by Dennis Dalman
If things don’t go his way in Ukraine, Russian President Vladimir Putin – feeling defeated, isolated and humiliated – could sink into a “paranoid and delusional” mental condition.
That is the opinion of Dr. Aubrey Immelmann, a Sartell resident and an associate professor of psychology at St. John’s University and the College of St. Benedict. He has been a professor of psychology for 31 years for those two colleges.
Immelman was quoted in a news/feature story written by Joel Day and published in “Express,” a British newspaper. He based his assessment of Putin’s personality traits in a profile published in 2017 and based on data acquired in 2014. In Immelman’s psychological profile of Putin, he noted that president possesses several primary personality patterns that include dominant/controlling (a measure of aggression and hostility); ambitious/self-serving (a measure of narcissism); conscientious/dutiful; retiring/reserved (introverted), dauntless/adventurous (risk-taking) and lesser distrusting/suspicious features.
In that news/feature story, Immelman was quoted as saying during an Express interview that if Ukraine defeats Russia’s attempt to invade that country, it’s possible Putin could descend into paranoia and delusion.
Defeat may be a long shot, Immelman said.
“But I think it’s already humiliating – the fact it did not take (the) two days he thought it would (to take over Ukraine),” he said. “I don’t know definitely if Putin is paranoid or delusional, but some of the paranoid and delusional elements we speak about in psychology might emerge if he is humiliated . . . What research around this entails is that the personality structure begins to disintegrate and the person’s behavior might become highly erratic and impulsive.”
Immelman added the primary patterns in Putin’s psychological profile constitute a composite personality type that can be described as “an expansionist hostile enforcer.”
For many years, Immelman has conducted psychological assessments of presidential candidates and world leaders at the Unit for the Study of Personality in Politics. That unit’s forecasting model (the presidential election-outcome model) has accurately predicted the outcome of every presidential election since 1996.
Immelman worked as a consultant for the U.S. Department of Defense from 2003-2005.
Aubrey Immelman of Sartell is an associate professor of psychology at St. John’s University and the College of St. Benedict.
