A correspondent with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) based in Washington, DC, ferreted out a counselor who is treating people for a “collective anxiety” caused by President Donald Trump “volatility.”
“There is a fear of the world ending,” Elisabeth LaMotte, founder of D.C. Counseling and Psychotherapy Center, told CBC. “It’s very disorienting and constantly unsettling.”
CBC reported:
[LaMotte] refers to it as a “collective anxiety” among patients who feel on edge about how potentially dire the president’s decisions could be.
What’s been called “Trump Anxiety Disorder” has been on the rise in the months following the election, according to mental-health professionals from across the country who report unusually high levels of politics-related stress in their practices. And it’s maybe not surprising given the relentlessly negative headlines and politically divisive climate.
This week, it was a menacing all-caps Trump tweet warning Iran about potentially historic “CONSEQUENCES.” Previously, it was his Supreme Court picks and fears that the legal right to abortion could be overturned, or his immigration policies separating families at the border, or his apparent submission to Russian President Vladimir Putin before a global audience.
But LaMotte also described Trump supporters have issues, telling CBC they feel “isolated” from friends and family.
“Whether it’s conscious or not, I think we look to the president of the United States as a psychological parent,” LaMotte said in the CBC article.
CBC reported that “Trump Anxiety Disorder” was coined in a 2017 essay included in a book written by clinical psychologist Jennifer Panning, who said the condition was different from other anxieties because “symptoms were specific to the election of Trump and the resultant unpredictable sociopolitical climate.”
The CBC article did not include the fact that Panning was part of petition campaign in 2017 calling for Trump to be removed from office because he “manifests a serious mental illness that renders him psychologically incapable of competently discharging the duties of President of the United States.”
“Trump Anxiety Disorder” symptoms allegedly include “feeling a loss of control and helplessness,” “fretting” and spending excessive amounts of time on social media.
The CBC even connected Trump’s selection of Supreme Court Justices to anxiety being experienced by married lesbians who fear those justices will reverse gay marriage as the law of the land.
CBC tracked down a clinical social worker, Roland Gabbert, in Bardstown, Kentucky, who said he’s never heard “such heavily politicized chatter” before in his professional capacity.
“Both from people feeling the president is being persecuted and people just beside themselves with worry about the direction of the country,” Gabbert said.
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