Jared Loughners possible mental illness.

[dkf]

http://my.firedoglake.com/valtin/2011/01/08/jared-loughners-possible-mental-illness/

Jared Loughner’s Possible Mental Illness
By: Jeff Kaye Saturday January 8, 2011 4:07 pm

I am a licensed psychologist and from afar, and am not in the position to diagnose Mr. Loughner. However, one can make some initial impressionistic comments based upon the video content he posted on YouTube. The autistic, in the sense of highly encapsulated and personal, nature of his thought processes, his emphasis on coercion from without (see his discussion about being taught letters of the alphabet), the strange nature of his logic and language, the paranoid attitude toward the world in general, are consistent with known cases of schizophrenia, paranoid type.

I cannot know if he is the shooter, but his videos do display a garbled mixture of political concerns, and there is a great deal about conscience (“conscience dreams”), about not doing wrong, about the definition of “terrorist”, about “grammar” and “currency”, about “brainwashing” and “mind control”. At times, appears as if he’s grappling with something struggling inside himself.

There are also indications of a sense of multiple internal selves, or a dissociated kind of experience (“conscience dreaming”) that may also mean he had dissociated personality as well. In fact, this combination of dissociated identity and schizophrenia is much more highly associated with violence than schizophrenia alone. Then again, his comments may only appear to indicate such dissociative processes, and be better accounted for by a thought disorder.

..

I would caution against implying any politics to someone who appears so disturbed, as his interpretation of political symbols and phrases are interpreted in a highly idiosyncratic and irrational way. However, if he were susceptible to violence, then the targets available by the given society, i.e., the rhetoric out there in the society, would have pointed him towards liberals, leftists, Muslims, or other minorities, and that kind of rhetoric has mainly been from the right-wing, as has been copiously commented upon.

[JustFiveMoreMinutes]

1. He definitely seemed to be in his 'own little world' that doesn't

.. fit any 'normal' right/centrist/left viewpoints. Probably a combination of whatever fit his delusions.

Thanks for the quick analysis... more time and details will come out to clarify.

HOWEVER, supposedly stable and adept individuals who continually use violent prose such as Palin, Bachmann, Angle, etc.

WHAT do you see mssing in their personality profiles?

[regnaD kciN]

2. In other words...

However, if he were susceptible to violence, then the targets available by the given society, i.e., the rhetoric out there in the society, would have pointed him towards liberals, leftists, Muslims, or other minorities, and that kind of rhetoric has mainly been from the right-wing, as has been copiously commented upon.

...it's much like the guest on Countdown tonight put it: like in an epidemic, those who are the first to die are those who are naturally the weakest and most susceptible members of society -- but they wouldn't die unless they were infected by the disease.

[Odin2005]

3. It's CLASSIC Paranoid Schizophrenia.

I could tell that just by the contents of his rants and their word-salad like quality.

[pacalo]

6. The OP & your post moved me to look up his YT video...

& his writings do sound paranoid schizophrenic. His thought process is way out there. I would have liked to have seen him speaking the words, rather than reading about his thoughts, but the wording is on the money.

If he is PS & he listens to Limbaugh, I'll bet he does have an obsession with liberals.

[mdmc]

27. do you have a link?

I'd love to have a look..

[mdmc]

25. did you see videos of him talkin?

:kick:

[ProgressiveProfessor]

4. Both the left and the right are so busy trying to blame the other for this that they overlook he may

just have been crackers. Maybe not as bad as the Texas Tower shooter, but still crackers

[Bluebear]

5. Yes, the Left is just as bad as the Right here. Right?

:silly:

[notesdev]

7. This place was flooded with it

so if this is any sample of what's going on, probably

it was instant assumption city and go postal on anybody who might suggest otherwise

very interesting to observe as a mass psychology phenomenon.

[Maru Kitteh]

8. Such a specious argument seems beneath you

as this is quite obviously not what the poster said.

[Bluebear]

23. I'm quite used to

"the poster"'s arguments :)

[pacalo]

9. He could very well have another mental disorder other than PS.

But the YT video I saw of his writing sure looks like the thought process of a PS.

[Odin2005]

22. Loughner was merely the murder weapon, his 50yo handler is likely the actual murderer.

If my suspicion that the 50yo guy they are looking for is a teabagger is correct, that is.

[nebenaube]

10. a 'finders' graduate.... n/t

[xchrom]

11. recommend

[Faryn Balyncd]

12. An excellent analysis. He appears to be a classic paranoid schizophrenic. There is also a...

...libertarian, Ayn Randian strain to some of his imagery, but it appears his issues/demons were primarily internal.

[TBF]

13. That is the impression I'm getting as well- and it would fit with

the rapid decline (community college kicked him out this fall) - age of onset is very typical. Can't imagine what his parents are going through right now.

[dkf]

14. I had a friend from high school who was fine...years later she jumped out of her grandparents

Apartment. I found out she had developed schizophrenia coming out or her high school years. My ex's sister also had it. It's a really devastating illness. If this is what happened, it is sad they couldn't help him control it better.

[TBF]

15. They spoke of him being suspended from the college recently -

maybe the parents didn't realize how serious it was. :shrug: Dunno, but I guess we'll see as more information comes out.

[Avalux]

16. I have a HUGE problem with a 'professional' assessing without talking to the person in question.

While his post has good points and he states he's not diagnosing, I think it's inappropriate.

[Posteritatis]

18. Agreed. (nt)

[mix]

19. I agree. nt

[uppityperson]

24. It is an inappropriate opinion based on minimal info, not ethical to do this. eom

[mdmc]

28. yet msm will have several doing just that..

[Posteritatis]

17. While possible, it's also possible that he was simply a colossal hateful asshole.

It's deceptively easy-looking to diagnose someone with something retroactively, especially while several degrees removed over the intarwebz or through the years, but I always kind of worry about how those usually turn into "well it's obvious that he had (insert several different disorders as additional people chime in)" and snowballs from there.

Now I do assume that anyone who's going to fire a gun into a crowd's got some substantial problems, yes, but every other mass shooting that hits the news lately seems to turn into a backlash against "the mentally ill," however broadly or narrowly defined, and that part always makes me uncomfortable. I'd like to hope it doesn't happen with this one, but I've learned not to be optimistic about that sort of thing.

[snooper2]

20. Whatever you say Senator Frist

:eyes:

[mix]

21. The danger here is that the "mental illness" narrative will eclipse

the obvious political nature of the crime.

It goes like this: he was mentally unbalanced and therefore susceptible to rightwing propaganda and violence, as opposed to he killed because he was an assassin who rationally murdered his victims for political reasons.

The mental illness angle also individualizes the crime rather than seeing it as part of a larger plot or conspiracy, which it most certainly was despite my admitted speculation here.

[Bluebear]

26. lol ++

[formercia]

29. The mental illness straw-man

It was premeditated murder. Until a court appointed psychiatrist deems him unfit for trial, we have to assume that mental illness was not a factor in his decision to open fire.

[cali]

30. no we don't.

[kentuck]

31. I tend to agree there is no political inclination one way or the other...

They may be anti-abortion, anti-government, anti-Federal Reserve, anti-immigrant, etc? They have a hodgepodge of different beliefs, totally irrational. They are not a liberal or conservative - they are both.

Everything they see and hear goes into this hodgepodge of different political beliefs, only making him more and more irrational.

[NoodleyAppendage]

32. Taxi Driver realized...minus the Jodie Foster fetish.

Concur with the dx.

[Canuckistanian]

33. And also highly suggestible in that state of mind

Given a steady diet of Faux News, Glenn Beck, Limbaugh and Palin's "take aim" and "reload" rhetoric, he did what he thought was appropriate.

It doesn't take much of a suggestion to push someone like that over the edge. And RW media eagerly supplied that suggestion, in a not-too-subtle manner.

[kentuck]

34. That is very possible, in my opinion..

...all this rhetoric goes into a hodgepodge of different beliefs forming no rational political philosophy. I think that he may have put all these codewords together with the right-wing and left-wing rhetoric and was unable to make rational sense of any of it and he was pushed over the edge by these codewords and metaphors.

[Canuckistanian]

35. Right. And whose "codewords" would he have used?

That's right. The codewords he hears everyday from Faux, from Rush, from Beck.

He doesn't get to hear any other words, what with the RW saturation of the airwaves.

Could there be be a leftwing shooter some day? Maybe. But then, where would they get their ideas?

[kentuck]

36. There are unstable people in this world.

They are not rational. They hear that illegals are bad, like abortion, like liberals, like government, and soon, their irrationality overflows in actions such as these...