While working on his new book, Trump on the Couch: Inside the Mind of the President , psychiatrist Justin A. Frank constructed the following hypothesis, The Hill reports: In President Donald Trump’s mind, Special Counsel Robert Mueller “unconsciously represents” Fred Trump.
“[Trump’s] father sent him out of Jamaica Estates to a military academy. And I’ve realized over time that Mueller unconsciously represents his father. … He’s reenacting his teenage experience of having been impeached, as it were, when he was 13. And now he’s afraid of being thrown out of the White House, of being sent away from home again.”
Dr. Justin A. Frank, he claims, did a deep dive into Donald Trump’s childhood and personal history. When Trump was a teenager, his father Fred sent him away from his home for being delinquent. President Trump is now merely reenacting this unpleasant, perhaps traumatic teenage experience, reliving it through threats of impeachment generated by Mueller’s Russia probe.
Therefore, in this context, Robert Mueller, head of the Special Counsel investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections, is Fred Trump.
Dr. Justin A. Frank has never treated the president, but the psychiatrist is known for writing best-selling books about American presidents, Bush on the Couch and Obama on the Couch .
Dr. Frank, a former clinical professor of psychiatry at George Washington University Medical Center, argues that President Trump uses psychological projection as defense. In other words, Trump accuses other people of doing what he is doing. This is why, according to Frank, the best way to understand Donald Trump is to take a look at “who he accused of what.”
Because, when accusing someone of a crime, President Trump is actually projecting, talking about himself, the psychiatrist claims.
For instance, President Trump has accused the Democratic Party of colluding with Russia multiple times, according to The Star .
Psychiatrist says Mueller “unconsciously represents” Trump’s father in his mind https://t.co/LqI9kAyE3W pic.twitter.com/b7vFhYvHeO
— The Hill (@thehill) September 27, 2018
By Dr. Frank’s logic, President Trump is actually projecting, accusing the Democratic Party of committing a crime he committed.
Dr. Frank admitted that his personal politics may have played a role in his analysis of Trump, but added that Trump supporters might enjoy his book, since it is about “trying to understand” who President Trump is as a leader.
Many medical professionals have refused to weigh in on Trump’s mental health because of the so-called Goldwater rule, a rule from the American Psychiatric Association which prohibits members from speculating about the mental health of politicians and other public figures, The Hill notes.
Ignoring the Goldwater rule, some psychiatrists and medical professionals have famously weighed in on Donald Trump’s mental health according to Vox , and the president has described himself as a “very stable genius.”
Dr. Frank did, however, say what kind of patient he thinks President Trump would be.
“He’s the kind of patient who if I was busy with someone else, he’d be banging on my consulting room door demanding to be seen right away. So he would have to be controlled,” he said.
