Delirium resulting from long COVID, cancer, Parkinson’s disease, back pain, paranoia, insanity. Rumors are circulating about the mental stability and state of health of Russian leader Vladimir Putin. Experts, however, warn against the propensity to attach a label to someone to explain their conduct.
Posted at 7:00 a.m.
“We are trying to find miracle explanations, where everything would depend on the health and personality of Putin”, immediately asserts Guillaume Sauvé, researcher at the Center for International Studies and Research at the University of Montreal and lecturer in the political science department of the University of Quebec in Montreal (UQAM).
The British newspaper DailyMail reported rumors on Friday that the Kremlin strongman was suffering from “delirium and confusion” due to the long COVID, that he was suffering from cancer or Parkinson’s disease.
Earlier this week, French Secretary of State for European Affairs Clément Beaune said Putin’s speech was “delusional” and “paranoid”. During his trip to Moscow on February 7, Emmanuel Macron also confided that he found Putin “steeper, more isolated, gone into a kind of drift both ideological and security”.
PHOTO THIBAULT CAMUS, REUTERS ARCHIVES
Emmanuel Macron and Vladimir Poutine, during their meeting on February 7
Moreover, Czech President Miloš Zeman called Putin “crazy” after the start of the invasion.
Professor Sauvé deplores the use of rumors to explain the President’s conduct. “In general, we are more likely to understand a phenomenon if we do not assume that the person acting is crazy, because we do not understand what he is doing,” he says.
Lack of understanding
Diagnosing Putin with a mental health problem is a way of reassuring us, says clinical psychologist Geneviève Beaulieu-Pelletier, professor at UQAM. “It gives a reason why he’s mean,” she said.
She believes that politically, it can also be an attempt to devalue her opponent. “Having a mental health problem sometimes weakens the presence of the other. »
It can be dangerous to advance such rumors about Putin’s state of health, since “it prevents us from focusing on the real issues that led to his actions”, she adds.
If Putin becomes the representative of what it is to have a mental health problem, it is not desirable at all.
Geneviève Beaulieu-Pelletier, clinical psychologist and professor at UQAM
For Tristan Landry, professor in the history department at the University of Sherbrooke, these rumors may come from a lack of understanding. “We’re so used to seeing things from our Western point of view that it’s hard to put yourself in the shoes of the Russians,” he explains.
Contempt
In 2014, former German Chancellor Angela Merkel also expressed some reservations about the mental health of Vladimir Putin. “He lost all contact with reality […] He is in another world, ”she told President Barack Obama, according to comments reported by the American press.
In the same year, Ian H. Robertson, neuroscientist and clinical psychologist, wrote in the American journal Psychology Today that Putin’s brain had “been so altered neurologically and physically that it [croyait] firmly and sincerely that without him, Russia [était] condemned”.
Absolute power for long periods of time makes you blind to risk, highly self-centered, narcissistic, and completely lacking in self-awareness. It also makes you see other people as objects, and the emotional and cognitive consequence of all of this is…contempt.
Ian H. Robertson, neuroscientist and clinical psychologist, about Vladimir Putin in 2014
The neuroscientist added that the Kremlin strongman had contempt for what he almost considered “weak Western leaders” and their institutions, such as international treaties and international laws.
Professor Sauvé does not agree. “We have known for several years that he is calculating, rather rational, cold, methodical and cynical, he lists. But I don’t think he’s someone who has a contempt for the West or is crazy. »
When Putin came to power in 2000, he tried to get closer to the West and to restore the bridges, in vain, indicates the professor. “It’s probably someone who feels betrayed and humiliated by the West,” he concludes.
With Agence France-Presse