"I don't spend a lot of time trying to figure me out," George Bush once said. "I'm just not into psychobabble."
The president will not need a shrink, then, to tell him he is unlikely to enjoy Bush on the Couch, a new book by a Washington psychiatrist and Democrat, who tries to explain his subject's quirks and policies by examining his personal history, and comes up with some unflattering conclusions.
Justin Frank, a clinical professor of psychiatry at George Washington University, argues that the president's inclination to see the world in black-and-white, good-versus-evil terms, and his tendency to repeat favourite words and phrases under pressure, are not simply politics as usual, but classic symptoms of untreated alcoholism.
Mr Bush was a heavy drinker from his youth but stopped at 40, becoming a born-again Christian. But Professor Frank, who has never met the president, argues he never treated the underlying cause of his alcohol dependence.
"He reminded me of my more disturbed patients," the psychiatrist said. "Being on the wagon is not the same thing as having alcoholism treated. That means taking responsibility, and making amends to the people you've damaged.
"Bush switched from alcoholism to religion. It takes responsibility out of his hands. Being born again is a way of denying the past," Prof Frank said.
The president will not need a shrink, then, to tell him he is unlikely to enjoy Bush on the Couch, a new book by a Washington psychiatrist and Democrat, who tries to explain his subject's quirks and policies by examining his personal history, and comes up with some unflattering conclusions.
Justin Frank, a clinical professor of psychiatry at George Washington University, argues that the president's inclination to see the world in black-and-white, good-versus-evil terms, and his tendency to repeat favourite words and phrases under pressure, are not simply politics as usual, but classic symptoms of untreated alcoholism.
Mr Bush was a heavy drinker from his youth but stopped at 40, becoming a born-again Christian. But Professor Frank, who has never met the president, argues he never treated the underlying cause of his alcohol dependence.
"He reminded me of my more disturbed patients," the psychiatrist said. "Being on the wagon is not the same thing as having alcoholism treated. That means taking responsibility, and making amends to the people you've damaged.
"Bush switched from alcoholism to religion. It takes responsibility out of his hands. Being born again is a way of denying the past," Prof Frank said.
