0:05

Hello, John Mulner. Hi Katie,

0:07

So this is very exciting listeners. No, I

0:09

am not cheating on Brian with my

0:11

husband John, but Brian is

0:14

on a family vacation and we

0:16

thought it might be fun for me, for

0:19

John, and hopefully for you to

0:21

have my husband fill in because

0:24

we obviously talk all the time

0:26

about a lot of different issues, and

0:28

this guest was actually John's idea.

0:31

We had a conversation of fascinating

0:33

conversation I thought I thought I was I

0:36

thought I was fascinating,

0:38

Thank you, But with Carrie

0:40

Sulkowitz, who is a psychiatrist

0:42

and a psychoanalyst, and it was your

0:44

idea to have him on the podcast. Why Mulner,

0:47

why did you think that was a good idea? Well, we were

0:49

having lunch and Carrie was sharing

0:52

his views of President Trump

0:54

and some of his behaviors which so many

0:56

people are talking about trying to understand,

0:59

and he had a very clinical, analytical

1:02

assessment of some

1:04

of the things that we're seeing. And I asked

1:07

him if he'd be willing to come on and talk to you about

1:09

it. Now. I didn't know you were gonna invite me to sit in.

1:12

I don't know what I'm doing here. But let's

1:14

get Brian back quickly. But it

1:16

was really interesting to hear him, and

1:19

I was somewhat surprised when

1:21

he said he would come on. Yeah. Well,

1:23

I was pleasantly surprised because

1:26

a lot of mental health professionals don't

1:28

think it's appropriate to opine

1:31

about the pathology of public

1:35

officials, certainly the president of the United

1:37

States. But Carry was willing

1:39

to do that. And willing

1:42

I think he thinks it's really critically important

1:44

to do. One thing to note, though Kerry

1:47

is not your average psychiatrists or

1:49

psychoanalyst. He actually stopped his

1:51

clinical practice some time ago.

1:53

He now advises CEOs

1:55

and senior leaders on leadership

1:58

and management. So here he is Dr

2:00

Carry Sulkowitz. Thank

2:03

you so much for coming on the podcast. Thank

2:06

you so much for inviting me. So I should

2:08

point out, John, you and Carrie know

2:10

each other pretty well from when you were

2:12

a partner at Brown Brothers Harriman, that's

2:15

true here in New York. Tell me a little bit about

2:17

your relationship. Well, Carrie

2:19

was hired as an executive

2:21

coach for Brown Brothers and UH

2:24

and I had a chance to work with

2:26

him, and he helped me think about my career

2:29

and my relationship with other partners at the firm

2:31

and how to help grow the

2:33

business that I was involved in, and then from

2:36

that a personal friendship grew. So

2:38

you're really an executive

2:40

coach, would you say, now, Carrie, or an

2:43

executive what? Actually,

2:45

notwithstanding what John just said, which I appreciate,

2:47

I actually don't like that term executive coach,

2:50

even though I'm sure I've been called far worse things.

2:52

Katie. I'm I'm a psychiatrist

2:54

and a psychoanalyst who about twenty

2:57

two years or so ago, stumbled into the business world

2:59

and started today consultancy,

3:01

advising CEOs and boards and management

3:03

teams, really trying to apply a

3:06

clinical perspective to working

3:08

with leaders and helping them on the various challenges

3:10

they face every day. Well, we have so much to talk

3:12

about, Carry, I'm really and me I call you

3:15

Carry, Dr k Um.

3:17

So much to talk about about leadership,

3:19

about mental

3:21

health, mental fitness when it comes

3:24

to our current president. But first

3:26

I want to talk a little bit about you. How

3:29

did you get into this field in the first

3:31

place. I thought it was fascinating that your parents

3:33

were both Holocaust survivors. Can

3:36

you tell me specifically sort of how

3:39

your interactions with your parents and

3:42

trying to figure out their

3:45

pathology and their past

3:47

influenced you going into psychiatry.

3:50

Yeah, it did. Um. They

3:52

were wonderful people. They're both gone now, unfortunately,

3:55

but it was clear that they

3:57

were both quite damaged

4:00

by the experience of the world, though it left them

4:02

with certain kinds of strength and resiliency

4:04

as well. Um, And my fascination

4:07

in part was, you know, how did leaders

4:09

of countries get large

4:12

groups of people to do good things, and especially

4:14

how did to get them to do bad things, including the kinds

4:16

of things that had happened to my parents and many

4:18

other people who were um

4:20

incarcerated in the Holocaust. So

4:23

that was rattling around in my head

4:25

as a kid, although I didn't know what to do with it. It certainly

4:27

didn't feel like something that might become a career.

4:29

And I also had a bit of

4:31

my son the Jewish doctor syndrome, and so knew

4:33

that I had to go to medical school uh

4:36

and did. But as a psychiatrist

4:38

I went into private practice and loved

4:41

some aspects of it. I liked helping people still

4:43

do like the intellectual underpinnings

4:45

of it, but was a little too restless to be sitting in an

4:48

office all day seeing one patient after another. And

4:50

then actually met a my first entrepreneur

4:52

at a cocktail party, um

4:54

about twenty two years ago. And it

4:56

turns out that leaders need somebody to talk

4:59

to, and he probably

5:01

had a couple of extra glasses of wine that made it a little easier,

5:03

and he opened up to me about some of the challenges he

5:05

was having being a CEO of a startup. And

5:08

I thought it was just an interesting cocktail party conversation

5:10

until he asked me if I would be interested in advising

5:13

him in his company. That was really the beginning of

5:15

my new career. How does advising

5:17

CEOs differ from advising patients

5:20

in a clinical setting in

5:22

a number of ways, Katie. First of all, I

5:24

want to make it clear that when I'm advising a CEO,

5:27

they're not my patient. Um My,

5:29

My work with him is undoubtedly informed

5:31

by my background as a clinician. Uh.

5:33

It kind of comes in handy sometimes to understand something

5:36

about human behavior and various ways

5:38

people have of dealing with complicated

5:40

feelings. But I'm not treating anybody, um.

5:44

I would also say an important distinction is that when

5:46

I'm working with the CEO. The CEO

5:49

is part of the client, but the client

5:51

is always the organization itself, and so it allows

5:53

me an access to the CEO of the management

5:55

team, the board, a more systemic

5:58

immersion in the life, the business,

6:00

the culture of the organization. And when

6:02

you're dealing with CEOs who have all that authority

6:05

and power within an organization,

6:08

how does that sort of authority reflect

6:10

itself in the personality of the of

6:12

the leaders of organizations.

6:14

The CEO, as I would say, are people first

6:16

and foremost, but there are

6:18

people who are affected by the roles that they're in, and those

6:20

roles change them in some profound

6:22

ways. Um CEOs

6:25

are isolated. They are inherently

6:27

lonely. The nature of power is

6:29

such that it inhibits the upward flow of

6:32

information to them, and so they

6:34

often don't really hear what they need to hear,

6:36

what's going on down below. And

6:39

they also don't have anybody to really confide in

6:41

inside their organization for the same reason, so

6:43

they need somebody to talk to their lonely. They're isolated,

6:46

their anxious, They're dealing with complexity,

6:48

ambiguity every day, so they're

6:51

constantly faced with new challenges that they don't

6:53

know the answer to, and so how do

6:55

you how do you find it? When you then

6:57

challenge CEO, who's

6:59

you to making a decision

7:02

and having a decision implemented? Where you say,

7:04

well, is that the

7:06

right of course of action? Is that the right

7:08

decision? Have you weighed other factors?

7:11

I do that all the time. I challenge CEOs,

7:13

but I don't necessarily do it in the first few minutes of talking

7:15

to them. Have

7:18

you ever had as CEO say you're fired?

7:21

You know, there

7:23

have been some engagements a few of them that haven't worked

7:25

out, but it happens pretty rarely. I mean, I try to

7:27

be patient. I try to establish a relationship.

7:30

I try to establish some trust, which of course

7:32

doesn't happen immediately. I should also point

7:34

out that there is a self selection that goes on in terms

7:36

of the kinds of CEOs that I work with, that I

7:39

bet a lot of them wouldn't want anything

7:41

to do with someone like you, with all due respect,

7:43

no no, no disrespect

7:46

taken there. It's absolutely true. The

7:48

really egregiously narcissistic,

7:50

difficult, horrible CEO is the bad

7:53

bosses that people talk about. For the most part,

7:55

they're not calling me, they're well, they're

7:57

not self aware enough to call you, right, And that's

7:59

the it. Self awareness is really the key here. The ones

8:02

that call me have a modicum of self awareness, at the very

8:04

least. Nobody's ever fully self aware, but

8:06

they have some sense of their own loneliness,

8:08

their own need to have somebody to talk to. There

8:10

may be people problems on their team,

8:13

there may be leadership challenges that

8:15

they're facing that they don't know how to deal with,

8:17

and they need someone to bring that perspective to bear.

8:19

I want to talk to you about sort of the need

8:22

to have someone in the organization

8:25

be the truth teller for the

8:27

leader. I think I read a piece that you wrote in the Harvard

8:29

Business Review about

8:31

how leaders pick people

8:33

they can confide in, but that those

8:36

confidants can ultimately be exceedingly

8:38

damaging to the CEOs to

8:41

most CEOs have a tendency

8:43

and do they have to fight against this of

8:45

picking sickophants and people

8:48

who will basically echo

8:50

and and be a yes person

8:52

right right so?

8:55

And and how big a problem

8:57

is that I wouldn't make the generalization

9:00

that most CEOs tend to pick sick of fans

9:02

part of what I was trying to to say in

9:04

this article that you mentioned in the Harvard

9:06

Business of You a number of years ago, is that

9:09

the the confidante that a CEO

9:11

chooses is an absolute reflection

9:13

of the CEOs psychology to

9:15

begin with. So the better CEOs,

9:17

and we can talk about what a better CEO

9:20

is, but the better CEOs, the ones that are more self

9:22

aware, the ones that are more attuned

9:24

to the fact that they need someone to talk to

9:26

to help them think through things, are not

9:28

going to pick the sick of fans. They're going to pick

9:30

the ones who talk straight to them, who speak

9:32

truth to power, so to speak. Um,

9:35

the ones who are more narcissistic,

9:38

the ones who are more fragile in terms of their

9:40

self esteem, they're the ones who are

9:42

going to pick the sick of fans who just tell them what

9:44

they want to hear. Is Narcissisms

9:47

come up a couple of times. I have a feeling it may come up

9:49

more in the discussion as we go on. But

9:51

but to some extent, would all CEOs

9:54

have a level of narcissistic

9:57

characteristics or behaviors or is

10:00

not necessarily true? That's a great opportunity

10:02

for you for me to give you my thirty second lecture on

10:04

narcissism. Thank you. The term

10:07

narcissism, certainly as it's used in popular

10:09

culture, is never meant as a compliment. Uh.

10:11

It's usually meant as an epithet. It's thrown around

10:14

a lot too casually. But narcissism

10:16

is something that is better thought

10:18

of, at least in my view, as something that exists

10:21

on a spectrum, and we all have some of

10:23

it, right, There's a degree of healthy

10:25

narcissism that is necessary for

10:27

any of us to be successful in life, to care

10:29

about how we show up for work every day. I

10:31

think of that that musical avenue que.

10:34

Everybody's a little bit racist. I always

10:36

think everybody is a little bit narcissistic.

10:38

That's right, everybody is a little bit narcissistic.

10:41

And in fact, some people could use a little bit more of

10:43

it. The people who are too shy

10:45

and retiring and and and hide

10:48

away and or don't put enough

10:50

attention into how they appear, or

10:52

don't take pleasure in their work. Those are all

10:55

aspects of what I would describe as healthy narcissism.

10:57

So if you think of it on a spectrum

11:00

with healthy narcissism at one end and unhealthy

11:02

or pathological variations

11:05

at the other end. I think it's just a more holistic

11:07

way, even though I think sometimes people want to see things

11:09

as black and white, like you either have it or you don't. But narcissism

11:12

is not like pneumonia or appendicitist

11:14

that where you either have it or you don't. So on a scale

11:16

of one to ten, one being

11:18

not enough narcissism and tend being

11:20

way too much, what sort of balance are

11:23

we looking for in the most

11:25

effective uh, corporate

11:27

leaders or political leaders that you see where

11:29

we're on the scale? Does that fun? You sound like

11:31

the finance guy that I know you to be. I

11:34

need a number. Carry, Give me a number for

11:37

you, I will say somewhere between

11:40

five and seven. But

11:42

I don't think that way, so I don't.

11:45

We'll save that for a private conversation. I'm

11:49

not gonna weigh in on this conversation, but

11:52

let me I mean carry our most

11:54

successful people. Do they rate

11:56

high on the narcissism scale? Because

11:59

I feel like narcissists can

12:01

be exceedingly charming, They're really

12:04

good at get getting what they want, UM

12:07

often high emotional intelligence.

12:09

Am I crazy? No, you're not crazy.

12:11

But I would say that that narcissism

12:13

and emotional intelligence are not mutually exclusive

12:15

up until a point, and then when you cross

12:17

over into the more pathological realm

12:20

of narcissism, then emotional

12:22

intelligence falls off a cliff and

12:24

you lose that ability to read other people.

12:26

You lose the ability to empathize, and that's really

12:28

critical here, the ability to transiently

12:31

put yourselves in the emotional shoes of somebody

12:34

else. That's my definition of empathy, by the way,

12:37

is an absolutely essential quality of a really

12:39

good leader. But if you're really narcissistic,

12:41

the only person you care about is yourself.

12:44

You can't relate to

12:46

understand care about

12:48

emotions. The other side empathy is the other side

12:51

of the coin with respect

12:53

to narcissism. At the at the severe

12:55

end of the scale of narcissism, there's very little

12:57

empathy. I hate to dive

12:59

in to narcissism too deeply, but

13:02

I dated a guy who I thought was a

13:04

narcissist, not not my husband,

13:07

and um, you know, I spent a lot of

13:09

time in the self help section of Barnes and Noble

13:11

because I had never experienced a narcissistic

13:14

personality. And one of the things

13:16

that I think is misunderstood and carry your

13:18

you're the expert. But from all

13:20

the reading that I've done is

13:23

you know, narcissist staring at his reflection

13:27

in the in the pond or

13:29

whatever. And the mythology of narcissism

13:32

it seems to connote someone has

13:35

incredible hubrists and

13:38

think so highly of himself or

13:40

herself. But what I thought was interesting,

13:42

this comes from deep, deep, deep insecurity

13:45

and this feeling that it's

13:48

really overcompensating for feeling

13:50

less than And is that accurate?

13:53

That is accurate. I'm gonna run

13:55

a follow some of the self help book writers, but

13:58

that's one of the problems with any self help book

14:00

is that it's necessarily general. They're certainly intended

14:02

to be helpful, and I don't question the intentions,

14:05

but they don't necessarily get into the deeper

14:07

underpinnings of this, which actually helps us

14:09

empathize with the narcissists. I think

14:11

that's because you know, I read a lot.

14:14

You know, I was went through a bad period

14:16

of my life and I read a lot about this and

14:18

a lot about modeling about

14:21

um, you know, someone forming

14:23

a sense of self very early

14:25

on in their life and how that contributes

14:28

later to this narcissistic personality

14:30

disorder. That's right. We

14:33

I want to make it really clear that when we're talking

14:35

about whether it's narcissism or sociopathy

14:38

or a whole host of other psychological

14:40

phenomenon that may come up in this conversation, we're

14:42

not passing moral judgment about any of it. These

14:45

are not moral judgments. These are clinical

14:47

assessments, and those are two very very different

14:50

things. We have to keep them separate to your question,

14:52

Katie, about the roots of narcissism, which

14:54

I think is really what you're asking about. It's not

14:56

about somebody's a bad person and that they're

14:58

spoiled and need to be lapped on the wrist

15:00

or somehow received some kind of training. The

15:02

roots of narcissism, certainly from a psychoalytic

15:05

point of view, go way back to early childhood

15:07

and usually are an individual's

15:10

very understandable response

15:12

to certain kinds of emotional deprivation

15:14

or trauma in their early years. And

15:17

it's hard to generalize about that because, as we

15:19

know, children can be scarred

15:22

in all sorts of ways, infinite ways. But

15:25

the people who come up through

15:28

childhood and early adulthood and develop into

15:30

a narcissistic character. M

15:33

have not had easy childhood's, even

15:35

if they look like they have grown up in

15:37

households of great privilege.

15:41

It's time for us to take a quick break. When we return,

15:44

we'll talk with Dr Carry Sulkowitz

15:46

about the mental health of the most powerful

15:48

man in the world. No, not you,

15:51

Mulner, the President of the United

15:53

States. That's right after this, and

15:58

now back with Dr Carry psychoist.

16:02

One of the reasons we were interested in

16:04

having you come in, Carrie, is talking

16:07

about the pathology and the President

16:09

of the United States, Donald Trump. There

16:11

has been a lot of conversations

16:14

about his mental state

16:16

or whether he is actually mentally

16:18

fit to lead the country. And

16:21

narcissism is specifically

16:23

malignant narcissism has

16:25

come up quite a bit. What's the difference

16:28

between your run of the male narcissist and

16:30

a malignant narcissist. Let

16:34

me back up a minute if I can, um

16:37

I want to avoid the

16:40

psychiatric approach and take the more

16:42

psychoanalytic approach here and discussing it. Frankly,

16:44

I think it's more helpful to people who are listening

16:46

to this and who are looking to understand tell us

16:48

the difference. So the difference and I'm

16:50

both, I'm trend as a psychiatrist and psychoanalyst,

16:53

But the psychiatric approach is largely

16:56

a medical based approach that is focused

16:58

on the diagnosis of mental illness and and

17:00

of course the treatment of that illness.

17:03

When it comes to talking about a public figure, it's

17:05

something that I think is frankly not that

17:07

helpful. There's a whole controversy

17:09

around that which we can get into as well, the

17:12

so called Goldwater water, the Goldwater Rule.

17:14

But I I think I find it personally less

17:16

interesting to try to attach a label

17:19

uh to a president or to anybody

17:21

else for that matter. And more I want to

17:23

try to understand observable

17:25

behavior, behavior that's observable to all of us,

17:28

not just to those who are clinically trained, as

17:30

well as the appeal of that behavior

17:33

to people who support him and like him and don't

17:35

question him. Let's talk about

17:37

your analysis as a result of

17:40

everything that you've witnessed, that you've

17:42

seen the president's behavior,

17:44

the president's way of communicating via

17:46

tweets, speeches, that he's

17:48

given, his behavior rallies.

17:52

What do you think about his personality

17:55

or his pathology. And

17:58

I'm going to try to put this in terms that

18:00

are certainly informed by my clinical

18:02

perspective, but that really come through the lens of being

18:04

an advisor to leaders. That's

18:06

the That's the lens that interests me the most,

18:08

and I think is most relevant because for better

18:10

or worse, he is the leader of the free world, at least the

18:12

leader of this country. Uh.

18:15

And after all the talk about narcissism,

18:17

I would say that his narcissism is only

18:19

one part of what we are dealing

18:21

with here. Uh. In fact, his

18:23

narcissism, while so obvious.

18:25

I mean, look, Katie, you don't have to be Sigmund Freud

18:28

to decide that Donald

18:30

Trump is narcissistic as an adjective,

18:32

what about malignant le narcissistic?

18:34

Well, malignant is a is a word that is

18:37

used to describe the extremes. It's not a

18:39

black or white, sharp distinction. But

18:42

he is. He is out there in terms of his

18:44

his clear focus on himself. But

18:47

the reason why I want to move a

18:49

little bit beyond his narcissism, even though I'm

18:51

not in any way diminishing the importance of it, particularly

18:53

the lack of empathy is that while

18:55

his narcissistic behavior

18:59

is so obvious, so overt, the

19:02

very fact that it is so prominent obscures

19:04

other aspects of his psychology and his

19:06

behavior than, in some ways are more troubling to

19:08

me. I should also point

19:11

out that narcissism alone has never

19:13

precluded anyone from being president, and

19:15

if we look at the modern

19:17

presidents of this country, some

19:20

of the more narcissistic ones have been arguably

19:22

very successful presidents, and those who were

19:24

on the lesser end of the narcissistic

19:26

spectrum arguably have been less successful

19:28

as presidents. To foot put this

19:30

in terms of narcissism alone, I think

19:33

misses the complexity of

19:35

the issue. Carrie, give us some background on

19:37

the Goldwater Rule, when that

19:39

came about, and why that limits

19:41

other medical professionals from

19:44

opining on public figures. The

19:47

Goldwater rule traces its history

19:49

back to the nineteen sixty for presidential

19:51

election, when very Goldwater was running for president.

19:53

Of course, he didn't win, but during

19:56

that campaign, a magazine

19:58

that existed at the time that's lo gone called Fact

20:01

Magazine, published a survey of American

20:03

psychiatrists. Members of the American Psychiatric

20:05

Association UM and

20:08

many of them felt that

20:10

Goldwater was unfit to serve by

20:12

virtue of his mental health, and that in particular,

20:14

that he had a paranoid personality. That's what

20:17

they said in the magazine published that

20:19

survey. Of course, the election

20:21

was over, Goldwater lost, and

20:23

after the election he sued not the

20:25

psychiatrist, but he sued the magazine itself

20:28

for libel, and this case

20:30

dragged out for a number of years. Ultimately

20:33

he won, but it sent the psychiatric

20:36

profession reeling. The American Psychiatric Association

20:38

and in particular, studied this problem

20:40

and came up with what then became known as

20:43

the Goldwater Rule, which if I remember correctly,

20:45

came out in the early seventies, So there was a long

20:47

period of time between the election and the

20:49

issuance of this rule, which has just recently

20:51

been updated even more strongly by

20:54

the A p A. Which basically says,

20:56

if you do not have personal experience

20:58

with an individual, seeing them face

21:01

to face, um,

21:03

you're in no position to evaluate them.

21:06

That's right. That The rule basically says two

21:08

simple things. One is that you can't

21:10

make a diagnosis at a distance. You can't

21:12

make a diagnosis without actually examining the

21:14

patient. And then the corollarity of that is, if

21:16

you do examine someone as a patient, then you're bound

21:19

by reasons concidentiality.

21:22

But I'm yeah, But my

21:24

own view is I actually find the gold Water rule

21:26

invalid and not helpful and

21:28

frankly stifling of freedom of speech. I

21:31

think it's I agree with one narrow aspect

21:33

of it. It's not responsible to

21:35

be slinging around diagnoses as epithets.

21:38

But that's not what we're talking about here. Uh

21:41

And so I actually find the gold Water Rule relatively

21:43

irrelevant to the current discussion.

21:46

Any commentator, whether you're trained clinically

21:49

as a psychiatrist, psychologist, psychoanalyst,

21:51

or anybody else for that matter, can comment

21:54

on the mental state of of another person.

21:56

It's nice to be able to comment on it if you have

21:58

some training and doing so. Um.

22:01

And these days, there is an

22:03

abundance of publicly available

22:05

information about public figures

22:07

that there wasn't back in nineteen sixty

22:09

four. Well, that's what I was going to ask you about. I mean,

22:11

so as you compare uh,

22:14

in person sessions with a person

22:16

compared to social media

22:19

articles, speeches, things that are in

22:21

the public record, other information

22:23

the public domain. What's the qualitative

22:25

difference between the two as you as you're

22:27

trying to form a judgment, or for that matter, we're

22:29

trying for the irony, and the qualitative

22:32

difference between looking at all

22:34

of this detailed, nuanced, colorful

22:36

information in the public domain versus talking

22:39

to somebody in private, particularly

22:41

for some kinds of people, and I would

22:43

be inclined to put the President in

22:45

that category. You'll you'll probably get

22:47

a lot more from publicly available information

22:50

than from examining him

22:52

privately. For the fact of the matter, well,

22:55

it's less staged. He is never going to

22:57

I think it's fairly safe to assume that he is never going

22:59

to seek out treatment

23:02

because he doesn't think there's anything wrong. That's

23:04

one of the reasons why narcissistic people never

23:07

go to a psychiatrist and say, Doc,

23:09

can you help me with my narcissism? That just doesn't

23:11

happen. But you know, how

23:14

comfortable are you speaking out carry

23:17

because I know the American Psychiatric Association

23:20

still abides by the Goldwater

23:22

Rule. It's the largest psychiatric

23:24

organization in the world. Are

23:27

a lot of people in your field, uh,

23:30

do they feel this is just grossly

23:32

inappropriate? Some do, but

23:35

many don't, and many psychiatrists,

23:37

psychologist, psychoanalysts have spoken

23:40

out very publicly about Trump, again, not

23:42

to issue a diagnosis, but to talk about the

23:44

phenomenon that we're all observing and troubled

23:46

by personally. I'm not even a member of the American

23:48

Psychiatric Association, haven't been for probably

23:50

two decades, uh, And I'm speaking

23:52

as a as a private citizen who

23:55

happens to be trained as a psychoanalyst. There

23:57

are many mental health professionals

23:59

carry who agree with you. There's

24:01

an organization called Duty to Warn, and I think

24:03

they've amassed something like thirty eight thousand

24:05

signatures, many from mental health professionals,

24:08

apparently saying that this

24:10

group believes it has a moral obligation

24:13

to speak out about Donald

24:15

Trump and his his mental

24:18

capacity. So do you agree

24:20

with that? I do agree. My name is among

24:22

those thirty eight thousand or so, and I

24:25

have no hesitation to sign on to that. I

24:27

do feel that that's right. The

24:29

one of the hallmarks of a clinical perspective

24:32

is a duty to warn, which quite simply

24:34

is that it's it's the one thing

24:37

that supersedes confidentiality,

24:39

and that that if

24:41

you learn and again, it's it

24:44

doesn't fully apply because we're not talking about a clinical

24:46

relationship with the president, obviously, But

24:49

if you learn that somebody

24:51

is dangerous to themselves or to others,

24:54

there is a duty on the part of the mental health professional

24:57

to warn the appropriate authorities. In this case,

24:59

one would argue the public at large about

25:02

that danger. Are you a Democrat

25:04

or Republican? I'm a registered Democrat.

25:07

And some listeners might be

25:09

hearing this, Kerry and thinking your

25:11

politics are seeping in to your

25:14

judgment about Donald Trump. What

25:16

would you say to them? And if in fact

25:18

his politics were more aligned with

25:21

yours and his policy proposals

25:23

were more in keeping with yours, do

25:25

you think you would find his personal behavior

25:28

or the way he conducts himself less

25:30

repugnant. I think it's a great question.

25:33

There is no question that my political

25:35

views vary with

25:37

Trump's quite a bit and affect

25:40

my my feelings about him.

25:42

Um. I was not a fan

25:44

of George Bush. Uh

25:47

I was not a fan of Bush's politics either, but I

25:49

never thought that his psychopathology

25:51

was the primary issue that was about

25:54

political differences. You did once right,

25:56

though, that George W. Bush kind of

25:58

dissed the notion of therapy, and

26:00

you didn't think that was a good thing because he

26:02

made a comment about not wanting to get on the couch

26:05

and talk about what he did in a rock that

26:07

you're referring to a letter that I had published in the New York

26:09

Times that was about a comment

26:12

that Bush made, um

26:14

about showing his lack of curiosity

26:16

to learn from the mistakes of the invasion

26:18

of Baghdad. Um.

26:20

And Uh, I thought that he

26:23

by saying that that was he was gonna leave that for

26:26

somebody to be on the couch about. That was a

26:28

bit of a gratuitous slam about the mental

26:30

health professions. But that wasn't about Bush's

26:32

psychopathology. UM. So,

26:35

to answer your question directly, do my politics

26:38

affect my views of Trump? Undoubtedly they

26:40

do. How can they not infuse or informed to

26:42

some degree what I'm saying. And it's difficult

26:44

to to tease those apart entirely.

26:47

Um. But I think that what makes

26:49

this even more compelling is I think that a lot of Republicans,

26:52

Um, I'm not sure they liked Trump all that

26:54

much either, and I think they're

26:56

as observant as anybody else about his

26:59

his quirk, his personality, uh

27:02

distortions and so forth. I

27:04

think that some are exploiting the moment

27:06

of his presidency now to get certain policies

27:09

in place, But I don't think there's any particular

27:11

love there, And as soon as his ability

27:14

to keep that window

27:16

of policy opportunity open closes,

27:19

I don't think that anyone's going to rush to his defense.

27:21

Let's talk about people who like

27:24

what they see. Over nine of

27:26

the people the last poll

27:29

I checked said they would vote

27:31

for Donald Trump all over again. And I

27:33

read an interesting essay by an editor

27:35

of a newspaper in Ohio that endorsed

27:37

Trump, and he explains what his supporters

27:40

like about the president even still.

27:42

He writes, they appreciate Trump's

27:45

America First agenda not because they believe

27:47

in isolationism, but because they

27:49

believe the United States and its citizens

27:51

should be the government's top priority.

27:54

What Trump's supporters also appreciate

27:56

about him are the very attributes

27:58

for which he is relentlessly criticized

28:00

in the media. People here, a

28:02

farming community supplemented by modest

28:05

pain retail jobs and a few factory opportunities,

28:08

are frank and plain spoken. They're

28:10

weary of politicians whose every

28:12

statement seems carefully crafted

28:14

to say nothing and offend no

28:16

one. You know, I agree

28:18

with a lot of that myself. I might add I

28:21

think that the priority

28:23

of a president should be the American people,

28:25

although I do think that the American

28:27

presidency involves taking a role

28:29

in the world, not just in the United States. But I agree

28:32

that that Americans should be the priority of the

28:34

president. Um. I think

28:36

the plane spokenness is

28:38

a is a complicated issue there too, because that gets

28:40

into the whole discussion of political correctness,

28:42

which I think is a term that has been so co opted

28:44

by the political right to be an

28:47

excuse for saying whatever kind of garbage, including

28:50

racist and misogynists and so

28:52

on, garbage comes to their minds. So I think that

28:54

term has ceased to be useful because it

28:57

originally preferred to being sensitive

28:59

to other people's feelings, and I think that they're still

29:01

room for that. I don't think we should be saying whatever

29:04

comes to our mind. That's a terrible idea if

29:07

that's what the opposition to political correctness

29:09

means. But I think that the people

29:11

who are in parts of the country who

29:14

are economically disadvantaged, who

29:16

are struggling with the opioided epidemic,

29:18

who are disadvantaged

29:20

in all sorts of ways, and who have been neglected

29:22

by their their government, local and

29:24

national people who I

29:28

understand their distrust of politicians

29:31

making a glib, meaningless, superficial

29:33

comments designed to get reelected. So

29:36

I'm extremely sympathetic

29:38

to and supportive of their of their

29:40

plight, and we need to do something about it. And

29:43

I'm not saying that there that the Democrats

29:45

have got that all figured out either and have addressed

29:47

any of that with with anything approaching

29:50

adequacy. What concerns me,

29:52

though, is that Trump's psychology

29:54

plays into the very vulnerability

29:57

of those people. That is part of why they're

29:59

suffering right now, and they're

30:02

being duped into

30:05

believing that this man who makes these

30:07

glibs, simplistic, boil

30:10

it down to phrases kinds of comments,

30:13

is going to help them. And I am worried

30:15

that they are wrong and tragically

30:17

wrong, and that electing a president

30:20

like this is voting

30:22

against their self interest. Okay, so suppose

30:24

that a board of directors had asked you

30:27

to look at this candidate ceo, candidate

30:29

Trump, that we were considering appointing

30:31

this person as CEO of a corporation

30:34

what would be the summary of of

30:36

your observations. I would raise

30:38

concerns about his

30:40

ability to inspire with a moral

30:43

purpose, and I think

30:45

moral leadership is actually the highest form of leadership,

30:47

and I don't see that from him. He is a leader.

30:50

If you define leadership most

30:52

narrowly, it's and it sounds like a circular

30:55

thing I'm about to say, but leadership

30:57

has to do with the ability to inspire followership,

30:59

and clearly he has done that. So did Hitler

31:02

and Mussolini. They inspired followership.

31:05

Whether or not there was a moral purpose and

31:07

an ethical basis to their leadership is

31:09

another story. So I don't think he has that. I

31:12

think that other aspects of his leadership

31:14

that are troubling to me are his

31:16

impulsivity. He is an

31:19

impulse written character who has apparently

31:21

very little tolerance for frustration or

31:24

for delayed gratification. He has

31:26

to have it now, and he does it now. That's evidenced

31:28

by his tweets and by his

31:30

shoot from the hip approach to just about everything.

31:33

I don't think he's particularly intelligent, so looking

31:35

at his cognitive abilities, I think he's not

31:37

a reader, a studier. He has to have everything

31:39

dumbed down into bullet points. I,

31:42

for one, would like to have a president or

31:44

a leader who who actually

31:46

digs deeply into the issues and recognizes

31:48

that that problems are complex, not

31:51

not overly simplified. He

31:55

So, there's there's impulsivity, there's narcissism.

31:57

There, there's what I would describe as sociopathy,

32:00

and that to me may be the most troubling

32:02

at all. Which what does that mean? Well, So

32:05

to define terms, first, there are there are three

32:07

terms that are often used relatively

32:10

interchangeably and and appropriately,

32:12

so people refer to sociopathy,

32:15

psychopathy, and then there's a psychiatric

32:17

diagnostic term called the antisocial personality

32:20

disorder. Again, that's making it a medical kind

32:22

of disorder, which is why it's my least favorite of those

32:24

three terms. But they're all essentially

32:27

the same um. Sociopathy

32:30

has to do with extremes of lack

32:32

of empathy. These you'll notice that these these

32:35

terms blur, and that's the nature of things. People

32:37

don't fall neatly into one bucket or another.

32:40

Extremes of lack of empathy the

32:42

willingness to harm others without

32:44

any apparent conscience, and it's the absence

32:47

of a conscience that is one of the most prominent

32:49

features of sociopathy.

32:52

UM and certainly you often

32:54

hear that Donald Trump refuses

32:56

to apologize for anything or except

32:58

blame for anything, and is that consistent

33:01

with this sort of pathology? It is consistent

33:03

with that not only does he refuse to accept blame

33:05

or responsibility, but he uses what is what

33:07

a psychoanalyst would describe as a very primitive

33:10

defense mechanism for dealing with that, and that is called

33:12

projection. In other words, if he does

33:14

something wrong, rather than own

33:17

it or even denying it, he both

33:19

denies it and then attributes it to somebody else.

33:21

So if if somebody

33:24

is if he's feeling m

33:27

vulnerable, then he projects that

33:29

vulnerability onto someone else and makes them feel

33:31

weak. Are there qualities that you've

33:33

observed in the President United States

33:36

that you admire or that you think are bona

33:38

fide strengths. I'm

33:40

hard pressed to find them in isolation,

33:43

because I think they can't be evaluated

33:45

or really looked at that way. I think they have to be looked at

33:47

in in aggregate. And the totality

33:50

of his personality is something that I

33:52

find terrifying because

33:54

of its ability to inspire

33:56

and permit bad behavior and others. Well,

33:59

the point you talked about in terms of inspiring

34:02

moral purpose or leadership,

34:04

if I simplified that when you go around

34:07

and you look at the cabinet meeting and you have

34:09

these very accomplished people former

34:11

president of Goldman Sachs, former

34:14

CEO, chairman of Exxon Mobile,

34:16

and other cabinet leaders

34:19

and senior members of the administration praising

34:22

the president. Let's take a listen to

34:24

that cabinet meeting that John's referring

34:26

to. Maybe start with

34:28

Mike and we'll just go down and just you

34:31

name your position, and then will ask

34:33

these folks to go back

34:35

and have a good day, and we're going to discuss the various

34:37

supports. Mike, thank you as president,

34:40

and just greatest

34:42

privilege of my life. It's the surveyor

34:45

as vice president, who a president is keeping

34:47

his word of the American people. This is a

34:49

team he was as symbol that's working hand

34:52

and love with the betterment America.

34:54

I don't I want to thank you for that. These are a

34:56

great team members and we're on your

34:58

taking. Thank you so exactly.

35:01

Exac bright message and is being

35:04

responded the responses fagness

35:06

around the country. So Carrie.

35:09

Here, you have this group of senior people that

35:11

are happy to be under the leadership

35:13

of President Trump. How do you explain that and

35:15

basically slobbering all over him. Carry

35:17

Let's just be honest. On an emotional level,

35:20

I found it disgusting the behavior

35:22

of the members of that cabinet. But it's understandable

35:25

too, in that they are members

35:27

of the cabinet and he is the President of

35:29

the United States, and they're terrified that they're

35:31

going to get fired if they don't fall in line,

35:33

right, And that, Katie is exactly the

35:35

problem. It's not just that they

35:37

were kissing his behind in that meeting, but

35:40

it's that they are doing that in a way

35:42

that is a reflection of the power differential

35:45

that exists. They are afraid of him. So

35:47

the fact that they're accomplished executives in

35:49

their own right, which of course is true, uh,

35:52

doesn't really have much to do with

35:54

the context that they're in now. They're not there as

35:57

the CEO of Exxon or of a senior

35:59

person at Goldman Sat. There there is the

36:01

member as members of his cabinet, and

36:04

it's a way of pledging allegiance, and that's what

36:06

people do with totalitarian leaders

36:09

who are who are cruel, who are sadistic,

36:11

and who demand either

36:14

overtly or more often uh

36:16

covertly, demand that kind of pledge

36:18

of allegiance. I'd love to pick your brain about a couple

36:21

of other episodes that we've witnessed.

36:23

Here's a clip of President Trump's

36:26

first address as president, when he spoke

36:28

to people at the CIA, when

36:31

he fixated on the attendance

36:33

at his inauguration. Let's listen and then

36:35

we'll discuss. This was in front of the Wall of Honor.

36:38

Yes, And I turned on and

36:40

by mistake, I get this network

36:44

and it showed an empty field and

36:46

it said we drew two hundred and fifty thousand people.

36:50

Now that's that bad, but

36:52

it's a lie. We had two hundred and fifty

36:54

thousand people literally around, you know, in the

36:56

little ball that we constructed, that was two hundred

36:59

and fifty thousand people. The rest

37:01

of the you know, twenty block area all

37:03

the way back to the Washington Monument

37:05

was peck So we

37:08

caught them, and we caught them in a beauty.

37:10

And I think that a lot of people talked

37:12

about how inappropriate it was for

37:14

him to raise this in front of as John mentioned,

37:17

the wall of honor people who had sacrificed

37:19

their lives as working

37:22

for the CIA through the years. I

37:24

mean, it's a very sacred place

37:26

in that building. But it also seems

37:28

to reflect carry a pattern

37:30

of behavior of getting fixated,

37:33

of trying to right wrongs, of

37:35

trying to be correct

37:37

in his assertion, whether it's losing

37:40

the popular vote and insisting that

37:42

there were a lot there was a lot of illegal voting

37:44

or else he would have won the popular vote,

37:47

insisting about the crowd

37:49

at his inauguration. We've seen

37:51

this sort of repeating itself.

37:54

What does that suggest to you? He

37:56

is preoccupied with his image, again

37:59

consistent with the nurse sis m. He is preoccupied

38:02

with the appearance of bigness,

38:04

and he needs to be big and bigger than

38:06

everybody, whether that's the crowd that he's

38:08

got or god knows what else,

38:10

has to be bigger than everybody else is and he's bragged about

38:13

that too. Um. He also

38:15

is preoccupied with the

38:17

idea that others are lying, and that's what I was

38:19

talking about earlier when I was talking about projection.

38:22

Um. He lies frequently, and the

38:25

press has made a sport of

38:27

cataloging all of his lives. But he is constantly

38:29

accusing others of lying. And

38:32

that's that's what a great example

38:34

of projection, where he's disavowing something that he does in attributing

38:36

it to somebody else. As far as you can tell,

38:38

carry, is there anyone in President

38:41

Trump's inner circle, either professionally

38:44

or personally, who has the

38:46

power to tell him what he

38:48

doesn't want to hear? One

38:50

would hope based on their pedigrees,

38:52

their credentials, But I haven't seen much evidence of

38:55

it yet. Of course, I'm not at all privy to

38:57

what's going on behind closed doors, but people

39:00

don't last very long, apparently, around this president

39:02

if they do tell him the truth, if

39:04

they speak truth to power. What do you make of

39:06

Trump's affection for leaders

39:08

like Vladimir Putin? He

39:10

seems to be drawn to

39:13

Vladimir Putin and other kind of strong

39:16

men, if you will, what's that

39:18

about? He? You're

39:20

right, it's fascinating that he's drawn to to putting

39:22

another strong men leaders. Uh, And

39:25

I think that in some ways he identifies with that. It's

39:27

aspirational for him. I think he uh

39:29

sees that the only kind of valid

39:32

leadership is leadership

39:34

and involves exerting absolute power and

39:36

control um and Putin

39:39

has been at it for a lot longer than than Trump has.

39:41

You know, there's a there's a great line

39:43

about about power from I believe

39:45

it's from Robert Carrow in his biography of Johnson,

39:48

where he talks about how how

39:50

power doesn't corrupt, power reveals

39:53

and I've always found that to be a particularly insightful

39:55

comment that given given someone

39:58

great power rings

40:00

out the personality that already

40:02

existed, just underscores

40:04

that, underscores it gives it a bigger

40:06

platform to have more profound effects.

40:09

Carrie Solkowitz, it's so great to have you. Thank

40:11

you so much for coming in. I could talk to you all day

40:13

about all sorts of things. In fact, I'd

40:16

like to lie down and continue this conversation.

40:18

Do you have one of those paper towels and the

40:20

change by Harold?

40:23

You did? You sold your couch? That's true. Well

40:26

maybe you'll make a special exception

40:28

for me carry. Thank you

40:30

so much, John, good job, Thank you, Katie.

40:33

That was fine. You're very good at what you do. Thank you. Do

40:35

you think that John has a future and podcasting, Carrie?

40:37

I think he does, But You're the best. Sorry

40:40

mull Okay, come back, Brian. A

40:45

big thank you as always to our trustee

40:47

podcast team, our producer

40:50

Gianna Palmer, our sound engineer Jared

40:52

O'Connell, Alison Bresnik for

40:54

all she does for us on social media.

40:57

Thanks to Emily Beana of Katie Kirk Media,

40:59

and to nor Ritchie for her editorial

41:02

support as well. Nora's very tan these

41:04

days, Noura, don't forget to wear your sunscreen.

41:07

Meanwhile, we love our theme music, don't you,

41:09

John. I'd give it like a ninety five for dancing.

41:11

That's from Mark Phillips. He's our composer.

41:14

I like the music, do too.

41:16

Anyway. Brian Goldsmith and I are the show's

41:18

executive producers. Where

41:21

is Brian? He is on a family vacation

41:24

and he was nice enough to

41:26

vacate the premises and allow you to sit

41:29

in and he sent me a couple of questions. Thanks Brian.

41:32

We love Brian, and don't worry, Brian.

41:34

John does not want your job. I don't.

41:37

He definitely doesn't want your job. He spends

41:39

enough time with me. He doesn't need to be locked up

41:41

in a studio anyway. You can find us

41:43

on social media too often,

41:46

according to my husband

41:49

media anyway, I'm at Katie Kirk

41:51

on Twitter and Instagram and Katie dot Kuric

41:54

on Snapchat. You can find me on Facebook

41:56

as well. Brian tweets his heart

41:58

out at at Goldsmith

42:01

b and Muelner. You guys

42:03

have got to follow John Mulder

42:05

on Instagram. It's j O h

42:08

n Oh sorry j j

42:11

o h N m O l n

42:14

e R. He is really really

42:16

funny. He's quite irreverent

42:19

though, and sometimes says things

42:21

that people who like me don't like,

42:23

like when you post pictures of you and other hot

42:26

women, other hot women, not just

42:28

me. Anyway, It's okay, I think you're

42:30

really funny. Take a look. There's some good stuff. Alec

42:32

Baldwin taught me to do an impersonation of the man

42:34

we spoke about today. I know a Donald

42:37

Trump impersonation. You need to work on your

42:39

hand chest. Here's a little bit mulner But anyway,

42:41

if you enjoy our show and you haven't

42:43

rated, reviewed, or subscribe to us

42:45

in Apple Podcasts, please just

42:47

do it already. We'll talk to you next

42:49

week. John, I may not talk to you next week,

42:51

so thanks for having me. Katie fun being with you,