Watching Trump when Kanye was blathering on was so familiar to me

[dixiegrrrrl]

Many years ago, as a therapist for a rural Mental Health center, it was my job to go once a month to the state mental health hospital to document progress, if any, of our catchment area patients. We had 4-5 of them in the place.
The fact that said patients were still hospitalized speaks to the severity of their illness and the need for round the clock care.

On one trip, our very recently hired program director came along with me. He had been hired for administrative skills, did not have a mental health background, but he sure tried hard to act like he did.

We met with a male patient who was seriously schizophrenic, even when medicated.
When I asked him if he knew why he was in the hospital, he started talking and talking and talking.
I watched the Program Dir. listening closely, then leaning forward, very attentive towards the guy as he went on and on,
trying to follow the patient's train of thought, waiting for the moment when something he said would make sense, not willing to show he was not getting the point behind all those words.
which was impossible because the patient was pretty much speaking the classical word salad, Nouns were used, even whole
sentences, but as the ideas tumbled out, they were left in the dust as new thoughts hit, and off he would go in another direction.
We eventually landed on Mars, as I remember it.

My tag along buddy had exactly the look as Trump did, nodding with fake interest, not following the rapid spewing of changing ideas, but appearing oh so very glued to the speaker, with a growing expression of wanting someone to jump in and rescue him.

with the sound off the video, it is even more apparent.

sadly, it is even more obvious that CNN and other news reporters were filming Kanye who seemed very much to need his meds.

[pat_k]

1. "word salad"

A great term I forget about -- but is so apropos for so many things we are hearing these days

Don't know why, but as I read your post, it brought back a bit in Patton Oswalt's "No Reason to Complain" about "Dr. Pepper," a junkie who would do the open mic night, and who "killed" without realizing what made it so priceless. (Starting a story, nodding off, picking up the middle of some other story, nodding... Anyway it's a great skit if you every come across it.)

[tulipsandroses]

2. As a psych nurse - Future NP - I had 2 thoughts today

1. Disturbing that someone that is clearly ill is being exploited like this

2. This film will be useful for mental health educational purposes - After I take my NP boards in January- I'll be tutoring undergrad psych nursing students until I find a job.

Psych terms are sometimes best seen than read - terms like Flight of ideas, Word Salad, Tangential, Loose Association- I think were all on display today. You read it in a text book, but until you see it, sometimes it doesn't connect. So if there is anything good that came out of seeing this, is that it will help future psych professionals learn.

[dixiegrrrrl]

5. Yes, I agree about the explotation.

So ironic that trump also displays same symptoms except word salad....so far.

[Midnight Writer]

3. Honestly, I had no problem following Kanye's rant. Guess living 70 years in a red zone paid off.

[rampartc]

4. trump can go on like that

palin is another one.

they make no sense to me, and for a while i thought that it was my unfamiliarity with conservative jargon that made it sound like a foreign language, so i studied their language on discussionist and the old advanced.net forums.

trump is always delivering a sales pitch. the idea is to implant a positive impression of the product (usually himself) without really saying anything. his followers (the marks) are allowed to believe whatever they want to hear.

those who want lower taxes can hear that and those who want a white america can hear that as well. trump may (pr may not) be saying that but who can tell? the idea is to close the sale and move to the next mark.

[UTUSN]

6. Yup, whatever WEST's diagnosis is, ideology has nothing to do with it.

He could pin his word salad to whatever other subject. It's irritating that for whatever reason he has picked politics as the focus, but not pertinent to us. SHITLER is exploiting him for the Race aspect, one more mark against him/SHITLER.