Posted on 04/20/2006 10:05:20 PM PDT by Torie
23/02/2006 - Duke: Duke study posits presidents had mental illness
U-Wire via NewsEdge Corporation :
By Haley Hoffman, The Chronicle (Duke)
DURHAM, N.C. -- No one would ever expect the general who led the Union army to victory in the Civil War to have a debilitating fear of blood.
But Ulysses S. Grant was among the 49 percent of former U.S. presidents afflicted by mental illness, according to an article published recently by psychiatrists at the Duke University Medical Center.
Jonathan Davidson, professor of psychiatry and director of the Anxiety and Traumatic Stress Program, has a particular interest in history, especially U.S. presidents.
After culling data from presidential biographies, Davidson was joined by Kathryn Connor, associate professor of psychiatry, and Marvin Swartz, professor and head of the social and community division of psychiatry, to analyze the information. Together, they diagnosed the commander-in-chiefs from 1776 to 1974.
According to the study, published in January in the Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease, of the 37 presidents researched, 18 were found to suffer a mental illness of some form. Depression was the most prevalent disorder among presidents, occurring at a rate of 24 percent.
The researchers wrote that the 49 percent rate mirrored national mental illness statistics, but the rate of depression was high for a male population.
"A fairly high number of people have mental disease at some level, so it would be surprising if presidents didn't," said John Aldrich, professor of political science. "Certain things, like depression, are associated with artistic accomplishment."
Other diagnoses included anxiety, alcohol abuse, bipolar disorder and social phobia. Howard Taft apparently suffered from sleep apnea.
At least 10 presidents were affected by episodes while in office, and the study found evidence that symptoms interfered with their performance in almost all cases.
To make their diagnoses, the researchers used the criteria of the DSM-IV, the Diagnostic Statistical Manual all psychiatrists use to treat patients. They examined the data to identify symptoms, determine if they were persistent and caused dysfunction and then establish their own levels of confidence that mental illness existed.
Such remote diagnosis through secondary research, however, can be problematic.
"Using biographical materials may be an imperfect way to gauge mental illness," Aldrich said.
Swartz explained that detailed analysis of primary sources, while ideal, was outside of the scope of the study but that the published article elaborated on its own relevance and weaknesses.
"You have to rely on what historians reported based on their research," he said. Still, Swartz estimated that their sources erred on the side of undercounting illness among presidents.
The troubles of certain presidents are already very well known. Abraham Lincoln famously suffered from symptoms of depression, though he triumphed politically more than Franklin Pierce, whose more modest legacy the study attributed greatly to his illness.
Having witnessed the violent death of his son in a railway accident just before he assumed office, Pierce suffered from symptoms indicating depression or post-traumatic stress during his term. The study noted that his associates accused Pierce of being a different person than the one who had energetically campaigned for office.
While personal tragedy and the weight of the presidency may have incited the problems of some presidents, others were apparently afflicted long before they moved into the White House.
According to the article, contemporaries of Grant, James Madison, Rutherford Hayes and Woodrow Wilson who watched them as young men would have thought that these men would do very little with their lives based on their seeming mental problems or deficiencies.
Whether they were suffering from an illness before they entered the White House or not, presidents' afflictions raise questions about their ability to do the executive job.
"The extensiveness of Richard Nixon's alcohol abuse was pretty remarkable and alarming, given the authority he had," Swartz said.
Though Calvin Coolidge's hypochondria may not have had the most profound effect on affairs of state, Coolidge, Grant and Thomas Jefferson were diagnosed with social phobia by Davidson and his associates.
"Social phobia is kind of remarkable in a president. It meant he was shy and avoided social circumstances, and yet he was president," Swartz said.
The study noted among its implications that no national calamities seem to have been a result of presidential mental illness.
It also considered the possibility that knowledge of these afflictions might lessen the stigma of psychological treatment. But there remains a question about the public's right, and need, to know the psychological state of the president, in an age of increased psychological vigilance.
"It's obviously about as stressful and physically demanding a job as there is for mature adults, so it has to at least exacerbate any [already existing] problems," Aldrich said. "You know, the president is not a person, he's an institution.... There are a lot of checks and redundancies to make sure he doesn't do anything foolish."
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((Distributed on bahalf of U-Wire via M2 Communications Ltd - http://www.m2.com)) ((U-Wire - http://www.uwire.com))
Clinton is a sociopath. Reminds me of Mao.
Studies are biased. Forget academia - its all politcal. The agenda is shrouded and hidden. But the results are always the same - dispirited public is driven to believe anything it is told by "experts" and "researchers".
This article is retarded.
There is no way to clinically evaluate someone dead 150 years agao to detemrine if they had a mental illness...and frankly some of the things they describe as mental illness are just absurd. Sleep Apnia? Shyness? Give me a break.
Even junk science used to be better! "Howard Taft apparently suffered from sleep apnea." (Never heard anyone call him Howard, did you?) The man was morbidly obese, not surprising if he had trouble breathing, and is this a mental illness now?
Thank you.
>>>>The study noted among its implications that no national calamities seem to have been a result of presidential mental illness. >>>>
I don't think they can say this. Clinton's insatiable need to be liked and admired casued him to sidestep many important issues and decisions during his time in office, laying the ground work for 9/11 and the continually growing mess in the Middle East.
We still don't know what chaotic situation his prediliction for Chinese flattery (not to mention bribery $$$) will appear to our detriment.
I agree this is all prep work to start their future salvos that Bush is mentally ill and may well lead to a drumbeat that he needs to be impeached and sent away for treatment. For his own good, dontcha know... Gulag anyone????
Pinz
Actually, there is something to be said for having a psychoneurosis in a specific occupation.
For instance, would you really want a LEO who wasn't at least a little paranoid? ("Oh,don't worry . . .be happy"); how about a surgeon who wasn't somewhat o/c? (This scalpel was on the OR floor less than 5 seconds.)
As for politicians, need I say more?
Of course they are going to say President Bush is crazy. But on the other hand, I'd have to say, someone would have to be a little different to want that job and to suffer all the abuse.
I don't think this is correct. Surely, fewer than 49% of Presidents have been Democrats...?
And a very thoroughgoing narcissist.I'll never forget a Wash Times front page article that pegged Clinton for a narcissist. He got each of the ten personality traits of the clinical disfunction. (It struck me b/c my wife at the time hit nine of ten...). A search into the databases shows that the Weekly Standard ran an article on it by David Tell, Aug 10/17, 1998. I can't find that original Wash Times article, however, but it had to be from during the impeachment. (I do find a Times review of a '96 book that discussed his "narcissistic personality disorder.")
Since they counted Cleveland twice, does that mean he was diagnosed with schizophrenia? And would that count only once or twice?
If such diagnoses were reliable, there aren't enough psychologists in all of Durham to come up with an explanation for the 42nd President.
Taft could eat, and when he was stressed, he ate more and excercised less. Therefore, during his rather busy and stressful presidency, during which the Republican party near broke in two, his weight swelled (and also during some tight periods while he was Sec War -- and a damned good one at that). Gluttony, whatever. Mental illness, absolutely not.
Sleep apnea causes daytime tiredness. Due to constant nightime cut-off of the air supply caused, generally but not always, by obesity, the brain awakens just enough to adjust the air passage but not enough to awaken to total consciousness. So the sufferer spends the night sleeping and waking up without knowing it, and without solid REM sleep. Recently, a physician / amateur historian diagnosed Taft with sleep apnea. He probably had it. The WashPost (article here; registration required) and other journals ran articles on the "discovery." I have no problem with the diagnosis, but I have a huge problem with suggestions of its impact upon the Taft presidency. The Post ran my rebuttal in its article. For a more extensive discussion, see (my) Taft and Sleep Apnea.
As x wrote in post no. 28, "those who write such long-distance analyses are usually influenced more by their own prejudices than by actual objective data." Indeed, this kind of history is dangerous. The very worst biography of Taft was a 1970s-drenched "pycho-biography" of the impact of his obesity, the loss of his mother, and how he spent his presidency depressed. Supposedly things happened the way they did because of it all. Dumb book and it is ignored by serious historians. Despite that, the History Channel picked up on it for its "American Presidents" series. (More on this at my website.) So the myths of that book have been passed along further into popular history. And this of the father of the modern Republican Party.
The guy who diagnosed Taft's sleep apnea keeps a rather excellent website of the medical history of presidents.
When you get right down to it, we're all crazy by some definition. Most of us just keep it to ourselves.
Gotta run, I need to go count the blossoms on my violas. If there's an odd number, I'll have to go to the store and rearrange the shopping carts. Somebody has to do it.
He was an alcoholic, not insane. The doggrel of the time referred to him as The "Hero of a Well Fought Bottle".
Regards, Ivan
Does this suggest that you almost have to be crazy to want the job?
Freud and William Bullitt wrote quite the fascinating psychoanalysis of WilsonThe NY Times ran a "New Pyschology" explanation for T.R.'s 1912 run by Morton Prince, M.D. I'll post the .pdf of the article for a few days: "Roosevelt as analyzed by the new Pyschology" (Warning: pdf file!)
You'll get a kick out of it.
But I thought Nixon was a Quaker and didn't drink!!
(I think the study is nuts!!)
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