Evil vs. mentally ill.
 

The Evil/Mental Illness Debate - Beyond Blue

This is about the Virginia Tech massacre but could be applied to many of the other horrible occurrences of late like the CT shooting at the school, the Sikh Temple killings in WI, and the CO movie theater murders.

Have watched some of the recent news on the Newtown, CT atrocity and so few times have I heard the words evil or rotten come up.

Is it too soon?
 

I think it may be too soon - when they have finished the investigation, and the true picture of this damaged family comes out, then maybe we will hear more about the mental illness in this very sick young man.

It is true that the facts have not come out yet. The CO theater shooting culprit looks like he has quite genuine mental illness problems; not so sure about this other mass murdered in CT. He just looks like someone in a rage over something his mother said or did to him. None of the various people interviewed about the CT kid killer saw any signs that he would go on this kind of killing spree.

I see most terrorists like those of 911 as evil and not mentally ill. Timothy McVeigh certainly knew what he was doing with the Oklahoma City bombing. Never recall anyone saying that McVeigh was mentally ill.

There is a difference between being mentally ill and not understanding that what you are doing is wrong.

Boogie, that is true, lots and lots of folks with mental illness are sane. not knowing you are doing wrong meanson is insane, in other words cannot tell the difference between external reality and a false reality that is in the mind.

Why did this happen and what should we do?
 

None of us know. Only God knows.

We are typing, trying to understand all of this horror and trying to make sense of it and place it somewhere in our hearts that doesn't hurt as much. We are battling anger and trying to comprehend this overwhelming reality.

It isn't possible.

I think turning OFF the news is a good idea. And remembering just ONE name and face of the dead. It seems like better advice than any I've heard.

I think this is relevant to the thread.


The Seven Myths of Mass Murder By J. Reid Meloy, Ph.D.

J. Reid Meloy, Ph.D. is Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at the University of California, San Diego, and President of Forensis, Inc., a nonprofit dedicated to forensic psychiatric and psychological research.

Myth 2: They can easily be divided into “psychopaths, psychotics, and depressives”

David Cullen, the journalist and author of Columbine, an excellent book on the high school mass murder in Colorado in 1999, has asserted this formulation. Unfortunately, his diagnostic classification of mass murderers is much too simplistic. Most are complex in their motivations and psychopathology. They often have both mental and personality disorders.

Mental disorders range from chronic psychotic disturbances, such as paranoid schizophrenia diagnosed in the Jared Loughner case, to major depression, bipolar, and other disorders. This may sound like splitting hairs, but when it comes to risk mitigation, fully understanding the range and complexity of these individuals’ disturbances is critical.

Personality disorders also abound in this group and are often a mixture of antisocial, paranoid, narcissistic, and schizoid traits — or in layperson’s terms, someone who habitually engages in criminal behavior, is suspicious of others’ actions, is self-centered and grandiose with little empathy, and is chronically indifferent toward others and detached from his emotional life. What Cullen has done is a disservice to the millions of individuals who are clinically depressed or have a psychotic disorder and pose no more risk of violence to others than your neighbor. Loughner has given paranoid schizophrenia a bad name — many other factors contributed to his attempted assassination and mass murder.


Myth 5: Psychotic individuals cannot plan in a precise and methodical manner

The majority of adult mass murderers are psychotic, meaning they have broken with consensual reality and perceive the world in an idiosyncratic and often paranoid way. Yet they may research the internet for weapons, practice video games to sharpen their marksmanship, purchase weapons and ammunition, conduct surveillance of the target, and carry out their mass murder, all from within a delusion.

A delusion is a fixed and false belief and may provide a rock-solid motivation for mass murderers. Paradoxically, delusions may help them commit irrevocably to paths of homicidal destruction. Our research has also found that mass murderers who are psychotic have higher casualty rates than those who are not. Typically they select victims who are complete strangers, who in their minds make up a “pseudocommunity” of persecutors bent on their destruction.



The seven myths of mass murder | OUPblog

Severe mental illness is difficult to understand, but we should begin with empathy toward the ill and their families...what would you do if you had a severely ill child? Read about this parent's struggle: http://thebluereview.org/i-am-adam-lanzas-mother/

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cbg150, I can't get your linked page to load.

Article In New York Daily News on Adam Lanza,

People with Asperger's rarely harm others, so don't be so quick to link Adam Lanza's actions with syndrome: expert - NY Daily News

There is a big difference between being evil and mentally ill.

In a perfect world, I believe that people who are a danger to themselves and society be put in a safe situation before something bad happens. Everyone who is alarmed by someone that might be violent should report their odd behavior as a safeguard to avoid these tragic events.

I believe another article said the mother was a gun affecianado and his access to guns was something that added to a lethal mix. I am not a gun advocate and I think access to semi automatic weapons should not be available to the general public. From what I'm reading, one of his weapons was something that you would carry in a military war type situation.

I'm sorry. I think the website has been overwhelmed. The Huffington Post just reprinted the piece here: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/1...n_2311009.html

It is definitely worth reading, one parent's account of dealing with her emotionally disturbed child...she can be anyone of us...

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This is absolutely true that most people with Asperger's syndrome are not a danger to others. Unfortunately, when a responsible parent recognizes the potential danger they are presented with few choices other than turning their child over
to the criminal justice system...there should be better alternatives for these parents. Read http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/1...n_2311009.html for one mother's struggle.

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There are more than 57.7 people in the US who suffer from some kind of mental illness each year. http://www.nami.org/template.cfm?sec...mental_illness I just do not see this as just a problem with controlling the mentally ill. There are way too many of them in the US to really have any kind of control and most of them are harmless. Much of the psychiatry service in communities also seems to be run by pill pushers who just medicate the mental illness while not doing much of anything to find out what the real problem might be.

In almost all of these massacres, the killer was already known by teachers, police, counseling professionals and courts as being mentally ill with probably personality disorders than were pointing toward having schizophrenia or something related to it.

And in almost all these cases, authorities who knew it were in denial for the sake of good P.R. and their institution's image.

This CT killer will probably turn out to have a long history of wanting to kill others in grizzly, go-down-in-flames, action-movie ways:

"Neighbors have described Lanza as odd, remote, and reclusive ; schoolmates recall him as a brainiac, with a flat affect; and a longtime family friend reveals that Adam lacked the ability to feel pain. His brother, Ryan Lanza, told ABC news that Adam "is autistic, or has Asperger syndrome and a 'personality disorder.'" Police authorities, meanwhile, have alluded to the shooter's "checkered past," calling him a "troubled youth."

Greater diagnostic clarity on this matter will emerge within the next few weeks as friends and doctors who knew Adam Lanza come forward to aid law enforcement in their investigation."
Diagnosing Adam Lanza - Gabriella Rosen Kellerman - The Atlantic

That article sounds extremely speculative. Maybe, Adam Lanza was just an evil person who committed atrocious murders.