Curious about George

Today, we know who he is—and, by inference, who we are. We, too, are susceptible to bloodlust, and he is our ringleader.

—Justin Frank

When I first heard of Justin Frank's book-length psychoanalysis of George Bush, I was not particularly interested in reading it. Bush on the Couch: Inside the Mind of the President, to judge from the mixed reviews, is either a completely misguided attempt based on sketchy information or a somewhat interesting compendium of everything we already know. Logically, of course, it can't be both.

In fact, it's something larger, and much better, than either. The book contains everything we (shudder) already know about this man's pathological patterns of thought and repressed emotions—plus a lot more—all cast within the illuminating context of traditional psychoanalysis and related in the sensible, measured tones of a concerned family doctor. Well, not always measured—Frank is sometimes so appalled at Bush's psyche that he occasionally waxes shrill. That's OK by me—shrillness comes with the territory, given the patient's excesses. I have been driven to it myself now and again.

Frank, a clinical professor of psychiatry at George Washington University, is disarmingly, well, frank about his initial impressions of Bush and the reasons he took on the task of dissecting the mind of someone so famously nonintrospective, someone who would never actually agree to place himself on any analyst's couch.

If one of my patients frequently said one thing and did another, I would want to know why. If I found he often used words that hid their true meaning and affected a persona that obscured the nature of his actions, I would grow more concerned. If he presented an inflexible worldview characterized by an oversimplified distinction between right and wrong, good and evil, allies and enemies, I would question his ability to grasp reality. And if his actions revealed an unacknowledged—even sadistic—indifference to human suffering, wrapped in pious claims of compassion, I would worry about the safety of the people whose lives he touched.

For the past three years, I have observed with increasing alarm the inconsistencies and denials of such an individual. But he is not one of my patients. He is our president.

We have all observed these disjunctions and self-deceptions; and Frank, using the tools of his trade, is able to examine fruitfully their sources and significance. Critics have questioned Frank's methodology, however, raising doubts that anyone can meaningfully analyze a patient who refuses to be analyzed, who even disparages what he calls "psychobabble." But Frank recalls that Freud himself wrote theory-rich observations of several public figures, including Moses and Leonardo da Vinci; and he points to the OSS/CIA office that has, over the years, provided US presidents with incisive profiles of Adolf Hitler, Anwar Sadat, and Menachen Begin, to name a few. (Ironically, that office is housed in the CIA building named for George Bush's father.)

Frank is also careful to cast his profile of Bush within the context of these studies: they are suggestive, but they are not equivalent to the depth of real psychoanalysis, with its probing give-and-take, its transference and countertransference. Nevertheless, he says, there is abundant material available in the public record by and about Bush and his family, so an analyst begins with a wealth of relevant data.

Bush on the Couch opens with a telling look at George's childhood, when his often-absent father and his cold, judgmental mother left him to fend for himself emotionally. Given his severe learning disabilities and his eagerness to please, this would have been difficult for any child. But he was also faced with unusually high expectations in a public, political family, so it is not surprising that he displayed early maladjustment. Frank recounts the incidents surrounding the death of George's sister to make the point. When he was 6, Robin was diagnosed with leukemia. She was 2, and the parents kept her illness a secret from George, often traveling with her to see specialists while leaving him at home. When she died a year later, there was no funeral and no public mourning; George H. W. and Barbara went out to play golf that afternoon.

Young George must have learned to avoid dealing with emotions from his mother, whose own mother passed on "two deep strains" to Barbara: a continuous undervaluing of the self and a need for detached discipline. So icy is she that when George H. W. lost the 1992 election to Bill Clinton, she merely said, "Well, now, that's behind us. It's time to move on." The point Frank makes is not that stoicism is always inappropriate, but that a steady diet of it starves the feeling soul. George was always malnourished.

After a chapter on the dysfunctional family of origin, Frank discusses:

• Bush's disability and the affable clown persona he developed to disguise it
• his alcoholism—fed by anxieties and nourished by codependencies—and the unreflective way he stopped drinking, which fixed in place an alcoholic's coping mechanisms, such as denying responsibility and placing blame on others
• his simplistic religious faith, full of rigid good-and-evil Manacheism and devoid of compassionate actions or transcendent experience
• his "bad boy" persona, always thumbing his nose at authority
• his sadistic tendencies and love of violence
• his struggles with language, which often reveal hidden anxieties and prejudices—and his use of language as a weapon
• his alternate mimicking and rejection of his father, in Oedipal rage and confusion

Central to the analysis, finally, is Bush's ability to appeal to many different voters, despite his abysmal record of incompetence and failure. As Frank says, "If it weren't for the fact that he is president of the United States, George W. Bush might be merely an interesting psychological case study." But Bush is good at connecting with other people. He can make working-class people think he is one of them though he grew up privileged and rich. He can attract idealists despite his pragmatic focus on achieving and retaining political power. He can fool fundamentalist Christians into thinking he shares their emphasis on a generous morality. Frank explains this otherwise incomprehensible identification as a natural outgrowth of his defensive affability and, in part, as a result of his

evacuation of anxiety. At times Bush looks like a terrified little boy—particularly in televised addresses and press conferences, then his childlike anxiety emerges from behind the boyish bravado, exposing the insecurity that has haunted him since childhood. This makes possible another level of identification as we recognize out own insecurity in him. But that recognition is not entirely threatening, because Bush so explicitly exudes power—the walking penis, standing tall. Seeing that he can be vulnerable and strong at the same time, we're reassured that we can too.

Frank published the book many months ago, hoping to derail the Bush/Rove steamroller. Though he—and all of us in the reality-based community—have failed in that noble effort, it is good to have Frank's reasoned insights to help us cope with the next four years under the leadership of this deeply flawed, deeply dangerous man.

At the least, we can learn how to avoid codependency with the pathological president. At the best, we can thwart his most dangerous efforts.

Comments

[Don Williams]

Thanks for the good review of Frank's book. I hope you'll take a look at a psychological analysis of Bush's April 14 2004 press conference where he repeatedly dissociated in the face of attempts by the press to hold him accountable. I also briefly used Frank's work to interpret Bush's incapacity to feel what others feel, to empathize. It's frightening to be facing another 4 years with this president.
(http://www.cgjungpage.org/content/view/610/28/)

[Dennis Ferguson]

I think W's is trying to proved to his father that he is better than his brother. So he has rejected his father and accepted "Jesus". This give him great irrational confidence and enough to ruin our country.

[Dennis Ferguson]

I think W. is trying to proved to his father that he is better than his brother. So he has rejected his father and accepted "Jesus". This give him great irrational confidence and enough to ruin our country.