Recent letter re. psychological diagnosis.

I've tried to write about the idea of "narcissism" before. For a while there, psychological diagnoses took up a significant amount of my thinking. For the last four months or so, however, I haven't been thinking about them much at all. After all my self-directed studies, the books I read, and the podcasts I listened to, I decided to focus on what's in the heart and to try to stay away from armchair amateur psychological diagnosis. I'm not a professional in that field; I shouldn't even begin to pretend to be one.

Over the last couple days, this letter by Allen Frances found its way onto The New York Times:

A corker of a letter to the NYT from the guy who (literally) wrote the book on narcissism. pic.twitter.com/FvrReoJQpy

— John Brownlow (@JohnBrownlow) February 15, 2017

And then I got to hear this articulate and pithy interview with Frances on CBC's As It Happens:

Stop saying Trump has narcissistic personality disorder, says psychiatrist who defined it. https://t.co/JK8ysXa9Yv pic.twitter.com/SC1pibMBkO

— As It Happens (@cbcasithappens) February 15, 2017

I admit it: this backs up my current prejudice to let the professionals take care of this sort of thing. I admit that it's made me very uncomfortable to hear people throw the words around because I thought it was OK to throw the words around too, despite all the warnings like the one above. 

I appreciate Frances' attitude here:

We must challenge Trump on his outrageous behaviors and constant lies, not on his mental status. Speculations on Trump's psychological motivations, or whether he believes his own lies, are both distracting and irrelevant. ​

And I'd say this is a good attitude to have going forward: focus on behavior, focus on democracy, and focus on what really affects people about Trump's behavior. But don't try to diagnose him; it's too contentious and speculative to be worthwhile.