Hamilton, Ontario – It is perilous for a psychiatrist to write about a political figure and it is unethical to analyze or diagnose someone without actually examining that person within the social contract of a doctor/patient relationship. And to make those findings public one needs the consent of the patient.
But Dr Dawson has done just that because, as he says, “We live in a moment of history when the leader of the free world (as the president of the United States is so often called) may hold in his hands the future path of democracy, the fate of millions all over the world, and, ultimately, the fate of our planet.”
The book is a compilation of blogs from Mind You, Reflections on Mental Illness, Mental Health and Life. The ones on Trump were started before Donald J. Trump was improbably elected. The most popular among them has been the assessment of Trump’s mental and emotional age. His age was simply arrived at from observations of his behaviour and his statements, while asking the question, “At what age in development would one expect, or not be too shocked, to observe this behaviour?” Dawson came up with an average of 14. Though occasionally Trump’s displays of sibling rivalry and his assessment of his own greatness are definitely pre-pubescent.
We become easily inured, desensitized. The outrageous and abnormal can be made to feel normal. A step at a time. The German government enacted something like 50 laws over a short historical period, starting with restricting Jews from Union Leadership.
Some of the political pundits on television comment regularly on the ‘abnormal’ becoming ‘normal’. But the very presentation on TV contributes to the desensitization.
“These blogs constitute Dawson’s interpretation of the journey we are on with the Presidency of one Donald J. Trump as it is happening.”
In his career, Dr Dawson has been psychiatrist in chief of the Hamilton Psychiatric Hospital (now part of St Joseph’s Health System) and a professor in the Faculty of Health Sciences at McMaster University. He presently practices child and adolescent psychiatry. He is the author of academic books and mysteries as well as being a play write (notably MacBush, the musical). He is also an artist of note and co-owner of the Galley on the Bay in Hamilton, Ontario.
Two Years of Trump on the Psychiatrist’s Couch is published by Bridgeross Communications in Dundas, Ontario and is distributed by Ingram. E-book versions are available in Kindle and Kobo.
This is one of two compilations of blog posts from this popular blog. The other volume is Mind You: the Realities of Mental Illness by Dawson and writer/publisher, Marvin Ross. This volume is also distributed by Ingram and is available in E-book versions
For more information, visit Bridgeross or contact Marvin Ross at 289-260-0229 info@bridgeross.com
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