New Book Links Mental Illness and Leadership

I'm a little late on this one, but I had to share it with everybody.

I watched this Dr. Nassir Ghaemi fellow on The Colbert Report last week. Dr. Ghaemi recently wrote a book titled A First-Rate Madness: Uncovering the Links Between Leadership and Mental Illness documenting "the psychological and psychiatric research on positive aspects of mental illness" which Ghaemi applies to great historical leaders.

During Ghaemi's interview with Stephen Colbert, he suggested that the greatest future leaders of our country might be defined, in part, but by their instability, rather than stability. The things that make great leaders - in Ghaemi's words, realism, empathy, resilience, and creativity - are aspects that are often found in mental disorders. The psychiatrist believes this country would be wise to elect such leaders in the future.

But here's where it gets a little bit messy: first, in order for something like that to happen, the stigma attached to mental illness in this country (in this world, for that matter) would have to disappear. I don't see that happening any time soon. Two, Ghaemi suggests that perhaps presidential candidates' mental health records ought to be released to the public in the same fashion that their medical records are released.

I agree that people with mental illness are often pure geniuses, and that these characteristics would probably make for great presidents. And the fact that a politician is able to make it all the way to a presidential bid would indicate they are either not severely mentally ill, or their mental illness is well controlled.

However, a major problem sticks out in my mind.
In our society, mental health activists are constantly on a mission to "normalize" mental illness. They are trying to remove the stigma and help people understand that mental illness is, in fact, a medical illness. It's a disease of the brain, and the brain is an organ, just like the heart, lungs, pancreas, etc. At the same time, these same activists are the same folks who would likely fight tooth and nail to keep a presidential candidate's mental health history under wraps, saying it violates privacy and subjects the individual to undue scrutiny.

And until people stop viewing people with mental illness as a bunch of crazies, releasing a public figure's mental health history - whether they want it released or not - would probably result in that person being ridiculed and bashed on late night talk shows and water coolers all over the country.

All this to say - it's a nice dream, but I don't think it's going to come true anytime soon. Hopefully, Ghaemi's book will help people to understand what mental illness is, and what it isn't. Pin It