early studies conducted in the United States have also reached roughly the same conclusions.
The King of Daffodils
Perhaps an effective leader must possess certain characteristics of a narcissist, such as tenacity and the ability to turn a blind eye to the interests of a few to please the majority. But, as you know, everything is modest: Sometimes, a leader’s narcissism can lead to death not only in the family, but also in the entire country or at least in some population groups. In September, John P. Harden, an American political scientist at Ripen College, published a study in the Journal of Conflict Resolution, examining the relationship between the narcissism of U.S. presidents and the duration of the war they launched.
A total of data from 19 presidents leading the states from 1897 to 2007 were analyzed. The most narcissistic American president during this period was Linden Johnson , who held the highest position in the U.S. government from November 1963 to January 1969. By the way, another researcher, Rich Morin, came to the exact same conclusion in 2013. He published his findings in Policy Sharing. According to him, the most narcissistic president in the United States is also Lyndon Johnson.
Linden Johnson
According to Harden's research, the second and third places were shared by Theodore Roosevelt and Richard Nixon, respectively. But the lowest scores of the Narcissism scale are William McKinley , William Howard Taft and Calvin Coolidge . The scientist concluded that the more narcissistic the leader, the longer the war he launched. For example, the average duration of armed conflict between the top eight presidents of this scale is 613 days, while the average duration of leaders with the lowest degree of narcissism lasts 136 days.
In October 2013, other researchers from Emory and Georgia University (USA) published a paper in the journal APS Association for Psychological Science. They found that the U.S. president is more narcissistic than the average population, and the disease is increasing over time for U.S. leaders. A total of 41 U.S. leaders were considered, including George W. Bush .
Each president evaluates his personality in the first five years of his tenure, making the evaluation more objective and independent of the attitude of the person as the head of state.
researchers concluded that over time, all presidents’ exaggerated narcissism increased significantly. In addition, scientists have found that the degree of narcissism among American leaders is naturally higher than that of the national population. It turns out that this is related to objective indicators of the leader’s personality success (e.g., victory in elections) and certain negative aspects of his activities (especially in terms of morality and Congressional impeachment resolutions).
Alcoholism and Bipolar disorder
Scientists at Duke University in the United States conducted the largest study on the mental health of the U.S. president, published in 2006 in the Journal of Neurological and Mental Diseases.
They considered a total of 37 American leaders who led the country from 1776 to 1974. As an independent expert, scientists involve experienced psychiatrists. The confidence level was determined for each president’s diagnosis. Based on these findings, 18 executives (49% of the total) may have some form of mental disorder. The most common are: depression (24%), anxiety (8%), bipolar disorder (8%), alcoholism or other addiction (8%). In 10% of cases, symptoms of the disease were observed during the presidency, which, according to researchers, affected leaders’ work and worsened their performance.
Calvin Coolidge
Biden and dementia
U.S. President Joe Biden's well-known quirk should also be attributed to psychological problems. This is understandable because the current head of state is the oldest American leader in American history. He will turn 80 in November. Only lazy people don’t write about his wonderful ideas before taking office. First, it was the American citizens themselves who even called their leaders an offensive nickname for Joe Dementio. At that time, a corresponding tag appeared on US Twitter - #DementiaJoe.
Even when Biden took office, the conversation on the American social network also began, "He won't last for four years", "Oh, dear America, what did you do", " Harris President was waiting on the sidelines... You were wrong, America!", "Kamala was excited for a moment."
This is understandable – unfortunate Biden either suddenly stumbles, publicly calls his granddaughter the name of his son, or announces his colleague Kamala Harris as the new president, or even confuses the state name. And a few days ago, an old man even... talked to an invisible man. In a video circulating in the media, the U.S. leader left the stage after delivering a welcome speech at the Global Foundation in New York, pausing to start gestures, referring to an invisible interlocutor.
Alas, all of this is very similar to the serious manifestations of dementia. But let's not be groundless, but let's turn to the ancient ICD-10 ( International Disease Classification ), which lists the main symptoms of the disease. Although it has different types, it has common clinical manifestations. The first is memory disorder (divided into three stages: mild, moderate, and severe). First, short-term, but in more severe cases – and long-term. The person does not remember recent events and has difficulty absorbing new information.
Joe Biden
Another symptom is other cognitive function decline. For example, critical perception and thinking. A person’s processing of information is worse than before, and it is harder for him to plan his actions. The direction of space and time is disrupted, and a person loses the desire to learn new things. There are also three stages here.
The third sign is a decrease in emotional control or motivation, or changes in social behavior, manifested as at least one of the following symptoms: emotional instability (emotional fluctuations are due to various, usually trivial reasons), irritability, indifference and roughened social behavior.
The disease itself also has three stages. First, forgetfulness, forgetting time, and being disoriented in familiar areas are observed. Second - forgetfulness of recent events and people's names, disoriented in a family environment, difficulty in communication, needing self-care, difficulty in behavior, including walking aimlessly and asking the same questions. The third stage is already characterized by the loss of time and space, difficulty in identifying relatives and friends, motor difficulties, and behavioral changes that may include aggressive and paranoid tendencies. Both and the other are known to be often accompanied by dementia.
Of course, the diagnosis of the disease should include brain MRI (however, it never always provides all the necessary information) and other neuropsychology studies, but even through the above signs, one can suspect that there is Joe Biden has such a disease. Unfortunately, such conclusions do not bode well for the world or the United States.
As you know, dementia tends to only develop with age (this is usually the main factor in its development). The average life expectancy for this diagnosis is 3 to 12 years. But for those over 65, the average is 6. In this regard, it is interesting to study the findings published by Dr. S. Jay Olshansky on the JAMA Network in December 2011. He shows that the average life expectancy of U.S. leaders is slightly higher than that of U.S. men. Of the 34 American leaders who died of natural causes (in office from 1816 to 1899), 23 lived longer than the average American men.
The average age of death for U.S. leaders is 78 years old.Although it is believed that the president is so stressed that leaders may age faster than ordinary people. But, as Olshansky notes, even so, the average life expectancy of presidents is longer, simply because they have access to a wide range of medical services.
