In this first episode of my webcast, I address the issue of how to understand Trump’s need, his compulsive relentless need, to exaggerate his own accomplishments, ego, and greatness. I explain how the mind works -in all of us — to limit, reduce, negate, or otherwise get rid of painful feeling states, an effort often accomplished by exaggerating their opposite. This is a universal experience and expression of the workings of the normal human psyche. In fact, one can often infer very accurately the states of mind that are the most forbidden or intolerable by examining and understanding the ways that the person suffering from these painful states of mind goes about trying to reduce their suffering. For Trump, his bloviating narcissism, conceit, self-aggrandizing and clownish self-promotion obviously comes from his dread and intolerance of any suggestion or any feeling that he’s helpless, inferior, ashamed, or inadequate. I make the argument in this webcast that this isn’t volitional and conscious and intentional but unconscious, automatic, and compulsory. He has no choice. This means that, were he to have lost the election, it isn’t a question of whether or not he would have contested it or fomented a civil war to reverse it, but how exactly he would do it because Trump lacks the psychic freedom to do anything else.
