The leading cause of sleep loss for many right now is President Donald Trump, according to one therapist.
Psychotherapist Jonathan Alpert appeared on Fox News Friday and shared that 75% of his patients can’t sleep due to being triggered by and “hyperfixated” on the president. He said the obsession goes as far as trauma.
“They can’t sleep, they feel traumatized by Mr. Trump,” Alpert said. “They feel restless. I had one patient who said she couldn’t enjoy a vacation because anytime she saw Trump in the news or on her device, she felt triggered. So this is a profound pathology, and I would even go so far as to call it the defining pathology of our time.”
He continued: “Trump is the trigger for many of these people. To be that fixated on a figure, on a person, it’s simply not healthy. … Three quarters of my patients will present with these symptoms and within probably five minutes of seeing me their hatred of Trump comes up. So, if you’re that hyper-focused on Trump, that’s a real issue and it’s worth being treated.”
Alpert spoke on what the president and others began to refer as “Trump Derangement Syndrome” earlier in 2025. “TDS” is a term that Republicans coined to describe “a phenomenon marked by extreme negative reactions” to Trump (they have even tried to introduce a bill that would “direct the National Institutes of Health to study the psychological and social roots” of the condition). It is not actually a medical condition.
Watch Alpert’s explanation in the clip above.
