--- title: Health Expert Says Donald Trump Not Mentally Ill description: The man who helped to write the manual for diagnosing mental disorders says Donald Trump "doesn't fit the criteria." canonical: https://time.com/4928984/donald-trump-mental-illness/ author: Rachel Lewis article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2017-09-06T14:43:27.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-23T17:18:07.943Z article:section: Politics og:title: This Mental Illness Expert Says President Trump Doesn’t Qualify og:description: To say otherwise "unfairly stigmatizes those who are truly mentally ill," he says og:url: https://time.com/4928984/donald-trump-mental-illness/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt3c249ba3a26becbe/6988dc9d0a4a22d6d99cfc67/donald-trump-not-mentally-ill-dsm.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: US President Donald Trump Meets With Congressional Leaders og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: This Mental Illness Expert Says President Trump Doesn’t Qualify twitter:description: To say otherwise "unfairly stigmatizes those who are truly mentally ill," he says twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt3c249ba3a26becbe/6988dc9d0a4a22d6d99cfc67/donald-trump-not-mentally-ill-dsm.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # This Top Mental Illness Expert Says President Trump Doesn’t Qualify by [Rachel Lewis](https://time.com/author/rachel-lewis/) ## Rachel Lewis Sep 6, 2017 2:43 PM UTC  President Donald Trump delivers remarks during a meeting with Speaker of the House Paul Ryan. President Donald Trump delivers remarks during a meeting with Speaker of the House Paul Ryan.Getty Images by [Rachel Lewis](https://time.com/author/rachel-lewis/) ## Rachel Lewis Sep 6, 2017 2:43 PM UTC President [Donald Trump](http://time.com/time-person-of-the-year-2016-donald-trump/) “doesn’t fit the criteria” for a mental disorder, says a psychiatrist who helped write the manual for diagnosing such conditions. [Writing in health news publication STAT](https://www.statnews.com/2017/09/06/donald-trump-mental-illness-diagnosis/?s%5Fcampaign=tw&utm%5Fcontent=bufferdff81&utm%5Fmedium=social&utm%5Fsource=twitter.com&utm%5Fcampaign=buffer), Allen Frances said that questioning the [President’s mental health](http://time.com/4785076/president-donald-trump-mental-health/) has become a “popular pastime” among professionals, journalists and ordinary people. But he says such speculation is unfounded. “The three most frequent armchair diagnoses made for Trump — narcissistic personality disorder, delusional disorder, and dementia — are all badly misinformed,” Frances writes. Frances added that that he believes Trump “demonstrates in pure form” the requirements for narcissistic personality disorder, but so do many celebrities and public figures. “To qualify . . . an individual’s selfish, un-empathetic preening must be accompanied by significant distress or impairment. Trump certainly causes severe distress and impairment in others, but his narcissism doesn’t seem to affect him that way.” Frances also said that Trump does not suffer from [dementia](http://time.com/4682031/how-to-prevent-dementia/), suggesting that his trademark speech patterns are a speechmaking tactic. “He uses the same words over and over again because they successfully work up the crowd,” Frances said. He also said that diagnosing Trump with a mental illness “unfairly stigmatizes those who are truly mentally ill, underestimates his considerable cunning, and misdirects our efforts at future harm reduction.” “We decided to include narcissistic personality disorder in the DSM-III 40 years ago purely for clinical reasons,” said Frances, referencing the Diagnostic and Statistics Manual of Mental Disorders. “We never imagined it would be used as ammunition in today’s political warfare.” Health Expert Says Donald Trump Not Mentally Ill ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4928984/donald-trump-mental-illness/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4928984/donald-trump-mental-illness/"},"headline":"This Top Mental Illness Expert Says President Trump Doesn’t Qualify","datePublished":"2017-09-06T14:43:27.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-23T17:18:07.943Z","description":"Trump \"doesn't fit the criteria\"","url":"https://time.com/4928984/donald-trump-mental-illness/","keywords":["Donald Trump","Dementia","onetime"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt3c249ba3a26becbe/6988dc9d0a4a22d6d99cfc67/donald-trump-not-mentally-ill-dsm.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Rachel Lewis","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/rachel-lewis/"}],"articleSection":"Politics","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt3c249ba3a26becbe/6988dc9d0a4a22d6d99cfc67/donald-trump-not-mentally-ill-dsm.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"US President Donald Trump Meets With Congressional Leaders","caption":"US President Donald Trump Meets With Congressional Leaders","creditText":"Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/politics/","name":"Politics"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/donald-trump/","name":"Donald Trump"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4928984/donald-trump-mental-illness/","name":"This Top Mental Illness Expert Says President Trump Doesn’t Qualify"}}]}] ```