The Psychopathology of Power: Mood, Hubris, and Leadership

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The Psychopathology of PowerMood, Hubris, and
Leadership

• Nassir Ghaemi MD
• Tufts University
• Harvard Medical School

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• Honest history
• Positive aspects of mood illness
• Depression Realism, Empath
• Mania Creativity, Resilience
• Limitations of mental health (Reverse stigma)
  Conformism
• Nassir Ghaemi, A First-Rate Madness, New York,
  Penguin Press, 2011
• JF Galvez, SB Thommi, SN Ghaemi, J Affective
  Disorders, 2011, 128-185-190

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New Psychohistory

• Scientific not speculative
• Not psychoanalytic Freud/Erikson
• Documentation 50 year rule
• Symptoms
• Genetics (Family History)
• Course
• Treatment
• Severity of symptoms
• Effects

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Depressive Realism

• Contingency tests
• 25 green light after button press
• ½ both groups recognized control
• 75 green light after button press
• 6 of normal students recognized control vs 50
  of depressive group
• Add money 5 per green light
• normal students misinterpreted control as before
• Lose 5 per green light
• Normal students more realistic

LB Alloy, LY Abramson, Journal Exp Psychology,
1979, 108441-485
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Heads I win, Tails its chance

• 90 Yale students, 30 coin tosses
• called out beforehand, asked how accurate at
  guessing and whether could improve with practice
• Descending outcomes group
• told repeatedly early that they were correct
• Ascending outcomes group
• told early that they were incorrect and then more
  correct
• Truth group told the truth
• Descending group was less realistic (Leston
  Havens)

EJ Langer and J Roth, J Personality Social
Psychology, 1975, 32 951-955
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Positive illusion
SE Taylor, DA Armor, J Personality 1996,
64873-898 RA Cummins, H Nistico, J Happiness
Studies, 2002, 337-69

• Breast cancer
• a mildly disturbing disregard for the truth
• Correlated with better clinician-judged
  psychological adjustment
• Skew of happiness
• 0-100 scale (16 studies of life satisfaction)
• Average score 75, range 70-80
• 90 above score of 50 most everyone feels
  happier than average
• (hence no such thing as average)

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Empathy

• Biology
• Oxytocin
• Mirror neurons
• Insula 10 of brain
• Psychology
• Cognitive, affective, sensory, motor (nonverbal)
• Depression depressed group vs normal controls,
  correlation with severity
• Affective, not just cognitive

JF Galvez, SB Thommi, SN Ghaemi, J Affective
Disorders, 2011, 128-185-190
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Mental Health

• Roy Grinker Homoclites
• N343, George Williams College, N75 selected, 2
  year examination
• 85 lacked even the mildest mental abnormality
• Upright young men
• Mediocrity?
• Health Norm normal versus ideal

RR Grinker et al, Arch Gen Psych, 1962, 6405-453
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• Muscular Christianity
• George Brush is my name,
• Americas my nation
• Ludingtons my dwelling place
• And Heavens my destination

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Being normal Homoclites
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Mental Health

• George Vaillant
• Well-adjusted personality (work and love)
• ML King
• David Owen
• Hubris Syndrome

GE Vaillant, Adaptation to Life, Little Brown
1977 D Owen, In sickness and in power, Praeger,
2008 D Owen, The hubris syndrome, Methuen, 2012
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ML King

• The popular clergyman preaches soothing sermons
  on "How to Be Happy" and "How to Relax." Some
  have been tempted to revise Jesus command to
  read, "Go ye into all the world, keep your blood
  pressure down, and, lo, I will make you a
  well-adjusted personality.

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Great ill leaders

• Mania
• William Sherman
• Not George McClellan
• Ted Turner
• Depression
• Winston Churchill
• Not Neville Chamberlain
• Abraham Lincoln
• Mahatma Gandhi
• Martin Luther King Jr

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Healthy poor leaders

• Chamberlain
• McClellan
• Nuremberg Nazi trials
• Modern leaders?
• Richard Nixon?
• George W. Bush
• Tony Blair

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George McClellan
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Neville Chamberlain
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Nuremberg Nazi leaders
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How to enhance realism?

• Oppose the culture of self-esteem
• You are not special
• Teach self-doubt
• The scientific attitude
• Richard Feynman Cargo cult science
• Teach non-conformism
• Emersons self-reliance

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How to enhance empathy?

• Spirituality Eastern traditions, existential
  equality
• Teaching nonviolent resistance
• Not simple pacifism
• Oppose conformism
• social doubt, related to self-doubt
• Karl Jaspers