Subject: Re: [Homestead] Psychopaths also wear suits
Date: Thu, 13 Jan 2005 11:37:52 -0700
Geez Louise, will folks never get it straight. Sociopath, not psychopath.
Sociopaths pass as ordinary folks. Psychopaths rarely do.
"sociopath" n (ca 1944): PSYCHOPATH
"psychopath" n (1885) a mentally ill or unstable person; esp: a person
having a psychopathic personality"
"sociopathic" adj (1944): of, relating to, or characterized by asocial or
antisocial behavior or a psychopathic personality"
"psychopathic personality" n (ca 1923) 1: an emotionally and behaviorally
disordered state characterized by clear perception of reality except for
the individual's social and moral obligations . . . ."
--Webster's Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary
As a writer, I am sensitive to the changing use of our language so to check
myself I did the following Google searches:
george bush sociopath = 18,900 entries
george bush pyschopath = 27,700 entries
I also restate that I probably should buy a newer dictionary. But this
tattered old friend has so many notes in it that I resist.
As for narcissism, I think most of us have a healthy dose.
I read a bit of an Executive Intelligence Review interview with Justin
Frank, the author of "Bush on the Couch." Frank is a practicing
psychoanalyst in Washington, and is on the faculty of the George Washington
University Medical School. He used applied psychoanalysis to analyze Bush.
He notes that psychoanalysts and psychiatrists who are not very familiar
with applied psychoanalysis feel it should only be used on foreign leaders.
Which is how we know that Saddam Hussein is also a psychopath.
Here is an excerpt from that interview:
EIR: One of the things that we've focussed on a great deal, more from the
standpoint of a political assessment of the Administration, is that Bush
seems to have developed a rather deep psychological dependence on Vice
President Cheney as the person to make most of the really tough decisions
in the Administration. Would you share that view?
Frank: I don't entirely share that view, because my view is that he is a
puppet who chose his puppeteers, so in that sense he is dependent on him,
but in another sense I think he is dependent on him for supporting his
decisions, but I think that Bush makes the decisions. I think that he is
dependent on Cheney for thinking them through in public, and for
articulating them. And for being the kind of public, outspoken person, and
so he had to go with Cheney to the 9/11 Commission. And that's about
dependency, I agree with you. But my sense is that he really knows what he
wants to do once he hears stuff, and he is basically focussed on very few
things. The main reason for depending on Cheney, and I can see that
politically, the main reason is that he does not like to do the work of
thinking, because it makes him too anxious. And most of the ideas in my
book are about Bush's functioning to defend against anxiety. And that's
really basically what he's about.
EIR: What I found particularly striking is a kind of a deadly mix of
experiences: the trauma over his sister's death, and the way the family
handled that. Then developing an at least alcohol—some people say alcohol
and drug dependency—for quite a number of years. It seemed to me that this
is almost a kind of very extreme clinical case of somebody who's nominally
walking around as functional, but really has got deep, deep psychological
scars.
Frank: Yes, it has to do with the fact that he was never able to mourn, and
when you don't mourn, you can't integrate your inner life. What happens is
that, as I write in the book, sorrow is the vitamin of growth, and until
you face who you are and what you've lost, you really can't organize your
mind, and so what happens is when you're the first born, and the next one
dies, you're left with a lot of unworked-out hostility, anger, guilt, that
maybe your wishes killed them. You have lots of magical thinking, and if
you don't have a family that helps you gather those things together, you
can be in a lot of trouble.
So then you have to manage your feelings yourself. And one of the ways
people do manage them when they are that age, is they have friends to talk
to; but he doesn't seem to have had anybody to talk to much. But they also
read, and pay attention to things, so they learn about human beings from
reading about other people, if their parents aren't responsive to them. But
he really has such a hard time reading, that it's like swimming with
weights. I mean, it's just too much for him. So he didn't have that avenue
either, so he became sometimes cruel to people, with animals, which is one
way of managing your aggression, and then to drink in order to manage his
anxiety, and he became a very heavy drinker, that's very clear, till he was
40, at least.