Donald Trump is not the first leader with a severe personality disorder – characterised by intolerable feelings of inadequacy and an overwhelming need for approval – to gain power. But such leaders have usually gained control in smaller countries that la

When Donald Trump took office early last year, many pundits believed that he would settle into his presidency and pivot to normality. But a large number of America’s mental health experts didn’t see it that way. They warned that Trump evidently suffers from a mental impairment that would worsen under pressure, possibly leading him to launch a war, even a nuclear war. And now, with the dangers of a Trump- led war with North Korea or Iran rising, the world needs to head off America’s president before it’s too late.

In the view of many professional psychologists and psychiatrists, Trump is not merely a bully, a showman and a liar; he is more likely a mentally impaired individual who is impulsive, aggressive, and relentlessly driven to manipulate and blame others. These professionals have called for an urgent, independent evaluation of Trump’s mental capacity that goes far beyond the simple cognitive screen that he received earlier this year when undergoing a physical examination at Walter Reed Army Medical Center.

To some laypersons, and obviously to many Americans, symptoms of mental impairment can appear to be strengths. A lack of self-control can be mistaken for candour. Aggression and manipulativeness can be mistaken for dealmaking skills. Yet to mental health professionals, these traits are danger signs. Individuals who display such behaviour are often masking intolerable feelings of powerlessness, inadequacy, and an overwhelming need for approval that can curdle into violent destructiveness under pressure.

This would not be the first time, of course, that a leader with a severe personality disorder has gained power. But such leaders have usually gained control in smaller countries that lack the world’s most powerful military. Still, the record of such episodes is grim: Idi Amin, Saddam Hussein, Pol Pot and many others were able to wreak murderous mayhem.

Unlike those leaders, Trump can plunge the world into a devastating nuclear war at his personal command. In recent