Epstein’s “Take Down” of Trump and an Empathetic Alternative
by Rev. John McFadden

It’s reasonable to suspect that the Epstein files contain notes indicating that, in 1994, Jeffrey Epstein saw Donald Trump forcibly raping a 13-year-old girl in Epstein’s New York City mansion. That would qualify as confirmation for Epstein’s belief that he had information that would “take down” Trump.

The suspicion is reasonable, because credible evidence of not only the alleged rape but also Epstein’s presence during it exists. Court-filed depositions of an eyewitness to the alleged rape and what’s called a hearsay witness are key. There’s also a transcription of a 29-minute video tape of the alleged victim telling her story in the kind of detail that persuades police investigators. If this evidence does ruin Trump politically, he might be amenable to a compassionately intended intervention for him.

Challenges to the validity and presumed effect of the rape allegation exist, but I offer counters to them. To begin, a few District Attorneys I consulted and many lay people responded, “So what, Trump’s sexual violations are already well known.” But that misses the point that all the other cases are about adults, not a girl one year out of childhood. And violent rape of a minor is exponentially more inflammatory.

Some lawyers I consulted added another “So what,” saying that the statute of limitations on this case ran out long ago. But apparently unknown even to the alleged victim’s attorneys, the law in New York City states that the statute of limitations on forcible rape of a minor never runs out. And the possibility that the alleged victim could at any time make a claim to a prosecutor might move Trump to cut his losses and submit to what could be, in every sense of the word, an enriching transformation process.

Other critics dismissed this story when it first became known in mid-2016, partly because the alleged victim, known by the pseudonym Katie Johnson, was represented by an obviously underqualified real estate lawyer. But in October of 2016 when the claimant launched a civil suit against Trump and Epstein, an award-winning attorney filed it in the United States District Court of Manhattan, and another prominent lawyer agreed to litigate this case. Moreover, the judge accepted the case and set a December 2016 date for a status hearing.

Mainstream journalists did not report this allegation for good reason, good but not indisputable. Johnson had scheduled a press conference for November 2nd, 2016, but she cancelled it that day and, on the fourth, dropped her suit. And if claimants don’t submit to interviews, their allegations usually shouldn’t be reported. But it’s obvious that the combination of the publicly available depositions of her two witnesses and Johnson’s unusually detailed story has what police call “investigatory credibility,” the credibility needed to justify an expensive, time-consuming investigation. And perhaps on that basis alone, this allegation should be reported. Add that the accepted criteria for early published reports of claims against Harvey Weinstein appear to challenge the mainstream press’s decision in Johnson’s case.

Some observers even argued that Johnson might not be a real person, implying that her claim was entirely fake. But pictures of her appear in a well-known publication. In one of them, she was sitting beside Lisa Bloom, one of her legal advisors.

Without a claimant, of course, this allegation can’t be proven beyond a shadow of a doubt by journalists. That’s what a managing editor of a liberal newspaper said he would to establish for him to risk publishing a story that threatens a president, especially a powerful vengeful one.

But perhaps the court of public opinion will be affected by a complete version of this report. Perhaps ordinary people will react emotionally. Placards like, “Don’ let Trump near your daughter,” might proliferate. This story might dominate the news enough that he wouldn’t be able to change the subject. He then might be so unable to govern that he’d be forced to end his presidency perhaps by impeachment or by his most influential backers.

The above evidence and argument is not intended to condemn Trump. That’s not the spirit with which I’ve investigated this story. On the contrary, I’ve just published a book, Enlightened Empathy: Relief of America’s Turmoil, that’s about unconditional empathy. (Incidentally, it’s peppered with citations for the facts and professional opinions presented here.) The initial point of confronting him with his disgusting behavior is to help him, not whip up self-righteous condemnations against him. Rather, I want to help him and the electorate take seriously how more troubled and troubling he is than even his most condemning critics say. (That’s mostly what Johnson wanted to do.) He recently admitted that he doesn’t think he qualifies to get into heaven, betraying that he might be more vulnerable to feeling guilty than people think, as I try to substantiate by quoting his other self-revealing statements.

My ultimate reason for analyzing him here and in my book is to make a case for the compassionate intervention for him that’s presented in the book. The intervention is modeled on the Alcoholics Anonymous-based intervention that’s been effective in rescuing abusive men and their family from their torment.

But is there any hope that an intervention of a massively defensive person would work? Real life stories of White Supremacists and criminal sociopaths’ transformations by means of empathy alone in my book help make this prospect worth considering.

Rev. John McFadden, is an ordained Presbyterian minister and Analytic Pastoral Counselor living in Noe Valley, San Francisco. with his wife, the artist Pattie Gerrie, and their three dogs, Santo, Lionel, and Lilly.  He is the author of the new book “Enlightened Empathy: Relief from America’s Turmoil.”

Media Contact:
David Perry & Associates, Inc. — (415) 676-7007 — news@davidperry.com

“Enlightened Empathy” by Rev. John McFadden Debuts on Amazon

New book shows how an uncommon empathy is helping solve even the most difficult personal, local, and national troubles

13 November– San Francisco, CA: Enlightened Empathy: Relief from America’s Turmoil, a new book by Presbyterian minister and Analytic Pastoral Counselor Rev. John McFadden, is now available via Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing. Blending Jesus’s and Freud’s uncannily similar empathy, McFadden takes readers on a personal and professional journey through life’s darkness into the light of compassionately intended reason.

“There’s much talk lately even from academic psychologists that empathy not only can’t solve problems but even makes people behave worse,” says Rev. McFadden. “To counter this dismissive view, he details the real-life transformation stories of ordinary people and even sociopathic criminals and White Supremacists.

He introduces the book with a memoir of his parents’ occasional but damaging brutality against him and his struggle to gain relief from its effects. Readers, he hopes, will be inspired by the help he received from two prominent professionals, one a chaplaincy educator (also a Presbyterian minister) and the other a psychologist who became the leading exponent of the understanding Sigmund Freud created near the end of his life. McFadden’s references to dramatic literature and movies that sparked some of his most effective insights add breadth and relatability. And the high praise of his writings by six psychology professors helps explain why this only masters degree educated person felt emboldened to publish this decidedly iconoclastic book, iconoclastic partly because it challenges America’s commitment to the use of shame and guilt.

McFadden imagines that the transformation stories of sociopaths and White Supremacists give some hope that our national turmoil can be relieved, especially if the organizations that helped those people will be expanded throughout America, much as the Alcoholics Anonymous movement spread. Moreover, McFadden details that these stories also can help teach this powerful kind of empathy to conventionally empathetic leaders like Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. His point is to enable all naturally empathic leaders to make speeches that more effectively unite Americans by deeply empathizing with both sides of every threatening conflict.

Those stories also are intended to pave the way for empathetically understanding and containing what McFadden calls “the chief instigator of our current turmoil,” Donald Trump. Strong evidence he collected partly from Trump’s public statements and his relative’s reactions to him is provided to help show that the President is more vulnerable than his “Teflon Don” nickname portends. But this analysis is not just for analysis’s sake. It is argued that a penetrating empathetic view of Trump can enable authoritative people on both sides of the political spectrum to create strategies for better containing him. In light of how unreachable Trump seems, that prospect may seem ludicrous. But, McFadden explains, “The transformations of horribly disturbed people make a beginning case that all of us can be changed, even Trump.”

The core idea: “The explanation is the solution”:
McFadden’s premise is that hidden shame and guilt are what drive destructive behavior, as many professionals believe. And shame-guilt relieving insights can sometimes quickly unlock change in individuals, groups, and even hard-line leaders. The book presents uncommonly sudden turnarounds in empathy-based clinical vignettes (from a violent offender to a panic-stricken patient) that perhaps should be studied to find therapeutic techniques that quicken therapy. And this book expands to community-scale reconciliations (e.g., small group processes for White Supremacists and the increasingly relied on Empathy Circles process), implying how guilt-shame relieving empathy can be policy-relevant, not just sympathetic.

• PART I — Theory & Method: Why reward-punish moralism backfires; how “enlightened empathy” identifies and relieves root shame; a practical “how-to” for change. 
• PART II — Individually and Nationally Focused Tools: Field stories of liberals and right-wing extremists reaching détente; proposals for leaders to speak and legislate with empathic precision; applications to militia movements and political rhetoric. 
• PART III — Trump Focus: A frank review of public-record allegations of child molestation and a concrete intervention blueprint designed to reduce harm, lower national temperature, and model an empathy-based intervention that may become practical as Trump continues to devolve. 
• Epilogue — Justice Reform: A sketch of an empathy-based justice system, restorative practices, and diversion programs that are driving down recidivism, often cutting it by half. 

Selected early readers call Enlightened Empathy “important,” “historic,” and “compelling,” noting its unusual ability to speak to believers and atheists alike and its clear, story-rich prose that moves from living rooms to courtrooms to the public square.

About the Author: Rev. John McFadden:
Rev. John McFadden earned a B.A. in Psychology (Elmhurst College, 1965) and a Master of Divinity (Perkins School of Theology, SMU, 1969). He received Advanced standing from the Association of Clinical Pastoral Educators (1970), was ordained by the Presbytery of the Redwoods (1971), and licensed by the State of California as a Marriage & Family Therapist. His career spans service as a houseparent in a boys’ reformatory, Child Protective Services worker, California Youth Authority parole agent, social worker, hospital and prison-camp chaplain, and 50 years in private psychotherapy practice. His published work has appeared in APA’s Psychotherapy: Theory, Research and Practice**, Washington Post Health, Journal of Drug Issues, and Tikkun, among others. He previously self-published Empathetic Explanation: Solving the Personal Part of Any Problem and is currently completing an autobiography.

Testimonials:
“With an unusual ability to speak to atheists and believers with equal respect and overarching language, McFadden offers as a catalyst to rescuing us from our personal, social, and even national and international strife. This is an historic effort by a thoughtful author.” — Douglas Wilkins, Speech & Debate Coach

“John points us towards a better way to influence Trump and ultimately affect our own lives. In this book, he beautifully integrates his understanding of theology, moral philosophy, psychology, and psychotherapy with his own tremendous capacity for empathy. We all have a lot to learn from John’s fine work.” — David Isenman, MD, psychoanalyst, and psychiatrist

“John, your piece I just read, [Chapter Four in the book] — The Transformation of Two Sociopaths — is worth broad consideration.” — Joan Petersilia, a former faculty co-director of the Stanford Criminal Justice Center and president of the American Society of Criminology

“Brother John’s method for transforming humanity is speculative. But his understanding of people inside makes good enough sense to engage other therapists and moral and legal policy makers in conversation. Enlightened Empathy provides a comprehensive, empathic, practical guide about how to transform conflict and to understand people who seem unreachable.” — Evelin Lindner, PhD, Founding President of Human Dignity and Humiliation Studies (Dignity Press) and author of Honor, Humiliation, and Terror: An Explosive Mix and How We Can Defuse It

“John’s unique voice is powerful, humble, and polished in its integration of the humanities and social sciences. His interventions into Trump capture the clinical imagination and are compelling and humane.” – Ernie Carpenter, MSW, LCSW, Sonoma County CA Supervisor (California), 1981–1997

Publication details:
Title: Enlightened Empathy: Relief from America’s Turmoil
Author: Rev. John McFadden
Format: Paperback/Kindle (Amazon)

Media & Review Copies:
For interview requests, advance review copies, or to schedule a talk, please contact David Perry & Associates, Inc. at (415) 676-7007 or news@davidperry.com.