President Clinton's psyche has produced misbehavior and chaos for decades.
Psychiatrists and psychologists cautiously explain the behavior, which
journalists and biographers have amply documented. Even we laymen,
"psychology-conscious members of the public," can see for ourselves the
chaos, the lying. But why does it happen?

Explanations always begin with the young Clinton: infant, boy and teenager.
Do his bad habits result from inappropriate behavior learned very young? If
so, can they be unlearned through therapy? Dr Paul Fick in his 1998 book,
THE DYSFUNCTIONAL PRESIDENT roots the President's character in early
missteps while growing up to become the adult child of an alcoholic
("ACOA"): his violent step-father. Fick sees Clinton's mental problems as
very deep but treatable.

There is, however, a competing and more disturbing psychological analysis.
It is presented in a lengthy study by Edith Efron which appeared in the
November 1994 issue of REASON MAGAZINE. The article is called "Can The
President Think?" Its thesis was carefully  studied by Dr Fick and
embedded in his own book. Ultimately, however, Fick thinks that Efron did
not quite prove her thesis that the President's disorder is both cognitive
and so deep that it cannot be cured. Still, the  Efron thesis deserves to
be pondered. The text is on the internet at

www.reasonmag.com/9411/fe.efron.9411.html.

Edith Efron argues that Bill Clinton was either born with or very early
acquired severe cognitive disorders which have grown steadily worse. Early
on both he and others also became aware that something was wrong.  In
contrast with Dr Fick, Ms. Efron places no stress on his father's
alcoholism and domestic violence or on Clinton as an "ACOA."

Efron believes (and thinks that Clinton also believes) that the driving
force in his life is an obsessive fear of dying young, leaving no great
deeds to be remembered by. In a March 15,1991 interview with biographer
Charles Allen, then Arkansas Governor Clinton said that his father's early
death had  profoundly and unhealthily impacted his youthful consciousness.
 

"Most kids never think about when they're going to have to run out of time, when they might die. I THOUGHT ABOUT IT ALL THE TIME, because my father died at 29 before I was born."  The President decided very early "that I SHOULD BE IN A HURRY IN LIFE." And "I WAS always in a hurry. ...I thought I had to live for myself and for him (my dead father), too."

Edith Efron sees Clinton's entire life as far too hurried to be healthy:
with  a compulsive, abnormal and destructive speeding up of his thinking, his socializing and his actions. It is not the right way to race with death.

Signs that young Bill did things to excess were soon there. Both Clinton
and his mother report a childhood grade of "D" in conduct "for talking too
much and not giving the other children a chance to answer the teacher's
questions." Mr. Clinton says, "I could never keep my mouth shut." He has
also mentioned an overeating disorder in grade school and severe bouts of
insomnia in college. He has never admitted to clinical depression, but
suffered from it after being defeated for re-election as Governor in 1980.

In June 1992 Arsenio Hall asked Governor Clinton if he had any flaws.
Clinton replied: 

"I still sometimes work hard instead of smart. I'm a workaholic, I'm always churning and doing things...Sometimes you can do so many things that you don't do enough...I've got so many ideas...My mind is
always churning. ...And I need to always learn that you have so little
time, there is so precious little time, that you have to really be like a
laser beam with your words and actions."

Edith Efron believes that President Clinton is too easy on himself. In her
view he ALWAYS "works hard instead of smart." She contrasts his
"roundabout" approach to problems with the focused, "linear" styles of
Hillary Clinton and Vice President Al Gore. Bill Clinton has a photographic
memory but, Efron contends, very little analytical ability. He talks
incessantly. He flees silence; and for normal people silence is a condition
for solid thinking. He procrastinates, making decisions far later than
promised or reasonable. In June 1994 Bob Woodward said on C-Span that
Hillary Clinton is "a part of Bill Clinton's brain." Efron believes that
Hillary gives Bill "access to the laws of logic, without which no thinking
is possible." Clinton lives with unresolved contradictions, simultaneously
believing and acting on two propositions both of which cannot possibly be
true.

Edith Efron says that good executives go to the market and buy or rent
brains of their counselors and advisors. Normally, however, one does not
marry his brain. People who have known him since childhood say that Mr.
Clinton, despite exceptional grades, is not studious by nature. In college
he studied little and skipped as many  classes as he dared.Then at exam
time he borrowed other students' notes and crammed. His photographic memory saw him through.

Efron argues that Mr. Clinton "functions directly from his subconscious."
His extraordinary memory permits this. He relies not on learned or
self-created mental frameworks to process raw materials constantly thrown
at him. Rather either he expects his wife to think data through for him or
he waits and waits until his subconscious processes what his senses have
brought him.

The author of "Can The President Think?" argues that he cannot possibly win
his self-imposed race with his obsessive fear of death. Thinking too fast,
talking too much, living too fast all results in chaos in both personal
life, his office and his surroundings. Dr. Paul Fick agrees with Ms. Efron
on this point.

The President is, however, not devoid of self-awareness. His brother Roger
went to jail for drug trafficking. On his release the whole Clinton family
went through group counseling sessions with Roger. Since then Bill Clinton
talks the language of counseling. In March 1992 he told Peter Applebome of
the New York Times that he now saw how precious are human relationships: 
"I finally realized how my COMPULSIVE AND EXCESSIVE AMBITION got in the way."

Edith Efron argues that the President suffers from what is technically
called Obsessive Compulsive Personality Disorder.  Dr. Paul Fick in "THE
DYSFUNCTIONAL PRESIDENT" counters that Ms Efron does not quite make her case. Fick believes that the President's cognitive and other disorders are
not as severely "wired" into the President as Ms Efron judges  and are
treatable, using techniques proven successful with "adult children of
alcoholics:"

Citing many observers, Ms Efron notes that Mr Clinton is unbelievably
disorganized, cannot prioritize, is easily distracted, agonizes over
decisions and cannot effectively delegate. He has always sought high status
as proof that he is winning  his race with untimely death. His mind races
("churns") and cannot find rest. He hates and will not accept defeat.
Indeed, she argues, the President cannot manage political defeat like an
adult.

In Arkansas in 1980 when he realized that he was going to lose his bid for
re-election to a second term as Governor, he hid on the floor in the back
seat of childhood friend Kathy McClahan's car. He wept hysterically. Some
biographers say that he then withdrew into months of seclusion and
depression. In a May 1992 article in VANITY FAIR, Gail Sheehy reported that
"Bill remembers this dark period being haunted by a sense of imminent
death." His self-esteem was crushed, according to author Charles Allen. He
muttered to friends that "Arkansas didn't deserve a man of his ability." He
realized that losing hit him deep in his psyche. To Bill Clinton, losing
elective office is the worst pain this side of death.

But Mr. Clinton pulled himself up and  reinvented himself. He either masked
or overcame his depression and began a frenetic but successful re-election
campaign. In 1982 "Clinton abased himself before the Arkansas electorate:
He pleaded, he begged, he apologized, he groveled. He tried to clasp the
hands of everyone in the state of Arkansas to ask forgiveness."

Might we not, therefore, expect similar behavior in late 1998 as Bill
Clinton faces impeachment and removal from the Presidency?

Writing four years ago, in November 1994, Edith Efron looked into the
future. She could imagine a time when Bill Clinton will learn new words as
he once did in Arkansas. He will not permit himself ever again to lose. 

"In sheer terror of losing, he will say anything anyone wants him to say. But if rescuing Clinton requires any change in his psychology, he is totally ineducable. No one can change his psychology on command."

Why indeed?

-OOO-

Op-Ed for Asheville TRIBUNE