Donald Trump’s Mommy Issues

The report below is very light on evidence. It is by an amateur psychologist, PETER LOVENHEIM, who has devoted himself to "Attachment Theory" -- the claim that you need to have a lot of nurturance from your mother in the first 4 years of you life to grow up psychologically healthy

It is a theory from John Bowlby, an early British psychoanalyst who was disowned by other psychoanaysts, who think the father is the key.  Bowlby himself lost his mother when he was about 4 so that seems to be the genesis of the theory.  Psychologists today -- such as Rutter -- generally think there is something in the Bowlby theory but see it as only one of several influences

But when you have got a hammer everything looks like a nail and Lovenheim sees attachment theory as an explanation of Trump's behaviour.  As Trump always talks warmly of his mother, that would seem to disprove the Lovenheim theory but Lovenheim thinks he knows better what Trump feels.  It's all just speculation.

For what it's worth, I just think Trump was rather spoilt in his upbringing but it has not hurt his ability to empathize with normal people


Donald Trump is easily the most psychoanalyzed president of modern times. His decision-making style and behavior have been hotly debated by journalists, voters, politicians, world leaders and pundits who have bestowed upon him any number of fanciful, grave-sounding mental conditions, calling him, among other things, a narcissist, a sociopath, a psychopath and a paranoiac. Trump has said he distrusts mental health professionals, so we don’t have access to a formal assessment of his psychology. But colloquially speaking, perhaps the best explanation for the president’s behavior dates back to his earliest interactions with his mother.

Although I’m not a psychologist, I have spent years researching a major field of psychology known as attachment theory for a book. According to the science of attachment—developed in the second half of the 20th century by British psychotherapist John Bowlby—we’re hardwired at birth to attach to a competent and reliable caregiver for protection because we are born helpless. The success or failure of this attachment affects all our relationships throughout life—in the workplace, on the athletic field, with loved ones—and yes, even in politics. Children who bond successfully with a primary caregiver—usually this is the mom but it could also be the dad, grandparent, nanny or other adult—grow up with what is termed a “secure” attachment. As adults, they tend to be confident, trusting of others, resilient in the face of setbacks, and able to enjoy long, stable relationships. Children who fail to achieve a successful attachment, on the other hand, may as adults have a lack of comfort with intimacy, difficulty trusting others, a constant need for reassurance from relationship partners, and a lack of resilience when faced with illness, injury or loss.

The biographical record is fairly strong on Trump’s failure to develop a healthy emotional attachment to either of his parents. It may have contributed to his tumultuous personal life, but it also endowed him with some traits that made him well-suited to his late-career entry in politics.

Donald Trump is the fourth of five children of Fred and Mary Trump. Because his father was busy building a real estate business, and it was the mid-20th century when dads didn’t typically do a lot of early child care, his mother cared for the children (with the help of a live-in maid) and was their primary “attachment figure.” What factors may have affected the quality of young Donald’s early care—his own temperament as an infant; the role, if any, of the family’s maid in child care; the demands on his mother’s time and energy of three older children and a subsequent pregnancy—we don’t know. The president’s own writings are largely silent about his early childhood; journalists and biographers fill in only some of the blanks.

But we do know that Mary Trump became seriously ill from complications during labor with her last child. An emergency hysterectomy and subsequent infections and surgeries followed—four in two weeks, one of her oldest daughters once said. As a result, at just two years and two months of age, Trump endured the trauma of the prolonged absence and life-threatening illness of his mother. It’s not clear how long she was incapacitated. Indeed, we don’t know that she ever really re-engaged with her son. According to a Politico Magazine story on Mary Trump, there’s evidence that Mary and her son didn’t interact much during his childhood (more on this later).

Infants who fail to receive that kind of care usually fall into one of two categories as adults. Either they have what’s called attachment anxiety—leading them as adults to crave intimacy but have difficulty trusting others and constantly seeking reassurance—or they have attachment avoidance, where as adults they generally distrust others and convince themselves they don’t need close relationships. The relationships they do have are often unstable. They also tend to be excessively self-reliant and desire a high level of independence. These last two traits—self-reliance and independence—are not necessarily disadvantageous, of course. They might be just the right recipe, for example, for an entrepreneur.

The only way to be certain of President Trump’s attachment style would be for him to take the Adult Attachment Interview, an hour-long, structured interview that is considered the gold standard for assessing attachment in adults. Since that isn’t likely to happen, we’ll have to make an educated guess. While mental health professionals are constrained by ethical standards to avoid diagnosing public figures they haven’t personally examined, I am not bound by those rules. Based on my seven years of research, reading countless academic studies and interviewing leading attachment researchers worldwide, I’m willing to say what they can’t. I would peg President Trump’s attachment style as avoidant. Here are my three reasons:

First, Mary Trump’s major health crisis appears to have compromised her efforts—no matter how well-intentioned—to care reliably for young Donald.

Second, as previously reported in Politico Magazine, Trump has over the years said many flattering things about his mother, calling her “fantastic” and “tremendous.” He’s also described her as “very warm” and “very loving.” And yet, I find no stories or other anecdotes of early childhood that support these sentiments. In fact, friends of the Trump family who knew the Trump kids when they were young have reported they “rarely saw Mrs. Trump” and that Donald, while “in awe” of his father, was “very detached from his mother.” A characteristic of adults with avoidant attachment is the tendency to idolize one’s parents without supporting evidence.

Finally, much of the president’s behavior, both before and since he took office, is clearly consistent with attachment avoidance: His powerful sense of self-reliance and near-inability to acknowledge self-doubt; his bragging about his sexual relations; his almost complete lack of close friends; his multiple marriages; and his unstable relationships with White House staff, Cabinet members and congressional leaders of both parties.

Trump’s almost compulsive need to be in the spotlight might be evidence of attachment anxiety if it were aimed primarily at needing approval. But in the president’s case, it appears to be more about needing admiration. Overt narcissism or grandiose self-regard, the leading attachment researchers Mario Mikulincer and Philip R. Shaver report, is associated with attachment avoidance.

By any number of measures, President Trump may be seen as an anomaly among politicians—after all, how many people have run for precisely one political office and landed directly in the White House?—but if my hunch is correct, in this one trait—attachment avoidance—Trump may, in fact, be rather typical.

Attachment avoidance accounts for about 25 percent of the general population, with about 55 percent of people being secure, 15 percent anxious and 5 percent disorganized (often those who were neglected or maltreated in childhood). But in the course of my research, I asked questions from the Adult Attachment Interview to diverse officials: a former presidential nominee, current and former members of Congress and a mayor. With only one exception, their results indicated attachment avoidance.

Some of this may be because avoidance—though generally not the ideal for anyone—does confer some advantages for the political lifestyle. Avoidant athletes, for example, do well when they compete individually—as politicians do in elections. Avoidant people travel well—think never-ending campaign trail—feeling little need to be near loved ones. And the avoidant person’s general reluctance to trust others can act like protective radar in a field like politics that is rife with betrayal and double-dealing.

Avoidant politicians have one more quality that under the right circumstances can lead to success in office: They are quick to respond to threats and to take action. In a clever study in 2011 where test subjects were exposed to what appeared to be a threatening situation (a room gradually filling with smoke because of a supposedly malfunctioning computer), people high in attachment avoidance—who prize independence and self-reliance—were the first to find a way out to safety for themselves and others.

So is having a president with an avoidant attachment style good or bad? According to attachment theory, human relationships would generally be healthier and more stable if more people had a sensitive and consistent caregiver during infancy—and grew up to have a secure attachment style. So it is likely that leaders with secure attachment—as, for example, Franklin Roosevelt had, according to researchers—can become truly transformational by encouraging and uplifting the population in times of crisis. And while it’s true that people with attachment avoidance can often be personally successful—in business and other individually focused activities—there are requirements for public office, such as the ability to connect emotionally with constituents or at times to act selflessly—that may be difficult for those with attachment avoidance to muster. While it is too early for history to judge this presidency, understanding President Trump’s likely attachment style—and the attachment styles of all our political leaders—can give us important insights into their behavior and actions in office.

We should keep in mind that as voters, we have attachment styles, too. According to research, these may affect our political leanings and the relationships we have with elected leaders.

Secure voters, for example, tend to be tolerant of ambiguity, flexible in their political views, and thus disinclined to embrace any rigid dogmatism, As such, secure voters are most often found in the political center. Insecure voters, on the other hand, may be attracted to the perceived safety of dogmatism and are more likely to be found on the far-left or far-right. For example, anxious voters—seeking security in a world that feels threatening—may find comfort in a liberal orthodoxy that advocates redistribution of wealth and political power, and aggressively demands “inclusion” and protection in the form of a care-giving government. Avoidant voters, on the other hand, often distrusting others and prizing self-reliance, may embrace a strident conservatism, both economic (the world is a “competitive jungle”) and military (“we can only depend on our own strength”).

So as we think about President Trump, we might consider that his presidency—and our personal reactions to it—may be influenced not only be his attachment style, but also our own.

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Exhaustive Study: Murder Rates Rise Every Place that Bans Guns

So, think banning guns is going to solve America’s murder problem? The data should tell you to think again.

Yes, in spite of the fact that we’ve been told that Mr. and Mrs. America turning all their guns in is the best way to fix violence, that’s actually a complete lie. And the Crime Prevention Resource Center has the numbers to prove it.

The 2013 study looked at murder rates from places that had banned guns around the world, from Washington, D.C. and Chicago to England, Wales, Jamaica and even the Solomon Islands, an archipelago in the South Pacific which only had mass shootings after they decided to ban guns.

The most striking example might be that of England and Wales, both of which banned firearms back in 1997. Homicides rose from 676 to 734 the first year of the ban. And things only got worse from there.

“After the ban, clearly homicide rates bounce around over time, but there is only one year (2010) where the homicide rate is lower than it was in 1996,” the CPRC noted. “The immediate effect was about a 50 percent increase in homicide rates.  Firearm homicide rate had almost doubled between 1996 and 2002 …  The homicide and firearm homicide rates only began falling when there was a large increase in the number of police officers during 2003 and 2004. Despite the huge increase in the number of police, the murder rate still remained slightly higher than the immediate pre-ban rate.”

The highest recorded murder rate was in 2002/03, which saw 1,041 murders. That number included 172 murders by Dr. Harold Shipman, a notorious physician and serial killer who murdered his patients via lethal doses of morphine. That said, the general trend was still toward more killings after the gun ban was put into place.

Meanwhile, Jamaica’s murder rate was at roughly 10 killings per 100,000 people in 1974, when guns were banned. By 1980, that number spiked to over 40 per 100,000, and 58 per 100,000 in 2005. While the numbers have again bounced around, Jamaica didn’t see under 20 murders per 100,000 people between 1990 and 2007. According to the Jamaica Gleaner, 38 people were murdered in the first six days of this year alone.

Ireland also saw a spike when it banned guns, the CPRC reports, from under 0.4 murders per 100,000 in 1972 to over 1.6 per 100,000 in just a few years, an increase of well over 400 percent. While that was the peak of the murder rate, it never fell below what it was the year before the gun ban.

Chicago also banned guns in 1982. How did that work? Well, the Windy City has always had a high homicide rate, but as you can see, it rose dramatically in the years following the ban. While there was a reduction in the 2000s, it rebounded again in the 2010s to become the gunshot capital of America.

SOURCE

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Escape from Obamacare: Coming soon to a health insurance plan near you

Millions of Americans could soon enjoy lower health insurance premiums, thanks to a new Trump administration rule.

The rule, which was proposed in January and will likely be finalized by early summer, would make it easier for self-employed individuals and small businesses to band together and purchase coverage through association health plans.

AHPs offer small businesses and sole proprietors an alternative to overpriced plans sold through the Obamacare exchanges. In 2018, average individual premiums on the healthcare.gov exchanges were nearly twice as high ($444 per month) as average individual-market premiums in 2013, the year before most of Obamacare took effect.

Premiums for small-group plans have also skyrocketed. This year, the price of plans in Connecticut jumped an average of 25 percent compared to 2017. Small businesses in Minnesota experienced increases of up to 23 percent.

These hikes explain why many small businesses don't extend health benefits to employees. Less than one in three employers with 50 or fewer workers currently offers coverage.

President Trump's AHP proposal could make it less expensive for small-business owners and self-employed Americans to obtain health insurance. In effect, the rule gives these people access to the coverage enjoyed by large businesses.

Historically, premiums for large employer plans have increased at a far slower rate than individual and small-group market premiums. Among companies with at least 1,000 workers, average premiums for an individual plan rose by less than 6 percent between 2014 and 2016.

The reason? Larger companies have more bargaining power to negotiate lower rates with insurers and providers. These companies also aren't subject to some of Obamacare's most expensive 10 essential health benefit mandates.

AHPs would level the playing field. Right now, a 20-person construction company has little to no leverage to negotiate favorable rates. But if a dozen small construction firms formed an AHP, they could negotiate better deals and keep costs low.

AHPs give small-businesses and self-employed Americans an affordable alternative to Obamacare-compliant coverage. The reform can't come soon enough.

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