Customer Reviews

The Dysfunctional President: Inside the Mind of Bill Clinton

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

As a rule, I am scornful of books that attempt to psychoanalyze public figures from afar; indeed, I am skeptical about psychology in general. In this case, the author himself points out that his analysis should only be taken so seriously considering he has never seen the `patient'. I am also dubious about the notion of `syndromes' in general. Certainly Bill is a liar and a vacillator who denies personal responsibility, but are these traits really caused by the fact that his father was an alcoholic? So I came to the book a skeptic. That being said, I found the book very compelling. The most amazing thing about it is it seems to predict the Lewinsky scandal, and Clinton's reaction to it. Those that loath Bill Clinton will certainly enjoy it, and find it very convincing. Those that love him will dismiss it out of hand. Those who are in between will be very disturbed.

This book, or better yet, the revised version, is a must read for every American. Get a look inside the man we elected twice. Dr. Fick's analysis of Clinton as the "Adult Child of an Alcoholic" sheds light on the apparently erractic behavior of our president.

The most satisfying part of the book for me was learning that Clinton's problems are not the result of some "vast right-wing conspiracy". Rather, they are manifestations of Clinton's unresolved childhood problems.

Read this book and you'll be able to make sense of the chaos Clinton creates. One thing is for sure -- it'll take a while to restore the credibility and dignity of the office of president after Clinton leaves, such is the damage done.

This book is almost spooky in the way that it seems to foretell the future. I had to keep checking when it was written. It makes it easy to see why this president has self-destructed.

I'm glad I still have a copy of THE DYSFUNCTIONAL PRESIDENT by Paul Fick, Ph.D. It makes it much easier for me to believe that we are currently being ruled by the children of the people who killed President Kennedy. Living like we have a Pearl Harbor in September and a Pearl Harbor in December is a constant reminder that governments seem to be the first group likely to act on the feeling that Americans have far too much freedom, which might allow something else terrible to happen if we don't maintain air superiority over the highly organized countries in the world as well as in those places where chaos prevents the duly elected officials from protecting mixed neighborhoods full of people who would like to kill each other.

Psychology has managed to produce some destructive frames of reference, and the idea that children adapt to ways of coping which tend to stand in the way of any obvious solutions to problems that we all face: there you have it. We can't all just sit back and fick the world whenever we need to find our bearings, but people with Ph.D.s are rapidly running out of viable alternatives to figuring out the entertainment value of everything. This book is unlikely to become popular again, but something which is so dated might become a model for a new look at the fabulous Senator Clinton who is in the race for president in 2008 to win. The boy/girl dichotomy has already produced numerous summations of the tensions that people usually face, talk about, and sometimes even turn into jokes or popular songs. When it turns into politics, though, we are talking about something unbelievably ugly.

This is a very exciting and powerful book. Fick presents further evidence, which, along with other books, media coverage, and personal observations, suggests Bill Clinton's possible personality disorder. A disorder which, if true, would prevent Clinton from being repentant, feeling responsible, and sincerely making amends. Fick has created a very powerful, important, and historical book on President Clinton which illuminates and defines the suspected background for a possible mental disorder and mask of sanity. Some politicians share this personality disorder which fuels their reach for power, prestige, and control. This personality disorder, using its mask of sanity, abuses the trust given them by the "people", although in the case of Clinton, less than 45 percent of actual voters gave Clinton their trust. Fisk's book gives us an insight into why Clinton seems to remain popular as President, despite his also being seen as immoral and/or amoral. In the most extreme and psychotic example of this same personality disorder, we had Ted Bundy, whom I knew personally in Washington State, who also had a strong charismatic appeal for women, and who devastated the safety and lives of these same women. And now we have President William Jefferson Clinton, who, out of so-called abuse and adversity, perhaps created a disordered personality which is defined by the two major mental disorder classification systems. By ICD-10 as Dissocial Personality Disorder and by DSM-IV as Narcissistic Personality Disorder. Thank you, Dr. Paul Fick, for making a major contribution to our understanding of President Clinton. Your book will become a major historical document and will become a permanent and significant resource for the ages. As a practicing psychologist myself,I highly recommend the book to readers to thoughtfully read for the reasons why his advisors and administration have, inescapably, and tragically,become part of the network and web created by Clinton. A very exciting book, Dr. Fick. Keep writing.

A great read and with so much forsight in 1995 to predict the 'condition' Mr. Clinton is in, and has been, for many years. According to the author, whom I met on his booktour in Colma, CA., there is much more to expect from this President in the way of 'misadventures'! Also watch for this new book on this subject!

I thought this work would give me some insight to the minds of persons who hold positions of power, sadly it did not. Though I am not skeptical about psychology, I find too many persons fashioning themselves experts when they learn only elements of diagnosis. Fick would have us think that he can analyze an individual from meida reports; though it may be fun it is dangerous, destructive and unprofessional.

It is unprofessional and ridiculous that a writer would attempt a book as this one and claim "professionalism." Although Fick did put in his disclaimer that he never saw "the patient;" he failed to disclose that his real purpose in writing The Dysfunctional President was to make money selling the book.

The former president certainly disappointed us, but more disappointing was the highly educated American People letting themselves be swept away emotionally in a media morality play. Fick, playing up to this, saw a way to make money while public interest in the whole affair has been waning.

I found the book presenting misguided aspects of the Diagnostic and Statistics Manual. All too often, these played with by folk playing "blaming others." In Fick's writing, out of context descriptions of human behavior filled the pages of a book that purports to educate. The work reads as the verbiage of "failed twelve-steppers,"while giving energy to detractors of Bill Clinton. This kind of analysis is really masturbating on a mental plane opposite that on an official plane. Sorry Fick, though I read your writing, I didn't buy it or buy into it. Your work only encourages people Clinton haters and those who imagine themselves expert in a serious profession that should be left to serious professionals.

I was an early reader of this book, and I spent several years of addiction to my dislike for its contents. Such a world we live in~this book is the standard by which people determine what is normal, and I find that I must be the most spaced out poet on the planet to want to render my own judgment:

You and Fick~what a stitch,

what a stitch!

Psychologically sick,

Intellectually rich.

The basis for my inappropriate laughter on this attempt to straight-lace the most modern of presidents is the strangeness of the thought which forms the basis for this book~suppose that the American body politic is a woman. The stitch which makes Fick's book seem most unseamly on this question might be to an author, Kelly Oliver, of a book on philosophy's relation to the "feminine." I consider Oliver my main guide to this realm of intellectual intoxication, possibly more reliable on the knowledge of these things than democracy has proved suitable as a system for governing people who disagree more on who has to follow certain rules than on anything else. I have read one book by Oliver, but I read it in such a way, with a deep and modernly theological background in the world which she attempts to describe, that I might claim to know her subject better than she does herself merely by calling attention to a line on page 16 of her book. "Like the fetishist, Freud has it both ways." We are not arranging a psychological heavyweight championship fight here, Freud to Fick, with Kelly Oliver as the mother who tells them when to break it up because this isn't fair, Freud was a real doctor or something. Actually, Oliver thought, "For Freud there is nothing more frightening than the thought of being buried alive," and he isn't likely to be by any book by Paul M. Fick.