Anxiety over a Trump presidency is making even psychologists seek therapy: report
Mental health
professionals are reporting an uptick in patients coming to them out of
fear that Donald Trump will become president, the Washington Post reported.
“Just that Trump has survived and that there’s such a cataclysmic
shift in the Republican Party — an institution that’s part of our way of
life even if you’re not a Republican — is going to disturb a lot of
people,” said psychologist Paul Saks.
Saks, who practices in Greenwich Village in New York City, said that
one of his patients — the grandson of Holocaust survivors — was
disturbed by Trump’s recent reluctance to disavow the support of former
Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke.
Another local psychologist, Judith Schweiger Levy, said that she has
also seen an increase in Trump-related cases; one patient, she said,
came to her talking about nothing else but how “crazy and frightening”
she found the current Republican front-runner. A different patient, who
Levy described as a “middle-aged businesswoman,” was upset that her
sister is supporting him.
“She was so upset and worried that she could have a sister — someone
so close to her — who would have zero problem with Trump,” Levy
explained.
Levy herself admitted to feeling anxious just discussing the candidate.
“Part of the reason he makes people so anxious is that he has no anxiety himself,” she said. “It’s frightening.”
Another reason behind the increased stress associated with Trump,
psychologist Alison Howard said, was the sense that the real estate
mogul tramples over social mores and is allowed “to get away with it.”
“We’ve been told our whole lives not to say bad things about people,
to not be bullies, to not ostracize people based on their skin color,”
said Howard, who practices in Washington D.C.
Some psychologists, like New York City-based Mary Libbey, are seeking support within their professional community.
“It helps me to talk about it,” she said. “I’m terrified that he
could win. His impulsivity, his incomplete sentences, his strange,
squinty eyes — to my mind, he’s a loosely held together person.”
The Post also noted that online searches for information on how to move to Canada surged following Trump’s Super Tuesday primary victories, as did Twitter posts with “Trump” attached to phrases like “freaking out.”
“As phobias and fears ago, this is not a pathological response to a
normal situation, but a normal response to a pathological situation,”
said Nancy Lauro, an art teacher who said she has researched emigrating
to Italy or Ireland. “Picking up one’s life feels impossible, but I keep
flashing on those people who fled Germany when the writing was on the
wall and those who didn’t. When do you take action to get out?”
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