Sabrina

“Assessing dangerousness requires a different standard from diagnosing so as to formulate a course of treatment. Dangerousness is about the situation, not the individual; it is more about the effects and the degree of impairment than the specific cause of illness; it does not require a full examination but takes into account whatever information is available. Also, it requires that the qualified professional err on the side of safety, and it may entail breaking other, ordinarily binding rules for urgent action.”
― Bandy X. Lee, The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump: 37 Psychiatrists and Mental Health Experts Assess a President

“Fostered by the flattery of underlings and the chants of crowds, a political leader’s grandiosity may morph into grotesque delusions of grandeur. Sociopathic traits may be amplified as the leader discovers that he can violate the norms of civil society and even commit crimes with impunity. And the leader who rules through fear, lies, and betrayal may become increasingly isolated and paranoid, as the loyalty of even his closest confidants must forever be suspect.”
― Bandy X. Lee, The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump: 37 Psychiatrists and Mental Health Experts Assess a President

“Loyalty is highly prized by sociopaths because it serves their personal ends, but there is no real relationship. Dividing the world into good and bad in an unstable, fluctuating way is called “splitting.”
― Bandy X. Lee, The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump: 37 Psychiatrists and Mental Health Experts Assess a President

“If pathological narcissists, in their reality-warping efforts to feed their addiction, bring themselves to the precipice of disaster, why should we, as nations, allow them to pull us into the abyss with them? It’s this urgent existential question that faces democracies throughout the world today.”
― Bandy X. Lee, The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump: 37 Psychiatrists and Mental Health Experts Assess a President