Piers Morgan: psychiatric assessment

Jonathan Trott recently pulled out of the recent Ashes tour due to pressure-relevant troubles. While this is a legitimate purpose to pull out of a gruelling sporting contest – what with psychological overall health problems being as debilitating as bodily ones – with depressing predictability many individuals have dismissed his issues.

Perhaps the most substantial-profile dismissal of Trott’s psychological well being difficulties was by effectively-acknowledged provocateur, Piers Morgan. By means of Twitter (where else?) he mentioned (amid other issues) that it was “irresponsible” to take an individual with acknowledged psychological overall health concerns on the Ashes tour.

This is a questionable premise: a mental condition indicates you ought to be excluded from executing important jobs or roles. If this policy have been enacted, we’d get rid of a excellent quantity of doctors, a lot of mothers would be prevented from seeking soon after newborn young children, and at the really least they’d have to cancel QI.

There is a historical past of informal assessment and claims relating to someone’s psychological state in the media. It truly is undesirable adequate when supposed experts do it, allow alone when uninformed celebrities do it. It’s possibly even worse even now when news sources and politicians do it. You get one particular aspect of someone or some group’s behaviour and jump to far-reaching conclusions as to their psychological state and inflict an unwarranted stigma upon them.

This view that psychological illness need to avert you from functioning is but an additional example of mental well being stigma. Possibly it is properly meant, but it would mean we’d possibly drop 25% of all employees. But what if it’s just critical, large-profile jobs that ought to be off-limits? Jobs like hosting Television shows or editing newspapers? Basically, would Morgan be permitted to hold his occupation(s)? Does he show indications of a psychological illness? As a demonstration of the cack-handed and unhelpful approach to psychological assessment these in the media seem to be to often adopt, let us assess Pier’s Morgan.

[N.B. For several, there is a distinction between psychological sickness and character disorder. Whether personality issues count as a “mental illness” is uncertain, but the NHS refer to personality ailments as a “mental well being issue”, so that umbrella will be used for the remainder of this largely inconsequential report. Also, we’re speaking about Piers Morgan right here, a guy not acknowledged for his dedication to subtlety and nuance]

Narcissistic personality disorder

Morgan has proven a prolonged-standing pattern of grandiosity, a seeming basic want for admiration (or at least consideration) with what seems to be a total lack of empathy toward others. He has also usually demonstrated a disdainful or patronising mindset towards other individuals, this kind of as publicly mocking people much more well-liked, or banning folks from his present who are more renowned than him. This is virtually a textbook description of narcissistic persona disorder. Other symptoms incorporate becoming exploitative of other people, and demonstrating envy in direction of other individuals. They could fundamentally place Morgan’s image following to this disorder in textbooks and have accomplished with.

However, in defence of Morgan, this description could probably be applied to any variety of higher-profile media personalities, columnists or people with a Facebook/Twitter account. Clearly, we only see the public persona of Piers Morgan, and he is far from alone in the globe he inhabits, so there are very likely mitigating circumstances.

Bipolar disorder

Judging by his public behaviour, Morgan usually feels really self-essential and is effortlessly irritated or agitated. He is often described as delusional (eg on what grounds is he experienced to be a talent judge?), and does items that have disastrous consequences (eg Google “Piers Morgan” and “scandal”). He is undoubtedly driven to accomplish as considerably as he has, and his fluctuating career path suggests he is effortlessly distracted but does not actually feel logically about things. All of this could be ample to diagnose hypomania, which can lead to complete-blown mania and a diagnosis of bipolar disorder.

He has produced no mention of struggling from depressive phases and would seem to present no particular empathy for these who do, so this would propose it is not Type 1 or Kind 2 bioplar disorder, but perhaps cyclothymia? A lot more data would be essential for a thorough diagnosis. He seems to have been in this hypomania phase for many many years now, which is very uncommon. 

Borderline persona disorder

Morgan’s habit of criticising a person then later backtracking could be induced by a fluctuating emotional state. He also demonstrates an unstable sense of identity, ranging from paternal authority figure on televised talent shows to aggressive interviewer on his CNN show to condescending Twitter personality. His foray into tv could be witnessed as a big risk given his earlier media dealings, and he couldn’t have identified it would pan out.

All advised, this could recommend borderline persona disorder. Admittedly, Morgan demonstrates no indication of being unable to kind prolonged-term relationships, and you’d be hard pushed to argue that somebody who so is known for getting abrasive fears rejection, which are other indicators of BPD, but you do not need to have ALL acknowledged signs and symptoms to get a diagnosis, which is valuable for this spurious report. 

Psychopathy

Morgan could be a psychopath. Psychoapthy is very well-known these days (perhaps thanks to Jon Ronson), and some individuals are even content to claim to be psychopaths. It has usually been observed that traits psychopaths demonstrate contain a grandiose sense of self-worth, persuasiveness, superficial charm, ruthlessness, lack of remorse and the manipulation of other individuals. This describes any number of politicians, media personalities and strong straight white males in general. Morgan would be a great example of all of these. So he may possibly be a psychopath.

Not saying he undoubtedly is, but it is challenging to rule out, as is often the situation with this.

Given all the over proof, Piers Morgan may be showing signs of not one but many psychological situations, so, in accordance to his views, must be removed from all his jobs at after.

Or, an alternative (ie precise) explanation would be that Morgan isn’t mentally unwell, but when you choose individual characteristics of a man or woman to the exclusion of all else and apply some quite blunt definitions of mental overall health issues, you can come to some fairly harsh conclusions. Not that such a thing would be condoned by someone with a media platform, of program…

The signs and behaviours of mental sickness are far more subtle and diffuse than a easy binary unwell-not unwell arrangement. Saying folks with a identified condition shouldn’t be permitted to carry out critical jobs is tantamount to putting someone who seems like they have the flu into long term quarantine, “just to be safe” you wouldn’t stigmatise a person with, in accordance to your untrained assessment, a respiratory issue as a long term plague carrier in this way. But, apparently, it is fine to do this with somebody with a psychological wellness condition?

Isn’t going to appear right. 

Why not attempt an amateur diagnosis of Dean Burnett by following him on Twitter, @garwboy

Piers Morgan: psychiatric assessment