‘#Unfit: The Psychology of Donald Trump’ Uses Science to Explain an Unhinged President — Watch

Chris Lindahl
·3 min read

The last four years of President Donald Trump’s tenure has been defined by endless lies, a revolving door of senior White House staffers, name-calling, and all-around hostility, making for a chaotic state of affairs before even diving into his policy record. As such, the inner workings of the president’s mind has sparked troubled curiosity from both sides of the aisle. Speaking during the opening night of the Democratic National Convention this week, former first lady Michelle Obama cited the “chaos, division, and a total and utter lack of empathy” under Trump as among the chief reasons why he’s unfit to serve.

Now, an upcoming documentary seeks to make sense of it all. Below, check out an exclusive clip from “#Unfit: The Psychology of Donald Trump.” With interviews from doctors and mental health professionals, the film offers an analysis of the behavior, psyche, condition, and stability of Trump, as well as his impact on society.

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With this, the filmmakers conclude that Trump is a malignant narcissist, a psychological condition that combines narcissistic personality disorder, paranoia, sadism, and anti-social behavior. In the clip, retired Harvard Medical School psychiatry professor Dr. Lance Dodes, discusses anti-social personality disorder.

“If you don’t have normal empathy, you’re going to mistreat people, because they don’t matter — there’s an absence of loyalty,” Dodes said. “If you have a person without empathy, what you find is that loyalty disappears as soon as the other person crosses them, as soon as somebody says ‘I’m not with you anymore’ or ‘I disagree.'”

Director Dan Partland and his producers wrote on the film’s website that their documentary does not advocate on policy issues. “We interview mental health professionals, who discuss the disorders, why they feel the danger is now exacerbated, and why they believe that for them to NOT warn the public at this juncture would be an abdication of professional responsibility,” the site reads.

The film’s release comes after Mary L. Trump, the president’s niece and a psychologist, released the book “Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World’s Most Dangerous Man” last month.

Partland’s credits include work as a producer on the long-running A&E series “Intervention,” for which he won a shared Emmy in 2009. He also won a shared Emmy in 2001 for producing the Fox/PBS series “American High.” He more recently worked on the Emmy-nominated CNN decade retrospective “The Sixties.”

“#Unfit” will get a limited theatrical and virtual cinema release on August 28 before heading to on-demand platforms September 1. Check out a clip from the film, only on IndieWire, below.

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