Speaker 1: Hello, John Mulner. Hi Katie, So this is very exciting listeners. No,
Speaker 1: I am not cheating on Brian with my husband John,
Speaker 1: but Brian is on a family vacation and we thought
Speaker 1: it might be fun for me, for John, and hopefully
Speaker 1: for you to have my husband fill in because we
Speaker 1: obviously talk all the time about a lot of different issues,
Speaker 1: and this guest was actually John's idea. We had a
Speaker 1: conversation of fascinating conversation I thought I thought I was
Speaker 1: I thought I was fascinating, Thank you, But with Carrie Sulkowitz,
Speaker 1: who is a psychiatrist and a psychoanalyst, and it was
Speaker 1: your idea to have him on the podcast. Why Mulner,
Speaker 1: why did you think that was a good idea? Well,
Speaker 1: we were having lunch and Carrie was sharing his views
Speaker 1: of President Trump and some of his behaviors which so
Speaker 1: many people are talking about trying to understand, and he
Speaker 1: had a very clinical, analytical assessment of some of the
Speaker 1: things that we're seeing. And I asked him if he'd
Speaker 1: be willing to come on and talk to you about it. Now.
Speaker 1: I didn't know you were gonna invite me to sit in.
Speaker 1: I don't know what I'm doing here. But let's get
Speaker 1: Brian back quickly. But it was really interesting to hear him,
Speaker 1: and I was somewhat surprised when he said he would
Speaker 1: come on. Yeah. Well, I was pleasantly surprised because a
Speaker 1: lot of mental health professionals don't think it's appropriate to
Speaker 1: opine about the pathology of public officials, certainly the president
Speaker 1: of the United States. But Carry was willing to do that.
Speaker 1: And willing I think he thinks it's really critically important
Speaker 1: to do. One thing to note, though Kerry is not
Speaker 1: your average psychiatrists or psychoanalyst. He actually stopped his clinical
Speaker 1: practice some time ago. He now advises CEOs and senior
Speaker 1: leaders on leadership and management. So here he is Dr
Speaker 1: Carry Sulkowitz. Thank you so much for coming on the podcast.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for inviting me. So I should
Speaker 1: point out, John, you and Carrie know each other pretty
Speaker 1: well from when you were a partner at Brown Brothers Harriman,
Speaker 1: that's true here in New York. Tell me a little
Speaker 1: bit about your relationship. Well, Carrie was hired as an
Speaker 1: executive coach for Brown Brothers and UH and I had
Speaker 1: a chance to work with him, and he helped me
Speaker 1: think about my career and my relationship with other partners
Speaker 1: at the firm and how to help grow the business
Speaker 1: that I was involved in, and then from that a
Speaker 1: personal friendship grew. So you're really an executive coach, would
Speaker 1: you say, now, Carrie, or an executive what? Actually, notwithstanding
Speaker 1: what John just said, which I appreciate, I actually don't
Speaker 1: like that term executive coach, even though I'm sure I've
Speaker 1: been called far worse things. Katie. I'm I'm a psychiatrist
Speaker 1: and a psychoanalyst who about twenty two years or so ago,
Speaker 1: stumbled into the business world and started today consultancy, advising
Speaker 1: CEOs and boards and management teams, really trying to apply
Speaker 1: a clinical perspective to working with leaders and helping them
Speaker 1: on the various challenges they face every day. Well, we
Speaker 1: have so much to talk about, Carry, I'm really and
Speaker 1: me I call you Carry, Dr k Um. So much
Speaker 1: to talk about about leadership, about mental health, mental fitness
Speaker 1: when it comes to our current president. But first I
Speaker 1: want to talk a little bit about you. How did
Speaker 1: you get into this field in the first place. I
Speaker 1: thought it was fascinating that your parents were both Holocaust survivors.
Speaker 1: Can you tell me specifically sort of how your interactions
Speaker 1: with your parents and trying to figure out their pathology
Speaker 1: and their past influenced you going into psychiatry. Yeah, it did. Um.
Speaker 1: They were wonderful people. They're both gone now, unfortunately, but
Speaker 1: it was clear that they were both quite damaged by
Speaker 1: the experience of the world, though it left them with
Speaker 1: certain kinds of strength and resiliency as well. Um, And
Speaker 1: my fascination in part was, you know, how did leaders
Speaker 1: of countries get large groups of people to do good things,
Speaker 1: and especially how did to get them to do bad things,
Speaker 1: including the kinds of things that had happened to my
Speaker 1: parents and many other people who were um incarcerated in
Speaker 1: the Holocaust. So that was rattling around in my head
Speaker 1: as a kid, although I didn't know what to do
Speaker 1: with it. It certainly didn't feel like something that might
Speaker 1: become a career. And I also had a bit of
Speaker 1: my son the Jewish doctor syndrome, and so knew that
Speaker 1: I had to go to medical school uh and did.
Speaker 1: But as a psychiatrist I went into private practice and
Speaker 1: loved some aspects of it. I liked helping people still
Speaker 1: do like the intellectual underpinnings of it, but was a
Speaker 1: little too restless to be sitting in an office all
Speaker 1: day seeing one patient after another. And then actually met
Speaker 1: a my first entrepreneur at a cocktail party, um about
Speaker 1: twenty two years ago. And it turns out that leaders
Speaker 1: need somebody to talk to, and he probably had a
Speaker 1: couple of extra glasses of wine that made it a
Speaker 1: little easier, and he opened up to me about some
Speaker 1: of the challenges he was having being a CEO of
Speaker 1: a startup. And I thought it was just an interesting
Speaker 1: cocktail party conversation until he asked me if I would
Speaker 1: be interested in advising him in his company. That was
Speaker 1: really the beginning of my new career. How does advising
Speaker 1: CEOs differ from advising patients in a clinical setting in
Speaker 1: a number of ways, Katie. First of all, I want
Speaker 1: to make it clear that when I'm advising a CEO,
Speaker 1: they're not my patient. Um My, My work with him
Speaker 1: is undoubtedly informed by my background as a clinician. Uh.
Speaker 1: It kind of comes in handy sometimes to understand something
Speaker 1: about human behavior and various ways people have of dealing
Speaker 1: with complicated feelings. But I'm not treating anybody, um. I
Speaker 1: would also say an important distinction is that when I'm
Speaker 1: working with the CEO. The CEO is part of the client,
Speaker 1: but the client is always the organization itself, and so
Speaker 1: it allows me an access to the CEO of the
Speaker 1: management team, the board, a more systemic immersion in the life,
Speaker 1: the business, the culture of the organization. And when you're
Speaker 1: dealing with CEOs who have all that authority and power
Speaker 1: within an organization, how does that sort of authority reflect
Speaker 1: itself in the personality of the of the leaders of organizations.
Speaker 1: The CEO, as I would say, are people first and foremost,
Speaker 1: but there are people who are affected by the roles
Speaker 1: that they're in, and those roles change them in some
Speaker 1: profound ways. Um CEOs are isolated. They are inherently lonely.
Speaker 1: The nature of power is such that it inhibits the
Speaker 1: upward flow of information to them, and so they often
Speaker 1: don't really hear what they need to hear, what's going
Speaker 1: on down below. And they also don't have anybody to
Speaker 1: really confide in inside their organization for the same reason,
Speaker 1: so they need somebody to talk to their lonely. They're isolated,
Speaker 1: their anxious, They're dealing with complexity, ambiguity every day, so
Speaker 1: they're constantly faced with new challenges that they don't know
Speaker 1: the answer to, and so how do you how do
Speaker 1: you find it? When you then challenge CEO, who's you
Speaker 1: to making a decision and having a decision implemented? Where
Speaker 1: you say, well, is that the right of course of action?
Speaker 1: Is that the right decision? Have you weighed other factors?
Speaker 1: I do that all the time. I challenge CEOs, but
Speaker 1: I don't necessarily do it in the first few minutes
Speaker 1: of talking to them. Have you ever had as CEO
Speaker 1: say you're fired? You know, there have been some engagements
Speaker 1: a few of them that haven't worked out, but it
Speaker 1: happens pretty rarely. I mean, I try to be patient.
Speaker 1: I try to establish a relationship. I try to establish
Speaker 1: some trust, which of course doesn't happen immediately. I should
Speaker 1: also point out that there is a self selection that
Speaker 1: goes on in terms of the kinds of CEOs that
Speaker 1: I work with, that I bet a lot of them
Speaker 1: wouldn't want anything to do with someone like you, with
Speaker 1: all due respect, no no, no disrespect taken there. It's
Speaker 1: absolutely true. The really egregiously narcissistic, difficult, horrible CEO is
Speaker 1: the bad bosses that people talk about. For the most part,
Speaker 1: they're not calling me, they're well, they're not self aware
Speaker 1: enough to call you, right, And that's the it. Self
Speaker 1: awareness is really the key here. The ones that call
Speaker 1: me have a modicum of self awareness, at the very least.
Speaker 1: Nobody's ever fully self aware, but they have some sense
Speaker 1: of their own loneliness, their own need to have somebody
Speaker 1: to talk to. There may be people problems on their team,
Speaker 1: there may be leadership challenges that they're facing that they
Speaker 1: don't know how to deal with, and they need someone
Speaker 1: to bring that perspective to bear. I want to talk
Speaker 1: to you about sort of the need to have someone
Speaker 1: in the organization be the truth teller for the leader.
Speaker 1: I think I read a piece that you wrote in
Speaker 1: the Harvard Business Review about how leaders pick people they
Speaker 1: can confide in, but that those confidants can ultimately be
Speaker 1: exceedingly damaging to the CEOs to most CEOs have a
Speaker 1: tendency and do they have to fight against this of
Speaker 1: picking sickophants and people who will basically echo and and
Speaker 1: be a yes person right right so? And and how
Speaker 1: big a problem is that I wouldn't make the generalization
Speaker 1: that most CEOs tend to pick sick of fans part
Speaker 1: of what I was trying to to say in this
Speaker 1: article that you mentioned in the Harvard Business of You
Speaker 1: a number of years ago, is that the the confidante
Speaker 1: that a CEO chooses is an absolute reflection of the
Speaker 1: CEOs psychology to begin with. So the better CEOs, and
Speaker 1: we can talk about what a better CEO is, but
Speaker 1: the better CEOs, the ones that are more self aware,
Speaker 1: the ones that are more attuned to the fact that
Speaker 1: they need someone to talk to to help them think
Speaker 1: through things, are not going to pick the sick of fans.
Speaker 1: They're going to pick the ones who talk straight to them,
Speaker 1: who speak truth to power, so to speak. Um, the
Speaker 1: ones who are more narcissistic, the ones who are more
Speaker 1: fragile in terms of their self esteem, they're the ones
Speaker 1: who are going to pick the sick of fans who
Speaker 1: just tell them what they want to hear. Is Narcissisms
Speaker 1: come up a couple of times. I have a feeling
Speaker 1: it may come up more in the discussion as we
Speaker 1: go on. But but to some extent, would all CEOs
Speaker 1: have a level of narcissistic characteristics or behaviors or is
Speaker 1: not necessarily true? That's a great opportunity for you for
Speaker 1: me to give you my thirty second lecture on narcissism.
Speaker 1: Thank you. The term narcissism, certainly as it's used in
Speaker 1: popular culture, is never meant as a compliment. Uh. It's
Speaker 1: usually meant as an epithet. It's thrown around a lot
Speaker 1: too casually. But narcissism is something that is better thought of,
Speaker 1: at least in my view, as something that exists on
Speaker 1: a spectrum, and we all have some of it, right,
Speaker 1: There's a degree of healthy narcissism that is necessary for
Speaker 1: any of us to be successful in life, to care
Speaker 1: about how we show up for work every day. I
Speaker 1: think of that that musical avenue que. Everybody's a little
Speaker 1: bit racist. I always think everybody is a little bit narcissistic.
Speaker 1: That's right, everybody is a little bit narcissistic. And in fact,
Speaker 1: some people could use a little bit more of it.
Speaker 1: The people who are too shy and retiring and and
Speaker 1: and hide away and or don't put enough attention into
Speaker 1: how they appear, or don't take pleasure in their work.
Speaker 1: Those are all aspects of what I would describe as
Speaker 1: healthy narcissism. So if you think of it on a
Speaker 1: spectrum with healthy narcissism at one end and unhealthy or
Speaker 1: pathological variations at the other end. I think it's just
Speaker 1: a more holistic way, even though I think sometimes people
Speaker 1: want to see things as black and white, like you
Speaker 1: either have it or you don't. But narcissism is not
Speaker 1: like pneumonia or appendicitist that where you either have it
Speaker 1: or you don't. So on a scale of one to ten,
Speaker 1: one being not enough narcissism and tend being way too much,
Speaker 1: what sort of balance are we looking for in the
Speaker 1: most effective uh, corporate leaders or political leaders that you
Speaker 1: see where we're on the scale? Does that fun? You
Speaker 1: sound like the finance guy that I know you to be.
Speaker 1: I need a number. Carry, Give me a number for you,
Speaker 1: I will say somewhere between five and seven. But I
Speaker 1: don't think that way, so I don't. We'll save that
Speaker 1: for a private conversation. I'm not gonna weigh in on
Speaker 1: this conversation, but let me I mean carry our most
Speaker 1: successful people. Do they rate high on the narcissism scale?
Speaker 1: Because I feel like narcissists can be exceedingly charming, They're
Speaker 1: really good at get getting what they want, UM often
Speaker 1: high emotional intelligence. Am I crazy? No, you're not crazy.
Speaker 1: But I would say that that narcissism and emotional intelligence
Speaker 1: are not mutually exclusive up until a point, and then
Speaker 1: when you cross over into the more pathological realm of narcissism,
Speaker 1: then emotional intelligence falls off a cliff and you lose
Speaker 1: that ability to read other people. You lose the ability
Speaker 1: to empathize, and that's really critical here, the ability to
Speaker 1: transiently put yourselves in the emotional shoes of somebody else.
Speaker 1: That's my definition of empathy, by the way, is an
Speaker 1: absolutely essential quality of a really good leader. But if
Speaker 1: you're really narcissistic, the only person you care about is yourself.
Speaker 1: You can't relate to understand care about emotions. The other
Speaker 1: side empathy is the other side of the coin with
Speaker 1: respect to narcissism. At the at the severe end of
Speaker 1: the scale of narcissism, there's very little empathy. I hate
Speaker 1: to dive in to narcissism too deeply, but I dated
Speaker 1: a guy who I thought was a narcissist, not not
Speaker 1: my husband, and um, you know, I spent a lot
Speaker 1: of time in the self help section of Barnes and
Speaker 1: Noble because I had never experienced a narcissistic personality. And
Speaker 1: one of the things that I think is misunderstood and
Speaker 1: carry your you're the expert. But from all the reading
Speaker 1: that I've done is you know, narcissist staring at his
Speaker 1: reflection in the in the pond or whatever. And the
Speaker 1: mythology of narcissism it seems to connote someone has incredible
Speaker 1: hubrists and think so highly of himself or herself. But
Speaker 1: what I thought was interesting, this comes from deep, deep,
Speaker 1: deep insecurity and this feeling that it's really overcompensating for
Speaker 1: feeling less than And is that accurate? That is accurate.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna run a follow some of the self help
Speaker 1: book writers, but that's one of the problems with any
Speaker 1: self help book is that it's necessarily general. They're certainly
Speaker 1: intended to be helpful, and I don't question the intentions,
Speaker 1: but they don't necessarily get into the deeper underpinnings of this,
Speaker 1: which actually helps us empathize with the narcissists. I think
Speaker 1: that's because you know, I read a lot. You know,
Speaker 1: I was went through a bad period of my life
Speaker 1: and I read a lot about this and a lot
Speaker 1: about modeling about um, you know, someone forming a sense
Speaker 1: of self very early on in their life and how
Speaker 1: that contributes later to this narcissistic personality disorder. That's right.
Speaker 1: We I want to make it really clear that when
Speaker 1: we're talking about whether it's narcissism or sociopathy or a
Speaker 1: whole host of other psychological phenomenon that may come up
Speaker 1: in this conversation, we're not passing moral judgment about any
Speaker 1: of it. These are not moral judgments. These are clinical assessments,
Speaker 1: and those are two very very different things. We have
Speaker 1: to keep them separate to your question, Katie, about the
Speaker 1: roots of narcissism, which I think is really what you're
Speaker 1: asking about. It's not about somebody's a bad person and
Speaker 1: that they're spoiled and need to be lapped on the
Speaker 1: wrist or somehow received some kind of training. The roots
Speaker 1: of narcissism, certainly from a psychoalytic point of view, go
Speaker 1: way back to early childhood and usually are an individual's
Speaker 1: very understandable response to certain kinds of emotional deprivation or
Speaker 1: trauma in their early years. And it's hard to generalize
Speaker 1: about that because, as we know, children can be scarred
Speaker 1: in all sorts of ways, infinite ways. But the people
Speaker 1: who come up through childhood and early adulthood and develop
Speaker 1: into a narcissistic character. M have not had easy childhood's,
Speaker 1: even if they look like they have grown up in
Speaker 1: households of great privilege. It's time for us to take
Speaker 1: a quick break. When we return, we'll talk with Dr
Speaker 1: Carry Sulkowitz about the mental health of the most powerful
Speaker 1: man in the world. No, not you, Mulner, the President
Speaker 1: of the United States. That's right after this, and now
Speaker 1: back with Dr Carry psychoist. One of the reasons we
Speaker 1: were interested in having you come in, Carrie, is talking
Speaker 1: about the pathology and the President of the United States,
Speaker 1: Donald Trump. There has been a lot of conversations about
Speaker 1: his mental state or whether he is actually mentally fit
Speaker 1: to lead the country. And narcissism is specifically malignant narcissism
Speaker 1: has come up quite a bit. What's the difference between
Speaker 1: your run of the male narcissist and a malignant narcissist.
Speaker 1: Let me back up a minute if I can, um
Speaker 1: I want to avoid the psychiatric approach and take the
Speaker 1: more psychoanalytic approach here and discussing it. Frankly, I think
Speaker 1: it's more helpful to people who are listening to this
Speaker 1: and who are looking to understand tell us the difference.
Speaker 1: So the difference and I'm both, I'm trend as a
Speaker 1: psychiatrist and psychoanalyst, But the psychiatric approach is largely a
Speaker 1: medical based approach that is focused on the diagnosis of
Speaker 1: mental illness and and of course the treatment of that illness.
Speaker 1: When it comes to talking about a public figure, it's
Speaker 1: something that I think is frankly not that helpful. There's
Speaker 1: a whole controversy around that which we can get into
Speaker 1: as well, the so called Goldwater water, the Goldwater Rule.
Speaker 1: But I I think I find it personally less interesting
Speaker 1: to try to attach a label uh to a president
Speaker 1: or to anybody else for that matter. And more I
Speaker 1: want to try to understand observable behavior, behavior that's observable
Speaker 1: to all of us, not just to those who are
Speaker 1: clinically trained, as well as the appeal of that behavior
Speaker 1: to people who support him and like him and don't
Speaker 1: question him. Let's talk about your analysis as a result
Speaker 1: of everything that you've witnessed, that you've seen the president's behavior,
Speaker 1: the president's way of communicating via tweets, speeches, that he's given,
Speaker 1: his behavior rallies. What do you think about his personality
Speaker 1: or his pathology. And I'm going to try to put
Speaker 1: this in terms that are certainly informed by my clinical perspective,
Speaker 1: but that really come through the lens of being an
Speaker 1: advisor to leaders. That's the That's the lens that interests
Speaker 1: me the most, and I think is most relevant because
Speaker 1: for better or worse, he is the leader of the
Speaker 1: free world, at least the leader of this country. Uh.
Speaker 1: And after all the talk about narcissism, I would say
Speaker 1: that his narcissism is only one part of what we
Speaker 1: are dealing with here. Uh. In fact, his narcissism, while
Speaker 1: so obvious. I mean, look, Katie, you don't have to
Speaker 1: be Sigmund Freud to decide that Donald Trump is narcissistic
Speaker 1: as an adjective, what about malignant le narcissistic? Well, malignant
Speaker 1: is a is a word that is used to describe
Speaker 1: the extremes. It's not a black or white, sharp distinction.
Speaker 1: But he is. He is out there in terms of
Speaker 1: his his clear focus on himself. But the reason why
Speaker 1: I want to move a little bit beyond his narcissism,
Speaker 1: even though I'm not in any way diminishing the importance
Speaker 1: of it, particularly the lack of empathy is that while
Speaker 1: his narcissistic behavior is so obvious, so overt, the very
Speaker 1: fact that it is so prominent obscures other aspects of
Speaker 1: his psychology and his behavior than, in some ways are
Speaker 1: more troubling to me. I should also point out that
Speaker 1: narcissism alone has never precluded anyone from being president, and
Speaker 1: if we look at the modern presidents of this country,
Speaker 1: some of the more narcissistic ones have been arguably very
Speaker 1: successful presidents, and those who were on the lesser end
Speaker 1: of the narcissistic spectrum arguably have been less successful as presidents.
Speaker 1: To foot put this in terms of narcissism alone, I
Speaker 1: think misses the complexity of the issue. Carrie, give us
Speaker 1: some background on the Goldwater Rule, when that came about,
Speaker 1: and why that limits other medical professionals from opining on
Speaker 1: public figures. The Goldwater rule traces its history back to
Speaker 1: the nineteen sixty for presidential election, when very Goldwater was
Speaker 1: running for president. Of course, he didn't win, but during
Speaker 1: that campaign, a magazine that existed at the time that's
Speaker 1: lo gone called Fact Magazine, published a survey of American psychiatrists.
Speaker 1: Members of the American Psychiatric Association UM and many of
Speaker 1: them felt that Goldwater was unfit to serve by virtue
Speaker 1: of his mental health, and that in particular, that he
Speaker 1: had a paranoid personality. That's what they said in the
Speaker 1: magazine published that survey. Of course, the election was over,
Speaker 1: Goldwater lost, and after the election he sued not the psychiatrist,
Speaker 1: but he sued the magazine itself for libel, and this
Speaker 1: case dragged out for a number of years. Ultimately he won,
Speaker 1: but it sent the psychiatric profession reeling. The American Psychiatric
Speaker 1: Association and in particular, studied this problem and came up
Speaker 1: with what then became known as the Goldwater Rule, which
Speaker 1: if I remember correctly, came out in the early seventies,
Speaker 1: So there was a long period of time between the
Speaker 1: election and the issuance of this rule, which has just
Speaker 1: recently been updated even more strongly by the A p A.
Speaker 1: Which basically says, if you do not have personal experience
Speaker 1: with an individual, seeing them face to face, um, you're
Speaker 1: in no position to evaluate them. That's right. That The
Speaker 1: rule basically says two simple things. One is that you
Speaker 1: can't make a diagnosis at a distance. You can't make
Speaker 1: a diagnosis without actually examining the patient. And then the
Speaker 1: corollarity of that is, if you do examine someone as
Speaker 1: a patient, then you're bound by reasons concidentiality. But I'm yeah,
Speaker 1: But my own view is I actually find the gold
Speaker 1: Water rule invalid and not helpful and frankly stifling of
Speaker 1: freedom of speech. I think it's I agree with one
Speaker 1: narrow aspect of it. It's not responsible to be slinging
Speaker 1: around diagnoses as epithets. But that's not what we're talking
Speaker 1: about here. Uh And so I actually find the gold
Speaker 1: Water Rule relatively irrelevant to the current discussion. Any commentator,
Speaker 1: whether you're trained clinically as a psychiatrist, psychologist, psychoanalyst, or
Speaker 1: anybody else for that matter, can comment on the mental
Speaker 1: state of of another person. It's nice to be able
Speaker 1: to comment on it if you have some training and
Speaker 1: doing so. Um. And these days, there is an abundance
Speaker 1: of publicly available information about public figures that there wasn't
Speaker 1: back in nineteen sixty four. Well, that's what I was
Speaker 1: going to ask you about. I mean, so as you
Speaker 1: compare uh, in person sessions with a person compared to
Speaker 1: social media articles, speeches, things that are in the public record,
Speaker 1: other information the public domain. What's the qualitative difference between
Speaker 1: the two as you as you're trying to form a judgment,
Speaker 1: or for that matter, we're trying for the irony, and
Speaker 1: the qualitative difference between looking at all of this detailed, nuanced,
Speaker 1: colorful information in the public domain versus talking to somebody
Speaker 1: in private, particularly for some kinds of people, and I
Speaker 1: would be inclined to put the President in that category.
Speaker 1: You'll you'll probably get a lot more from publicly available
Speaker 1: information than from examining him privately. For the fact of
Speaker 1: the matter, well, it's less staged. He is never going
Speaker 1: to I think it's fairly safe to assume that he
Speaker 1: is never going to seek out treatment because he doesn't
Speaker 1: think there's anything wrong. That's one of the reasons why
Speaker 1: narcissistic people never go to a psychiatrist and say, Doc,
Speaker 1: can you help me with my narcissism? That just doesn't happen.
Speaker 1: But you know, how comfortable are you speaking out carry
Speaker 1: because I know the American Psychiatric Association still abides by
Speaker 1: the Goldwater Rule. It's the largest psychiatric organization in the world.
Speaker 1: Are a lot of people in your field, uh, do
Speaker 1: they feel this is just grossly inappropriate? Some do, but
Speaker 1: many don't, and many psychiatrists, psychologist, psychoanalysts have spoken out
Speaker 1: very publicly about Trump, again, not to issue a diagnosis,
Speaker 1: but to talk about the phenomenon that we're all observing
Speaker 1: and troubled by personally. I'm not even a member of
Speaker 1: the American Psychiatric Association, haven't been for probably two decades, uh,
Speaker 1: And I'm speaking as a as a private citizen who
Speaker 1: happens to be trained as a psychoanalyst. There are many
Speaker 1: mental health professionals carry who agree with you. There's an
Speaker 1: organization called Duty to Warn, and I think they've amassed
Speaker 1: something like thirty eight thousand signatures, many from mental health professionals,
Speaker 1: apparently saying that this group believes it has a moral
Speaker 1: obligation to speak out about Donald Trump and his his
Speaker 1: mental capacity. So do you agree with that? I do agree.
Speaker 1: My name is among those thirty eight thousand or so,
Speaker 1: and I have no hesitation to sign on to that.
Speaker 1: I do feel that that's right. The one of the
Speaker 1: hallmarks of a clinical perspective is a duty to warn,
Speaker 1: which quite simply is that it's it's the one thing
Speaker 1: that supersedes confidentiality, and that that if you learn and again,
Speaker 1: it's it doesn't fully apply because we're not talking about
Speaker 1: a clinical relationship with the president, obviously, But if you
Speaker 1: learn that somebody is dangerous to themselves or to others,
Speaker 1: there is a duty on the part of the mental
Speaker 1: health professional to warn the appropriate authorities. In this case,
Speaker 1: one would argue the public at large about that danger.
Speaker 1: Are you a Democrat or Republican? I'm a registered Democrat.
Speaker 1: And some listeners might be hearing this, Kerry and thinking
Speaker 1: your politics are seeping in to your judgment about Donald Trump.
Speaker 1: What would you say to them? And if in fact
Speaker 1: his politics were more aligned with yours and his policy
Speaker 1: proposals were more in keeping with yours, do you think
Speaker 1: you would find his personal behavior or the way he
Speaker 1: conducts himself less repugnant. I think it's a great question.
Speaker 1: There is no question that my political views vary with
Speaker 1: Trump's quite a bit and affect my my feelings about him. Um.
Speaker 1: I was not a fan of George Bush. Uh I
Speaker 1: was not a fan of Bush's politics either, but I
Speaker 1: never thought that his psychopathology was the primary issue that
Speaker 1: was about political differences. You did once right, though, that
Speaker 1: George W. Bush kind of dissed the notion of therapy,
Speaker 1: and you didn't think that was a good thing because
Speaker 1: he made a comment about not wanting to get on
Speaker 1: the couch and talk about what he did in a
Speaker 1: rock that you're referring to a letter that I had
Speaker 1: published in the New York Times that was about a
Speaker 1: comment that Bush made, um about showing his lack of
Speaker 1: curiosity to learn from the mistakes of the invasion of Baghdad. Um.
Speaker 1: And Uh, I thought that he by saying that that
Speaker 1: was he was gonna leave that for somebody to be
Speaker 1: on the couch about. That was a bit of a
Speaker 1: gratuitous slam about the mental health professions. But that wasn't
Speaker 1: about Bush's psychopathology. UM. So, to answer your question directly,
Speaker 1: do my politics affect my views of Trump? Undoubtedly they do.
Speaker 1: How can they not infuse or informed to some degree
Speaker 1: what I'm saying. And it's difficult to to tease those
Speaker 1: apart entirely. Um. But I think that what makes this
Speaker 1: even more compelling is I think that a lot of Republicans, Um,
Speaker 1: I'm not sure they liked Trump all that much either,
Speaker 1: and I think they're as observant as anybody else about
Speaker 1: his his quirk, his personality, uh distortions and so forth.
Speaker 1: I think that some are exploiting the moment of his
Speaker 1: presidency now to get certain policies in place, But I
Speaker 1: don't think there's any particular love there, And as soon
Speaker 1: as his ability to keep that window of policy opportunity
Speaker 1: open closes, I don't think that anyone's going to rush
Speaker 1: to his defense. Let's talk about people who like what
Speaker 1: they see. Over nine of the people the last poll
Speaker 1: I checked said they would vote for Donald Trump all
Speaker 1: over again. And I read an interesting essay by an
Speaker 1: editor of a newspaper in Ohio that endorsed Trump, and
Speaker 1: he explains what his supporters like about the president even still.
Speaker 1: He writes, they appreciate Trump's America First agenda not because
Speaker 1: they believe in isolationism, but because they believe the United
Speaker 1: States and its citizens should be the government's top priority.
Speaker 1: What Trump's supporters also appreciate about him are the very
Speaker 1: attributes for which he is relentlessly criticized in the media.
Speaker 1: People here, a farming community supplemented by modest pain retail
Speaker 1: jobs and a few factory opportunities, are frank and plain spoken.
Speaker 1: They're weary of politicians whose every statement seems carefully crafted
Speaker 1: to say nothing and offend no one. You know, I
Speaker 1: agree with a lot of that myself. I might add
Speaker 1: I think that the priority of a president should be
Speaker 1: the American people, although I do think that the American
Speaker 1: presidency involves taking a role in the world, not just
Speaker 1: in the United States. But I agree that that Americans
Speaker 1: should be the priority of the president. Um. I think
Speaker 1: the plane spokenness is a is a complicated issue there too,
Speaker 1: because that gets into the whole discussion of political correctness,
Speaker 1: which I think is a term that has been so
Speaker 1: co opted by the political right to be an excuse
Speaker 1: for saying whatever kind of garbage, including racist and misogynists
Speaker 1: and so on, garbage comes to their minds. So I
Speaker 1: think that term has ceased to be useful because it
Speaker 1: originally preferred to being sensitive to other people's feelings, and
Speaker 1: I think that they're still room for that. I don't
Speaker 1: think we should be saying whatever comes to our mind.
Speaker 1: That's a terrible idea if that's what the opposition to
Speaker 1: political correctness means. But I think that the people who
Speaker 1: are in parts of the country who are economically disadvantaged,
Speaker 1: who are struggling with the opioided epidemic, who are disadvantaged
Speaker 1: in all sorts of ways, and who have been neglected
Speaker 1: by their their government, local and national people who I
Speaker 1: understand their distrust of politicians making a glib, meaningless, superficial
Speaker 1: comments designed to get reelected. So I'm extremely sympathetic to
Speaker 1: and supportive of their of their plight, and we need
Speaker 1: to do something about it. And I'm not saying that
Speaker 1: there that the Democrats have got that all figured out
Speaker 1: either and have addressed any of that with with anything
Speaker 1: approaching adequacy. What concerns me, though, is that Trump's psychology
Speaker 1: plays into the very vulnerability of those people. That is
Speaker 1: part of why they're suffering right now, and they're being
Speaker 1: duped into believing that this man who makes these glibs, simplistic,
Speaker 1: boil it down to phrases kinds of comments, is going
Speaker 1: to help them. And I am worried that they are
Speaker 1: wrong and tragically wrong, and that electing a president like
Speaker 1: this is voting against their self interest. Okay, so suppose
Speaker 1: that a board of directors had asked you to look
Speaker 1: at this candidate ceo, candidate Trump, that we were considering
Speaker 1: appointing this person as CEO of a corporation what would
Speaker 1: be the summary of of your observations. I would raise
Speaker 1: concerns about his ability to inspire with a moral purpose,
Speaker 1: and I think moral leadership is actually the highest form
Speaker 1: of leadership, and I don't see that from him. He
Speaker 1: is a leader. If you define leadership most narrowly, it's
Speaker 1: and it sounds like a circular thing I'm about to say,
Speaker 1: but leadership has to do with the ability to inspire followership,
Speaker 1: and clearly he has done that. So did Hitler and Mussolini.
Speaker 1: They inspired followership. Whether or not there was a moral
Speaker 1: purpose and an ethical basis to their leadership is another story.
Speaker 1: So I don't think he has that. I think that
Speaker 1: other aspects of his leadership that are troubling to me
Speaker 1: are his impulsivity. He is an impulse written character who
Speaker 1: has apparently very little tolerance for frustration or for delayed gratification.
Speaker 1: He has to have it now, and he does it now.
Speaker 1: That's evidenced by his tweets and by his shoot from
Speaker 1: the hip approach to just about everything. I don't think
Speaker 1: he's particularly intelligent, so looking at his cognitive abilities, I
Speaker 1: think he's not a reader, a studier. He has to
Speaker 1: have everything dumbed down into bullet points. I, for one,
Speaker 1: would like to have a president or a leader who
Speaker 1: who actually digs deeply into the issues and recognizes that
Speaker 1: that problems are complex, not not overly simplified. He So,
Speaker 1: there's there's impulsivity, there's narcissism. There, there's what I would
Speaker 1: describe as sociopathy, and that to me may be the
Speaker 1: most troubling at all. Which what does that mean? Well,
Speaker 1: So to define terms, first, there are there are three
Speaker 1: terms that are often used relatively interchangeably and and appropriately,
Speaker 1: so people refer to sociopathy, psychopathy, and then there's a
Speaker 1: psychiatric diagnostic term called the antisocial personality disorder. Again, that's
Speaker 1: making it a medical kind of disorder, which is why
Speaker 1: it's my least favorite of those three terms. But they're
Speaker 1: all essentially the same um. Sociopathy has to do with
Speaker 1: extremes of lack of empathy. These you'll notice that these
Speaker 1: these terms blur, and that's the nature of things. People
Speaker 1: don't fall neatly into one bucket or another. Extremes of
Speaker 1: lack of empathy the willingness to harm others without any
Speaker 1: apparent conscience, and it's the absence of a conscience that
Speaker 1: is one of the most prominent features of sociopathy. UM
Speaker 1: and certainly you often hear that Donald Trump refuses to
Speaker 1: apologize for anything or except blame for anything, and is
Speaker 1: that consistent with this sort of pathology? It is consistent
Speaker 1: with that not only does he refuse to accept blame
Speaker 1: or responsibility, but he uses what is what a psychoanalyst
Speaker 1: would describe as a very primitive defense mechanism for dealing
Speaker 1: with that, and that is called projection. In other words,
Speaker 1: if he does something wrong, rather than own it or
Speaker 1: even denying it, he both denies it and then attributes
Speaker 1: it to somebody else. So if if somebody is if
Speaker 1: he's feeling m vulnerable, then he projects that vulnerability onto
Speaker 1: someone else and makes them feel weak. Are there qualities
Speaker 1: that you've observed in the President United States that you
Speaker 1: admire or that you think are bona fide strengths. I'm
Speaker 1: hard pressed to find them in isolation, because I think
Speaker 1: they can't be evaluated or really looked at that way.
Speaker 1: I think they have to be looked at in in aggregate.
Speaker 1: And the totality of his personality is something that I
Speaker 1: find terrifying because of its ability to inspire and permit
Speaker 1: bad behavior and others. Well, the point you talked about
Speaker 1: in terms of inspiring moral purpose or leadership, if I
Speaker 1: simplified that when you go around and you look at
Speaker 1: the cabinet meeting and you have these very accomplished people
Speaker 1: former president of Goldman Sachs, former CEO, chairman of Exxon Mobile,
Speaker 1: and other cabinet leaders and senior members of the administration
Speaker 1: praising the president. Let's take a listen to that cabinet
Speaker 1: meeting that John's referring to. Maybe start with Mike and
Speaker 1: we'll just go down and just you name your position,
Speaker 1: and then will ask these folks to go back and
Speaker 1: have a good day, and we're going to discuss the
Speaker 1: various supports. Mike, thank you as president, and just greatest
Speaker 1: privilege of my life. It's the surveyor as vice president,
Speaker 1: who a president is keeping his word of the American people.
Speaker 1: This is a team he was as symbol that's working
Speaker 1: hand and love with the betterment America. I don't I
Speaker 1: want to thank you for that. These are a great
Speaker 1: team members and we're on your taking. Thank you so exactly.
Speaker 1: Exac bright message and is being responded the responses fagness
Speaker 1: around the country. So Carrie. Here, you have this group
Speaker 1: of senior people that are happy to be under the
Speaker 1: leadership of President Trump. How do you explain that and
Speaker 1: basically slobbering all over him. Carry Let's just be honest.
Speaker 1: On an emotional level, I found it disgusting the behavior
Speaker 1: of the members of that cabinet. But it's understandable too,
Speaker 1: in that they are members of the cabinet and he
Speaker 1: is the President of the United States, and they're terrified
Speaker 1: that they're going to get fired if they don't fall
Speaker 1: in line, right, And that, Katie is exactly the problem.
Speaker 1: It's not just that they were kissing his behind in
Speaker 1: that meeting, but it's that they are doing that in
Speaker 1: a way that is a reflection of the power differential
Speaker 1: that exists. They are afraid of him. So the fact
Speaker 1: that they're accomplished executives in their own right, which of
Speaker 1: course is true, uh, doesn't really have much to do
Speaker 1: with the context that they're in now. They're not there
Speaker 1: as the CEO of Exxon or of a senior person
Speaker 1: at Goldman Sat. There there is the member as members
Speaker 1: of his cabinet, and it's a way of pledging allegiance,
Speaker 1: and that's what people do with totalitarian leaders who are
Speaker 1: who are cruel, who are sadistic, and who demand either
Speaker 1: overtly or more often uh covertly, demand that kind of
Speaker 1: pledge of allegiance. I'd love to pick your brain about
Speaker 1: a couple of other episodes that we've witnessed. Here's a
Speaker 1: clip of President Trump's first address as president, when he
Speaker 1: spoke to people at the CIA, when he fixated on
Speaker 1: the attendance at his inauguration. Let's listen and then we'll discuss.
Speaker 1: This was in front of the Wall of Honor. Yes,
Speaker 1: And I turned on and by mistake, I get this
Speaker 1: network and it showed an empty field and it said
Speaker 1: we drew two hundred and fifty thousand people. Now that's
Speaker 1: that bad, but it's a lie. We had two hundred
Speaker 1: and fifty thousand people literally around, you know, in the
Speaker 1: little ball that we constructed, that was two hundred and
Speaker 1: fifty thousand people. The rest of the you know, twenty
Speaker 1: block area all the way back to the Washington Monument
Speaker 1: was peck So we caught them, and we caught them
Speaker 1: in a beauty. And I think that a lot of
Speaker 1: people talked about how inappropriate it was for him to
Speaker 1: raise this in front of as John mentioned, the wall
Speaker 1: of honor people who had sacrificed their lives as working
Speaker 1: for the CIA through the years. I mean, it's a
Speaker 1: very sacred place in that building. But it also seems
Speaker 1: to reflect carry a pattern of behavior of getting fixated,
Speaker 1: of trying to right wrongs, of trying to be correct
Speaker 1: in his assertion, whether it's losing the popular vote and
Speaker 1: insisting that there were a lot there was a lot
Speaker 1: of illegal voting or else he would have won the
Speaker 1: popular vote, insisting about the crowd at his inauguration. We've
Speaker 1: seen this sort of repeating itself. What does that suggest
Speaker 1: to you? He is preoccupied with his image, again consistent
Speaker 1: with the nurse sis m. He is preoccupied with the
Speaker 1: appearance of bigness, and he needs to be big and
Speaker 1: bigger than everybody, whether that's the crowd that he's got
Speaker 1: or god knows what else, has to be bigger than
Speaker 1: everybody else is and he's bragged about that too. Um.
Speaker 1: He also is preoccupied with the idea that others are lying,
Speaker 1: and that's what I was talking about earlier when I
Speaker 1: was talking about projection. Um. He lies frequently, and the
Speaker 1: press has made a sport of cataloging all of his lives.
Speaker 1: But he is constantly accusing others of lying. And that's
Speaker 1: that's what a great example of projection, where he's disavowing
Speaker 1: something that he does in attributing it to somebody else.
Speaker 1: As far as you can tell, carry, is there anyone
Speaker 1: in President Trump's inner circle, either professionally or personally, who
Speaker 1: has the power to tell him what he doesn't want
Speaker 1: to hear? One would hope based on their pedigrees, their credentials,
Speaker 1: But I haven't seen much evidence of it yet. Of course,
Speaker 1: I'm not at all privy to what's going on behind
Speaker 1: closed doors, but people don't last very long, apparently, around
Speaker 1: this president if they do tell him the truth, if
Speaker 1: they speak truth to power. What do you make of
Speaker 1: Trump's affection for leaders like Vladimir Putin? He seems to
Speaker 1: be drawn to Vladimir Putin and other kind of strong men,
Speaker 1: if you will, what's that about? He? You're right, it's
Speaker 1: fascinating that he's drawn to to putting another strong men leaders. Uh,
Speaker 1: And I think that in some ways he identifies with that.
Speaker 1: It's aspirational for him. I think he uh sees that
Speaker 1: the only kind of valid leadership is leadership and involves
Speaker 1: exerting absolute power and control um and Putin has been
Speaker 1: at it for a lot longer than than Trump has.
Speaker 1: You know, there's a there's a great line about about
Speaker 1: power from I believe it's from Robert Carrow in his
Speaker 1: biography of Johnson, where he talks about how how power
Speaker 1: doesn't corrupt, power reveals and I've always found that to
Speaker 1: be a particularly insightful comment that given given someone great
Speaker 1: power rings out the personality that already existed, just underscores that,
Speaker 1: underscores it gives it a bigger platform to have more
Speaker 1: profound effects. Carrie Solkowitz, it's so great to have you.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for coming in. I could talk
Speaker 1: to you all day about all sorts of things. In fact,
Speaker 1: I'd like to lie down and continue this conversation. Do
Speaker 1: you have one of those paper towels and the change
Speaker 1: by Harold? You did? You sold your couch? That's true.
Speaker 1: Well maybe you'll make a special exception for me carry.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much, John, good job, Thank you, Katie.
Speaker 1: That was fine. You're very good at what you do.
Speaker 1: Thank you. Do you think that John has a future
Speaker 1: and podcasting, Carrie? I think he does, But You're the best.
Speaker 1: Sorry mull Okay, come back, Brian. A big thank you
Speaker 1: as always to our trustee podcast team, our producer Gianna Palmer,
Speaker 1: our sound engineer Jared O'Connell, Alison Bresnik for all she
Speaker 1: does for us on social media. Thanks to Emily Beana
Speaker 1: of Katie Kirk Media, and to nor Ritchie for her
Speaker 1: editorial support as well. Nora's very tan these days, Noura,
Speaker 1: don't forget to wear your sunscreen. Meanwhile, we love our
Speaker 1: theme music, don't you, John. I'd give it like a
Speaker 1: ninety five for dancing. That's from Mark Phillips. He's our composer.
Speaker 1: I like the music, do too. Anyway. Brian Goldsmith and
Speaker 1: I are the show's executive producers. Where is Brian? He
Speaker 1: is on a family vacation and he was nice enough
Speaker 1: to vacate the premises and allow you to sit in
Speaker 1: and he sent me a couple of questions. Thanks Brian.
Speaker 1: We love Brian, and don't worry, Brian. John does not
Speaker 1: want your job. I don't. He definitely doesn't want your job.
Speaker 1: He spends enough time with me. He doesn't need to
Speaker 1: be locked up in a studio anyway. You can find
Speaker 1: us on social media too often, according to my husband
Speaker 1: media anyway, I'm at Katie Kirk on Twitter and Instagram
Speaker 1: and Katie dot Kuric on Snapchat. You can find me
Speaker 1: on Facebook as well. Brian tweets his heart out at
Speaker 1: at Goldsmith b and Muelner. You guys have got to
Speaker 1: follow John Mulder on Instagram. It's j O h n
Speaker 1: Oh sorry j j o h N m O l
Speaker 1: n e R. He is really really funny. He's quite
Speaker 1: irreverent though, and sometimes says things that people who like
Speaker 1: me don't like, like when you post pictures of you
Speaker 1: and other hot women, other hot women, not just me. Anyway,
Speaker 1: It's okay, I think you're really funny. Take a look.
Speaker 1: There's some good stuff. Alec Baldwin taught me to do
Speaker 1: an impersonation of the man we spoke about today. I
Speaker 1: know a Donald Trump impersonation. You need to work on
Speaker 1: your hand chest. Here's a little bit mulner But anyway,
Speaker 1: if you enjoy our show and you haven't rated, reviewed,
Speaker 1: or subscribe to us in Apple Podcasts, please just do
Speaker 1: it already. We'll talk to you next week. John, I
Speaker 1: may not talk to you next week, so thanks for
Speaker 1: having me. Katie fun being with you,