Sky Views: Is calling Trump mentally ill unfair?

Breaking news: Donald Trump probably isn't mentally ill.

There. Feel reassured?

For months, many Americans have openly wondered if their new leader suffers from something called Narcissistic Personality Disorder.

In fact, if you Google "Trump" and "NPD", you get about half a million results.

Respected magazines have quoted eminent psychiatrists as calling Trump "remarkably narcissistic" - and top TV psychiatrists on daytime shows have entertainingly listed the symptoms that define NPD.

The bible of the psychiatric business in the US is the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, currently in its fifth edition, and therefore sensibly referred to as DSM-5.

And one of the professors who wrote the definition of NPD for the DSM has lashed out at all this Trump analysis.

Allen Frances wrote to The New York Times to say: "He may be a world-class narcissist, but this doesn't make him mentally ill.

"Mr. Trump causes severe distress rather than experiencing it and has been richly rewarded, rather than punished, for his grandiosity, self-absorption and lack of empathy."

He's referring to symptoms of NPD, so here they are: an exaggerated sense of self-importance, fantasies of success, power, brilliance or beauty, belief in being "special", requiring excessive admiration, a sense of entitlement, selfish in taking advantage of others, lacking empathy, envious of others, arrogant, haughty, patronising or contemptuous.

Any five of those indicates the disorder.

Everyone can make up their own minds, but Professor Frances says "psychiatric name-calling" is misguided.

And here's the thing: if Donald Trump or anyone else did suffer from a mental disorder, wouldn't they deserve compassion and understanding?

Alleging he has a mental health disorder and then mocking him? Is that any different from, say, mocking a disabled reporter?

It is a lot to expect from those on the rough end of Mr Trump's policies to show him compassion, but it all demonstrates the weird complexity of what's happening in the US.

As far as we know, none of those pontificating have actually examined Mr Trump, and the psychiatric profession has traditionally thought it unethical to offer an opinion without examination.

Professor Frances was responding to a letter from mental health professionals "suggesting that Mr Trump is incapable, on psychiatric grounds, of serving as president".

He is clearly no Trump fan, but made this point: "It is a stigmatising insult to the mentally ill (who are mostly well behaved and well meaning) to be lumped with Mr Trump (who is neither).

"The antidote to a dystopic Trumpean dark age is political, not psychological."

What is - probably - certain is that Mr Trump won't change. How many 70-year-old men do you know who have radically altered their life direction?

Unless, of course, Mr Trump opts to visit one of the psychiatric professionals who are so keen to help.

But then, as he once famously said: "I don't like to analyse myself because I might not like what I see."