Interview with Nassir Ghaemi: Can Mental Illness Make More Effective Politicians?

“One of the basic concepts I had was that if there are some benefits to having some depression manic symptoms; the corollary is that there are some limitations to being normal and mentally healthy.”

Nassir Ghaemi is a professor of psychiatry at the Tufts University School of Medicine who focuses his studies on the topics of bipolar illness and depression. Also an accomplished author, Dr. Ghaemi has written books on various topics across the field of psychiatry including On Depression, and The Concepts of Psychiatry: A Pluralistic Approach to the Mind and Mental Illness. On November 6th, he joined Merion West’s Erich Prince to delve into his 2011 book, A First-Rate Madness: Uncovering the Links between Leadership and Mental Illness. Focusing on real-world examples of former political figures to combat the stigma of mental illness, Dr. Ghaemi argues that there is a link between effective political leadership and symptoms of manic depression. Dr. Ghaemi also addresses the ongoing controversy of whether or not it is appropriate for mental health professionals to draw conclusions about the mental state of President Trump.

To get started, can you give a little bit of the backstory of how you came to conceive of and write the book? It is clear that some of your experiences with your patients were very important, and that is reflected clearly throughout the book. So, what was the relationship between your own clinical experience and the theory you came to develop about mental illness and political leadership?

I have probably treated over 1,000 people with bipolar illness over two decades. I have a lot of experience with the individual experiences people have with this condition. A lot of my patients were people who had been very successful in careers of business, academia, and science, and I knew from talking to them about their lives that this illness was a benefit to them in various ways.