Who signed The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump and what specific concerns did each author raise?
Executive summary
The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump is an edited volume first published in 2017 by Yale forensic psychiatrist Bandy X. Lee that gathered essays from dozens of psychiatrists, psychologists and mental-health professionals arguing that President Trump’s mental state presented a “clear and present danger” to the nation; a later expanded edition increased the roster of contributors [1] [2]. The essays do not converge on a single diagnostic label for Trump but coalesce around repeated clinical themes—narcissism, paranoia, extreme present hedonism, lack of trust, and the political dangers those traits can produce—while the project itself provoked a public debate about professional ethics [1] [3] [4] [5].
1. Who signed the book and how many contributors were involved
The original volume collected work from roughly 27 psychiatrists and mental-health experts and was later expanded to include more contributors—37 in the updated edition—under Lee’s editorship [1] [2]. The roster included leading figures in psychiatry and psychology as well as related commentators; cited contributors in reviews and excerpts include co-editor Robert Jay Lifton, Philip Zimbardo, Gail Sheehy, Leonard L. Glass, James A. Herb, Tony Schwartz and others who lent chapters or reflections to the volume [5] [6] [4].
2. The core, repeated concerns raised by contributors
Although individual essays vary, the book’s contributors repeatedly warn that a constellation of personality traits—most prominently narcissism, paranoia, and what some call “extreme present hedonism”—combine to make Trump politically dangerous: they argue those traits produce impulsivity, poor judgment, distrust of advisers, and a willingness to react rather than reflect, with potentially catastrophic consequences when one person controls state power [4] [3] [7]. Several authors explicitly frame their intervention as a “duty to warn,” invoking clinical and ethical precedents to justify public alarm about risk to democratic institutions and global safety [3] [8].
3. What specific concerns individual contributors highlighted (representative examples)
Selected essays singled out particular mechanisms of danger: Gail Sheehy emphasized Trump’s “trust deficit” as central to his risk profile [4]; Philip Zimbardo and Rosemary Sword described a Venn diagram of present hedonism, narcissism and bullying that amplifies risk-taking [4]; other chapters addressed legal and constitutional risks—James A. Herb wrote on alleged incapacitation and the relevance of the Twenty-Fifth Amendment—and Leonard L. Glass debated whether psychiatrists should publicly comment on a sitting president’s psychology [6]. The anthology also included contributions from people with political or literary backgrounds (e.g., Tony Schwartz) who wrote about behavioral patterns and real-world consequences rather than formal clinical diagnosis [5] [9].
4. Limits of what the book claims and how contributors handled diagnosis
The editors and many contributors insist they were not offering formal, in-person diagnoses but rather warning signs and clinical assessments of dangerousness that they argued justified public speech—an explicit rebuttal to the American Psychiatric Association’s Goldwater rule critics [1] [3]. Critics, including commentators in Psychiatric News, condemned the project as unprofessional and partisan “tabloid psychiatry,” arguing the authors violated ethical norms by commenting without clinical examination [10]. Reviewers likewise noted the essays’ uneven quality and overlapping emphases, saying the consensus on danger is clear but diagnostic diversity undermines a single clinical conclusion [5] [7].
5. Impact and downstream use of the book
The book became a bestseller and entered broader political and institutional conversations; excerpts and reviewers credit it with shaping how some officials tried to understand Trump’s behavior (reporting that White House chief of staff John F. Kelly purchased the book while in office is based on later reporting) [2] [11]. Supporters framed the volume as an ethical intervention to protect the public, while detractors framed it as politicized and ethically dubious—an explicit split that mirrors broader debates about the role of health professionals in political life [3] [10].