Clinical psychiatrist gets candid with patients 'alarmed by' Trump’s 'hoarding of executive power'

27 February

In his articles for The Atlantic, Dr. Richard A. Friedman — a clinical psychiatry professor at Weill Cornell Medical College in New York City — often tackles a combination of political and mental health subjects. Friedman is a vehement critic of President Donald Trump, and in an article published on February 27, he warns that the "disruptive effects" of Trump's second presidency are hurting Americans' "sense of security and control" and are "bound to provoke intense anxiety."

Friedman, in fact, is seeing that "anxiety" first-hand in some of his patients. And the psychiatrist reveals, in his article, that instead of trying to sugarcoat things, he speaks to patients candidly.

"It's a stressful time to be a psychiatrist in America," Friedman explains. "Not a day seems to go by without a panicked patient or friend asking me how to stay grounded in the face of the political chaos that has suddenly taken hold of the nation. One patient, a 38-year-old scientist, worries that his research will soon be defunded, ending his career. A good friend, a professor in her 60s, fears that the United States is sliding into autocracy. How, they want to know, can they make themselves feel better? They haven't liked the answer I've had to give them."

Friedman continues, "This is a hard thing for a psychiatrist to say, but if you're alarmed by Donald Trump's hoarding of executive power and efforts to dismantle the federal government, then maybe you should be."

The clinical psychiatrist points out that "even some of Trump's supporters" seem to be "reeling from the chaos" — and that "even some of my Republican patients have told me they are having second thoughts" about voting for him in 2024.

Friedman notes that "several weeks after Trump’s inauguration," a "close friend" told him she was still taking "a break" from the news. But the Weill Cornell professor argues that ignoring painful realities doesn't necessarily improve one's mental health.

"An information blackout might temporarily spare you such discomfort," Friedman writes, "but denial can be its own source of anxiety. A lack of knowledge about the environment around you increases uncertainty, which psychological studies have shown to be very stressful…. Certainty, by contrast, allows us to activate coping strategies. That's why we can adjust to good news or even bad news — both are clear and unambiguous — but we cannot reconcile with the unknown."

The clinical psychiatrist continues, "Many therapists are trained to identify the exaggerated emotional responses and distortions of reality that beset their patients, and to help them understand that things are not as bad as they imagine. But when the situation really is as dire as a patient believes, soothing reassurance that one's distress is misplaced would be malpractice. No one can say exactly where Trump is taking the country, but those who worry about the breakdown of essential public services, the spilling of national-security secrets, and national paralysis in the face of natural disasters are empirically grounded in their concerns. Think of it this way: If your house is in danger of catching fire, the last thing you should do is disable the alarm."

Dr. Richard A. Friedman's full article for The Atlantic is available at this link (subscription required).

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