ABSTRACT
Robert Gordon calls our attention to the importance of finding the means to identify, through distance assessment, the highly destructive personalities who lead autocracies. He outlines the tragic costs such personalities have imposed on us, noting that in spite of the manifest devastation and murder they have visited upon the people that they governed in the 20th century, overwhelming majorities of the people living in the countries that have endured their horrific depredations were once again endorsing reverential attitudes toward them. He goes on to outline the murderous acts and the devastation that has characterized Putin's reign of power. It is his conviction that it is essential for us to develop the means to identify such personalities so that we might afford ourselves the opportunity to sidestep the dangers that such personalities can potentially create for human community. As he says in his chapter, “the greatest of avoidable human suffering has been caused by irrational authoritarian leaders.”
The Psychodiagnostics Chart (PDC) was developed in 2012 by Robert M. Gordon and Robert F. Borstein to codify the highly complex Psychodynamic Diagnostic Manual (PDM). They later updated the PDC (Gordon & Bornstein, 2018) for the PDM-2 (Lingiardi & McWilliams, 2017). The PDC-2 is a quick practitioner rating form that may be used for diagnoses, treatment formulations, progress reports, and outcome assessment, as well as for empirical research on personality. It can be used when the person is not available and assessment is instead based on documents, records, collateral interviews, or other sources of information. The PDC-2 represents an effective means to carry out meaningful, valid distance assessment of people who, by virtue of the position of power they occupy, may profoundly affect the lives of millions of people.
Research by Gordon and Stoffey (2014) and Gordon and Bornstein (2018) show excellent validity of the original PDC and the updated PDC-2.
The Mental Functions Scales used in the current study reported here are part of the overall PDC-2. They have high test–retest reliability (.77 to .89, all p values are less than .001). Interrater reliability correlations range from .82 to .92. (Gordon & Bornstein, 2012). Additionally, to date there are 32 studies that support the clinical utility and validity of the PDCs (https://sites.google.com/site/psychodiagnosticchart/).
Gordon argues that the 12 mental functions could be readily understood by experienced psychoanalytic practitioners and could be applied to the assessment of three state leaders, Volodymyr Zelensky, Vladimir Putin, and Donald Trump. Moreover, he feels that the Mental Functions Scale provides a meaningful assessment of an array of essential mental functions that are critical for anyone who is a position of leadership of a large national body. Using 50 experienced psychodynamic practitioners, he demonstrates that the Mental Functions Scale appear to be capable of producing distinctive portraits of each of the three men that set each of them apart from the others. Asserting that “the Mental Functions Scale gives us a measure of a continuum of strengths and weaknesses on a full array of all the main psychological functions,” (p. 8 in his chapter in this book) he reports that Trump scores significantly lower than Putin on all of the 12 mental functions and that both men score significantly lower than Zelensky. He typifies Putin and Trump as the scoring in the “dangerous” range on all 12 mental functions, while Zelensky's high score is thought to be indicative of a “healthy leader” (p. 12). Scores were expressed as percentages of an idealized level of functioning (100 percent), which Gordon feels renders public appreciation of the scores meaning much more transparent. He estimates that scores of less than 70 percent ought to disqualify a given candidate from consideration for public office.
In the context of Gordon's current study, it appears that the PDC-2 shows promise for future distance assessment of people who occupy critical leadership positions. As such, his work and the work of his colleagues may offer us the means to assess the level of functioning in leaders with a standardized instrument possessed of reliability, validity, and utility without entailing the necessity of face-to-face examination, which may, for a variety of reasons, not be possible to undertake. Wood believes that possessing such means in a world where violent, autocratic leadership has accounted for unimaginable human calamities is potentially essential for our survival as a species.
