Oh what a delicious assignment

I am taking a psychology class and I have the MOST delicious assignment of picking ANY public figure and diagnosing them with ANY mental disorder that I can prove.
Of course, Bush sprang to mind, and although it is difficult to narrow his mental illness down to one THING, I have settled on a diagnosis of Narcissitic Personality Disorder.

This is the criteria that I have to prove (although it shouldn't be too hard):evilgrin:
If anyone has any thoughts or ideas they would like to share...feel free.:D

Diagnostic Criteria

A pervasive pattern of grandiosity (in fantasy or behavior), need for admiration, and lack of empathy, beginning by early adulthood and present in a variety of contexts, as indicated by five (or more) of the following:

1. has a grandiose sense of self-importance (e.g., exaggerates achievements and talents, expects to be recognized as superior without commensurate achievements)
2. is preoccupied with fantasies of unlimited success, power, brilliance, beauty, or ideal love
3. believes that he or she is "special" and unique and can only be understood by, or should associate with, other special or high-status people (or institutions)
4. requires excessive admiration
5. has a sense of entitlement, i.e., unreasonable expectations of especially favorable treatment or automatic compliance with his or her expectations
6. is interpersonally exploitative, i.e., takes advantage of others to achieve his or her own ends
7. lacks empathy: is unwilling to recognize or identify with the feelings and needs of others
8. is often envious of others or believes that others are envious of him or her
9. shows arrogant, haughty behaviors or attitudes

All the work is already done for you :D

http://www.amazon.com/Bush-Couch-Rev-Ed-President/dp/006143065X/ref=pd_bbs_sr_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1195619202&sr=8-2

I've always felt that the death of Dubya's little sister played a bigger role in the formation of his personality than people realize. Practically right off the bat, he was taught that it was okay to hide unpleasant truths.

Just thought I would throw that in.

One only has to check out Bush's record as Governor of Texas to see his own preference for death over life. During his tenure as Governor, Bush presided over a record setting 152 executions, including the 1998 execution of fellow born-again Christian Karla Faye Tucker, a convicted murderer who later led a prison ministry. Forty of Bush's executions were carried out in 2000, the year the Bush presidential campaign was spotlighting their candidate's strong law enforcement record. The Washington Post's Richard Cohen reported in October 2000 that one of the execution chamber's "tie-down team" members, Fred Allen, had to prepare so many people for lethal injections during 2000, he quit his job in disgust.

Bush mocked Tucker's appeal for clemency. In an interview with Talk magazine, Bush imitated Tucker's appeal for him to spare her life - pursing his lips, squinting his eyes, and in a squeaky voice saying, "Please don't kill me." That went too far for former GOP presidential candidate Gary Bauer, himself an evangelical Christian. "I think it is nothing short of unbelievable that the governor of a major state running for president thought it was acceptable to mock a woman he decided to put to death," said Bauer.

http://www.counterpunch.org/madsen04222003.html

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WASHINGTON (CNN) -- During the annual Radio and Television Correspondents Dinner this week, Bush presented a slide show of quirky photographs from inside the White House. In one, the president is looking under furniture in the Oval Office.

"Those weapons of mass destruction have got to be somewhere," Bush joked. "Nope, no weapons over there ... maybe under here?"

-snip-

...astonishingly insensitive when Americans have died for their country in Iraq while the search for WMD has turned up nothing.

-snip-

"There are lines you cannot cross," Katz said. "With regard to going to war, sending American troops to war to find weapons of mass destruction, that's a joke that's playing out on the world stage -- and is at our expense."

-snip-

"Seeing our president joke about WMDs at a comedy function was terrible. How can a thinking, caring human being joke about the lie that led to body bags and broken young men and women? I was appalled," wrote Fran in Burlington, Massachusetts.

http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/03/26/bush.wmd.jokes/index.html

So I'm afraid I can't talk to you anymore.

Profile of a Sociopath

* Glibness and Superficial Charm

* Manipulative and Conning
They never recognize the rights of others and see their self-serving behaviors as permissible. They appear to be charming, yet are covertly hostile and domineering, seeing their victim as merely an instrument to be used. They may dominate and humiliate their victims.

* Grandiose Sense of Self
Feels entitled to certain things as "their right."

* Pathological Lying
Has no problem lying coolly and easily and it is almost impossible for them to be truthful on a consistent basis. Can create, and get caught up in, a complex belief about their own powers and abilities. Extremely convincing and even able to pass lie detector tests.

* Lack of Remorse, Shame or Guilt
A deep seated rage, which is split off and repressed, is at their core. Does not see others around them as people, but only as targets and opportunities. Instead of friends, they have victims and accomplices who end up as victims. The end always justifies the means and they let nothing stand in their way.

* Shallow Emotions
When they show what seems to be warmth, joy, love and compassion it is more feigned than experienced and serves an ulterior motive. Outraged by insignificant matters, yet remaining unmoved and cold by what would upset a normal person. Since they are not genuine, neither are their promises.

* Incapacity for Love

* Need for Stimulation
Living on the edge. Verbal outbursts and physical punishments are normal. Promiscuity and gambling are common.

* Callousness/Lack of Empathy
Unable to empathize with the pain of their victims, having only contempt for others' feelings of distress and readily taking advantage of them.

* Poor Behavioral Controls/Impulsive Nature
Rage and abuse, alternating with small expressions of love and approval produce an addictive cycle for abuser and abused, as well as creating hopelessness in the victim. Believe they are all-powerful, all-knowing, entitled to every wish, no sense of personal boundaries, no concern for their impact on others.

* Early Behavior Problems/Juvenile Delinquency
Usually has a history of behavioral and academic difficulties, yet "gets by" by conning others. Problems in making and keeping friends; aberrant behaviors such as cruelty to people or animals, stealing, etc.

* Irresponsibility/Unreliability
Not concerned about wrecking others' lives and dreams. Oblivious or indifferent to the devastation they cause. Does not accept blame themselves, but blames others, even for acts they obviously committed.

* Promiscuous Sexual Behavior/Infidelity
Promiscuity, child sexual abuse, rape and sexual acting out of all sorts.

* Lack of Realistic Life Plan/Parasitic Lifestyle
Tends to move around a lot or makes all encompassing promises for the future, poor work ethic but exploits others effectively.

* Criminal or Entrepreneurial Versatility.
Changes their image as needed to avoid prosecution. Changes life story readily.



Other Related Qualities:

1. Contemptuous of those who seek to understand them
2. Does not perceive that anything is wrong with them
3. Authoritarian
4. Secretive
5. Paranoid
6. Only rarely in difficulty with the law, but seeks out situations where their tyrannical behavior will be tolerated, condoned, or admired
7. Conventional appearance
8. Goal of enslavement of their victim(s)
9. Exercises despotic control over every aspect of the victim's life
10. Has an emotional need to justify their crimes and therefore needs their victim's affirmation (respect, gratitude and love)
11. Ultimate goal is the creation of a willing victim
12. Incapable of real human attachment to another
13. Unable to feel remorse or guilt
14. Extreme narcissism and grandiose
15. May state readily that their goal is to rule the world
Changes their image as needed to avoid prosecution. Changes life story readily.

But my professor said that sociopath wasn't politically correct anymore, so, I narrowed it to this.:D

"If we believe the psychiatrists, a sign of a future serial killer is a child who delights in torturing and killing animals. George W., as a child, did exactly that. In a May 21, 2000, New York Times' puff piece about the values Bush gained growing up in Midland, Texas, Nicholas D. Kristof quoted Bush's childhood friend Terry Throckmorton: "'We were terrible to animals,' recalled Mr. Throckmorton, laughing. A dip behind the Bush home turned into a small lake after a good rain, and thousands of frogs would come out. 'Everybody would get BB guns and shoot them,' Mr. Throckmorton said. 'Or we'd put firecrackers in the frogs and throw them and blow them up.'"

On Sept. 12, 2000, Baltimore Sun reporter Miriam Miedzian wrote, "So when he was a kid, George W. enjoyed putting firecrackers into frogs, throwing them in the air, and then watching them blow up. Should this be cause for alarm? How relevant is a man's childhood behavior to what he is like as an adult? And in this case, to what he would be like as president of the United States."

http://www.serendipity.li/wot/conover01.htm

You don't have to look any further than Guantanamo and Abu Graib (sp?). For lack of empathy, there was a story in the New York Times in the 60's about him branding pledges with a coat hangar.

Have a great time writing your paper. You will have to post it in your journal and post a link to it.

knowing it would lead to the deaths of thousands and the life-long suffering of tens to hundreds of thousands and change the future drastically for everyone is proof enough of Narcisisstic Personality Disorder.

The ________ came to be filled in by a variety of things, ending with Nation Building, but however it is filled in, you have to assume that you have such uniquely ultra superior qualities of understanding, special higher power, that you know all of the deaths and suffering and the crippling of future opportunities are justified by ________________ and that you are the only special unique soul who can see that it's "good".

To be fair though, he had some super enablers, Melanie Sloan, of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) http://www.citizensforethics.org/ requested White House visitors' logs for the period of build-up to the war, partly because she was interested in what national religious leaders were advising the pResident during that time. CREW requested the records under the Freedom of Information Act, but BushInc had them classified Secret, so CREW has a lawsuit going on over the records now.

Those records being classified shows how important this information is, probably because you'd see a whole lot of Narcissistic Personality Disordered religious leader$$$$$$$$$ around Bush, especially during that time before we invaded Iraq.

Finally a paper that will be fun to write!

But what I find most notable about George, is what I perceive as a total lack of remorse or retrospect for his actions.

It's not normal to sign the death warrants of so many people as governor and not lose sleep over it wondering if it was the right thing to do.

It's not normal to send so many of our youth out to the middle east to die and totally ignore the incredible burden that would put on a normal person. For most of us, it would eat us alive.

Look at past presidents Carter and Clinton. Seems like they aged double for the years in office they spent. Clearly, the weight of the world was on their shoulders and they felt it. Whether to attack, or not attack. What's the best course? A bad decision could cause the lives of countless people.

But you don't see that premature aging with Bush. He's disconnected from that. He's disconnected from people. He's an actor. He plays the role. But in the end has has no feeling.

Whatever you diagnose him with, I'd suggest you also consider low IQ.

That's a very revalent matter for this fellow.

narcissistic sociopathic disorder