Bush On the Couch : Inside the Mind of the President

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Summary: Excerpt from the Introduction
Review: Some zombies are driven to find progressive books and smear their ratings. No wrong Bush could possibly do would cause them hesitation. It is as if we are living The Invasion of the Body Snatchers. But bad reviewers betray their own motive when they attack this book for its politics. As that early psychoanalyst Jesus pointed out, they really judge themselves . This author is upfront about his positions - they weren't carefully gleaned by studious reviewers who likely never even read the book - as can be seen in this Excerpt I found available online. From Bush on the Couch: Inside the Mind of the President by Justin A. Frank, M.D. Introduction:"Curious about George" If one of my patients frequently said one thing and did another, I would want to know why. If I found that he often used words that hid their true meaning and affected a persona that obscured the nature of his actions, I would grow more concerned. If he presented an inflexible worldview characterized by an oversimplified distinction between right and wrong, good and evil, allies and enemies, I would question his ability to grasp reality. And if his actions revealed an unacknowledged -- even sadistic -- indifference to human suffering, wrapped in pious claims of compassion, I would worry about the safety of the people whose lives he touched. For the past three years, I have observed with increasing alarm the inconsistencies and denials of such an individual. But he is not one of my patients. He is our president. George W. Bush is a case study in contradiction. All of us have witnessed the affable good humor with which he charms both supporters and detractors; even those of us who disagree with his policies may find him personally likeable. As time goes on, however, the gulf between his personality and those policies -- and the style with which they are executed -- grows ever wider, raising serious questions about his behavior: . How can someone so friendly and playful be the same person who cuts funds from government programs aiding the poor and hungry?. How is it that our deeply religious president feels free to bomb Iraq -- and then celebrate the results with open expressions of joy? . How can a president send American soldiers into combat under false pretenses and then proceed to joke about the deception, finding humor in the absence of weapons of mass destruction under his Oval Office desk? . How can someone promise to protect the environment on the one hand and allow increased arsenic in the public water supply on the other? And why does he feel he can call his plan to lift logging restrictions in national forests the "Healthy" Forest Initiative? . If the president's interpersonal skills are strong enough to earn him the reputation of being a "people person," why is he so unwilling and even unable to talk to world leaders, such as Jacques Chirac or Gerhard Schroeder, who disagree with him? . How can the president sound so confused and yet act so decisively? And given the regularity with which he confuses fact with fantasy, how can he justify decisions based largely on his own personal suspicions with such unwavering certainty? As a citizen, I worry about what these contradictions and inconsistencies say about the president's ability to govern; as a psychoanalyst, I'm troubled by their implications for the president's current and long-term mental health, particularly in light of certain information we know about his past. Naturally, the occasional misstatement or discrepancy between word and deed may be dismissed as politics as usual. But when the most powerful man on the planet consistently exhibits an array of multiple, serious, and untreated symptoms -- any one of which I've seen patients need years to work through -- it's certainly cause for further investigation, if not for outright alarm. President Bush is not my patient, of course, but the discipline of applied psychoanalysis gives us a way to make as much sense of his psyche as he is likely ever to allow.

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Summary: Change my vote from dyslexia
Review: The immediate impression from listening to the President is dyslexia; the transposed words, the paragraphs that don't make sense, etc.
But this thoughtful book makes the case for something more serious, especially since this man has his hands on the nuclear button, not to mention our pocketbooks. Psychiatry at best is an art, but it is practiced very well in this book. As one reviewer put it and as events are proving, "We are in trouble."

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Summary: A Three Star Book with A Five Star Core: Recommended
Review: The interpretations advanced in this book are fascinating and provide a psychoanalytic take on the life and presidency of George W. Bush. If you are interested either in Bush the man or in the application of psychoanalytic technique in a political context, this text is well worth your time.

Author Justin Frank is especially persuasive in his analysis of material drawn from Bush's childhood. The future president was raised by a well-meaning but highly reserved mother and a frequently absent father. Bush's sister contracted leukemia when Bush was six and died when Bush was seven. Frank speculates persuasively that the president also likely suffered-- and considers to suffer-- from attention deficit disorder and perhaps from dyslexic tendencies.

Frank posits that these circumstances led to a highly anxious childhood and a lifelong difficulty in processing language and concepts. As a result (or so the author proposes), Bush developed a rigid, incurious world view (limiting perplexing or ambiguous information helps to contain anxiety), a need for set personal routines (routine is helpful in relieving anxiety), and a need to dominate or control events (which further reduces the likelihood of unanticipated occurrences).

These traits have been carried forward into Bush's presidency, which has been characterized by reliance on a rigid worldview of "us" against "them" (somewhat defensible in the wake of September 11, but highly consistent with Bush's supposed thought process), the use of a small coterie of trusted advisors, and strict adherence to a rigid schedule dedicated in good part to exercise, relaxation and rest. (Frank reports that the president's staff restricts Bush to three to four 30- to 45-minute policymaking sessions per week, to prevent the emergence of-- in the words of chief of staff Andrew Card-- "a grumpy and angry President.")

Frank also speculates that Bush's need to compete with and surpass his famous father has affected his life and his presidency. As a result, Frank believes that George W. Bush relishes the chance to dominate advisors who first served his father, and requires absolute loyalty from these appointees. And of course the 2003 invasion of Iraq surpassed George H.W. Bush's Desert Storm in firepower and scope. Might the son have been trying to outdo the father on the world stage?

These and other provocative interpretations make Bush on the Couch worth reading, and I honestly wish that I could have given this book a higher rating than three stars. Unfortunately, the book looks at every Bush utterance as psychoanalytic fodder, disregarding the fact that Bush is to a degree "managed" by a substantial staff. (Was the infamous "looking for WMD in the Oval Office" video for the 2004 White House Correspondents Dinner-- an event at which the president is expected to poke fun at himself-- a revealing bit of psychodrama, or a misdirected effort at humor by the White House media team? Frank believes the former. I would argue the latter.) The book also conveniently ignores the fact that many policy decisions are brokered or made in response to perceived political needs, rather than providing unalloyed reflections of the President's psychiatric condition. (Was Bush's support for the establishment of the Department of Homeland Security a reflection of the President's tendency to offer superficially reassuring but ultimately hollow approaches to dealing with anxiety, or a political compromise responding to an initiative introduced by then-Presidential candidate Joe Lieberman? Frank chooses the first alternative, but political accounts state that Bush-- who initially opposed the creation of a new federal agency-- was persuaded to support the initiative to avoid ceding advantage to the Democrats.)

While the tendency to overlook all non-psychoanalytic explanations for Bush's behavior flaws this manuscript considerably, Frank offers many worthwhile explanations for the president's worldview and operating style. This is a three star book with a five star core. Extract the insights and ignore the rest.

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Summary: Where are the Footnotes?
Review: This book makes grand claims of alleged Bush behavior, such as Bush laughed at the deaths of Texas death row inmates. WITHOUT FOOTNOTES! That is inexusable. In ANY book of such rigid study, everything has to have a source, everything has to have confirmation. No professional researcher taking on such a subject would even dream of going to the bathroom without a footnote. It is just not suppose to happen, and a serious lapse of professional respect for the authors ability and motivation. As a professional, the author had no excuse not to know better, and this was a severe amatuer mistake indicating that either he had unreliable sources, or none at all. Neither option is acceptable in respectable research. Believe this book at your own risk.

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Summary: Scary, but informative
Review: This book pulled together much of what has disturbed me about GWB's behavior. I did not agree with everything, and thought the author was a bit wordy.

Though disturbing, it left me with a better understanding.

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Summary: Compelling read
Review: Though some may question whether or not it is possible to analyze a public figure at a distance, this is the only Bush book that gives the public any clue as to who this man really is, and what makes him tick. Frank connects the dots in Bush's behavior patterns and provides a credible, if chilling, profile of the president.

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Summary: Understanding Dubya
Review: Why aren't books like this required reading prior to casting a vote in the election?

I had always suspected all was not right between Dubya's ears: his thinking seemed too simplistic, too black and white, too rigid to cope with a complex, nuanced world. I enjoy politics and international relations/law as a hobby, and have been dumbfounded at this man's lack of empathy for other cultures, and those who disagree with him. He believes his lies; the world according to Dubya. I wish had the capacity to create my own realities in more than just imagination.

Many state Bush is smart. Debatable: my definition of intelligence includes wisdom and vision, which this man does not have. He appears to be obsessed with morals (which vary over culture and time), and not ethics (universal constants); indeed, I suspect he is unethical, being obsessed with increased wealth and power. This is evidenced by Bush's long history of breaking the law, and the policies of his administration (no bid contracts on Iraq to Halliburton, environmental neglect, outsourcing, etc.).

Dr. Frank has dug up fascinating tidbits from Dubya's childhood and youth which explain Bush's rigidity and arrogance (not strength, not singlemindedness). After having lived in the Middle East and having some small understanding of their (legitimate) grievances, I realize how out of touch Bush is. I have long suspected he exchanged one crutch -- substance abuse -- for another -- religion. Although concerned with fundamentalist religious dogma, he is incapable of spirituality. Dr. Frank's arguments make sense from a psychological viewpoint: as Bush has never examined the reason for his addictions, rigidity becomes a life sustaining tightrope. Any disturbance of the equilibrium would drive him back into self destructive, impulsive, negative behaviours. And being labelled the underachiever, the "master of low expectations", inferior to his siblings, abused by a cold, bullying mother, and ignored by an easy going but absent father, makes Bush susceptible to blind ambition and paranoia; driven not by altruism, but insecurity.

What disturbs me most is not so much Dubya's psyche, which is a common one, but the position of power he has attained via simplistic messages. And I write this following his re-election: why does the world understand this man, but not the majority of the American people? But that is ANOTHER book.

I cannot, like others, dismiss this book to partisanship. The theories do make sense psychologically, as Bush's behaviour and attitudes are highly suspect. At times I have thought him racist (why in a televised Presidential address, did he refer to Middle Eastern people as "brown skinned"?).

Fascinating, well researched, and thoughtful. Disturbing.