Loughner a "textbook" case paranoid schizophrenic

[cali]

It wasn't long after news of the Tucson, Ariz., tragedy broke that the words "paranoid schizophrenic" entered the conversation. Armchair psychiatrists across the country looked at Jared Loughner -- 22, history of antisocial behavior, with a cache of rambling YouTube videos on government mind control -- and diagnosed him. But is there any truth to this? And if so, how does it help make sense of his horrific actions?

To try and untangle the influences that might lead one lone gunman to fire his Glock at a political rally, we turned to Dr. E. Fuller Torrey, respected psychiatrist and one of the foremost experts on paranoid schizophrenics. Torrey has written several books on the mental illness, including the bestselling classic "Surviving Schizophrenia." He is founder of the Treatment Advocacy Center in Virginia, a national nonprofit for the mentally ill.

Quite early in the news cycle, the media more or less diagnosed Jared Loughner as paranoid schizophrenic. Do you think that's accurate?

He's a textbook case. Most psychiatrists will tell you they need to examine a patient before diagnosing him, but this guy has all of the symptoms. He has the right age of onset. He has a deteriorating social course, as they say in the , social and occupational dysfunction. He has delusions, and they're pretty strange. It's common for schizophrenics to think people are trying to control their mind, but thinking the government is trying to control your grammar -- I've never heard that before. The real tip-off is the markedly disorganized speech, which you see in the rambling videos. This is the kind of disorganized speech that you virtually never get in any other condition. It's what we call pathognomonic of schizophrenia. That is, when you hear that symptom, it's "schizophrenia until proven otherwise." He's also got the affective flattening of emotion, which you see in that mug shot.

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http://www.salon.com/news/jared_loughner/index.html?story=/mwt/feature/2011/01/11/jared_loughner_paranoid_schizophrenia_and_why&source=newsletter&utm_source=contactology&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Salon_Daily%20Newsletter%20%28Not%20Premium%29_7_30_110


For a myriad of reasons, I'm not particularly a fan of Fuller's but he is indeed an expert in the field.

[Broderick]

1. I see paranoia

when I read that he was calling friends at 2am accusing them of being outside his house and that he thought they were going to kill him.

[Broderick]

14. The article that I brought that up for

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/41014125/ns/us_news-crime_and_courts/

Just because I spent some time trying to find out where I read that.

[jtown1123]

2. I'll defer to the pyschiatrists who examine Loughner and read all of his materials and interview

all of his family members. More and more stuff comes out every day and many times, things turn out to be wrong.

[Mike 03]

3. Your posts helped convince me you were right about psychosis of some kind.

Initially, I resisted that, but you appear to be right.

ON EDIT: I rec'd your post, but there are a lot of people here who apparently don't like discussion of mental states.

[AngryAmish]

4. A mentally ill person has sent me letters on and off for over fifteen years

In my profession there is public contact and some advertising. About fifteen or so years ago I got my first letter from this guy. He wanted me to stop using his name and stop telling the government where he was. The return address is out of state and I have never talked to this guy or know who he is. But every few years he sends me a ten to twenty page letter demanding I stop communicating with him and telling the government about him.

I got his letters and toss them. I have not contacted this guy.

I figure he is harmless.

[jeepnstein]

6. Maybe, maybe not.

[bemildred]

5. I have mixed feelings.

On the one hand the Doctor makes sound points, on the other hand schizophrenia and paranoid schizophrenia in particular are not well understood conditions, though quite treatable, and remarkable common. The fact that he's been allowed to run around loose previously has to be considered too. But the guy clearly has longstanding issues, and paranoid schizophrenia "fits" retrospectively.

OTOH the diagnosis is a red herring in the context of the discussion about violent political rhetoric.

[Tansy_Gold]

8. I disagree on the red herring

I think what we have is a combination of an impaired individual AND incendiary political rhetoric.

"Normal" people simply don't do what Loughner did. By definition, then, he's not normal and it's a matter of determining how far off the "normal" scale he is and in what direction, meaning what his disease is. Maybe it's psychosis, maybe neurosis. I don't know and I'm not equipped to make that determination. But his behavior is out of the range of what we call "normal," so that makes him abnormal.

But up until Saturday, his abnormality(ies) didn't attract sufficient attention to force public safety apparatus (police, FBI, whatever) to take action against him. He apparently had no restraining orders against him. He had been ousted from PCC with letters that indicated they thought he had mental health issues, but whatever those issues were/are, they weren't enough to prompt PCC to take any action than kicking him out of school. None of the people who have come forward since then to say that they found his behavior disruptive appear to have felt sufficiently threatened by him to seek official orders of protection.

His parents are apparently able to function within the range of normal. His mother holds a respectable job with considerable responsibility, and if his father has been a househusband who likes beer (to judge by some reports that the mother always has a 30-pack in her grocery cart) at least they have been responsible enough citizens to buy a home and stay married and so on. They may be at the very edge of normal -- MAY, I said, not ARE -- but they haven't gone over into the overtly and glaringly abnormal.

Jared's delusions and anger seem to have a distinctly political framework. He's worried about government control of grammar, and he has approached Giffords on more than one occasion. We don't know of any other political people he has approached or set letters to, at least not yet. But from his actions, his illness seems to have some connection to politics.

And something pushed him over the edge, over the line from able to function within the range of normal even if at the very edge. On Saturday, he crossed that line. Something pushed him. Maybe it was just an inner demon. Maybe it was a chemical imbalance. Maybe it was a news item. we don't know, and maybe we'll never know. But at this point I think too many people are thinking/saying either he's mentally ill or it's the political rhetoric. Maybe it's both.


TG, TT

[bemildred]

10. I don't think we disagree.

What I disagree with are the notions:

a.) That this sort of thing is unpredictable. History is littered with such events. Stirring the pot in hopes of getting something to happen is an old political strategy. Politicians that use violent rhetoric are bad people or fools, sometimes both.

b.) That he was "crazy" and that therefore we need not examine his motives or what influenced him or the environment in which he acted.

I am also, FWIW, very wary about use of the words normal and abnormal, being abnormal myself. Normalcy is not the same thing as good. But I can see you are aware of that issue.

[Tansy_Gold]

16. Exactly. The whole "hoocoodanode" bullshit

Of course this kind of thing is predictable. Not necessarily who or when or where with to-the-minute precision, but we shouldn't be surprised when it does happen. Lots of undiagnosed, untreated mental health issues, lots of encouraged anger and hate, lots of weapons. Indeed, some of us aren't surprised at all. Appalled, yes. Saddened, yes. Ashamed, yes. Surprised, no.

Personally, I use "normal" and "abnormal" -- usually in quotes -- only as colloquial references. Both are relative and subjective, open to interpretation and point of view and circumstances, as is the line between them.

TG, TT

[Jennicut]

7. Inappropriate laughter can be a sign of disorganized-type schizophrenia.

Apparently Loughner would laugh aloud in his classes for no apparent reason. The disordered thinking definitely fits into it. Still, I think he needs an official diagnosis.

[Supersedeas]

9. CNN has their own "pschologist/doctor" give the same confident diagnosis

http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/1101/11/sitroom.01.html

Alan Lipman diagnoses Loughner from his theapist chair on the studio of the Situation Room.

[RagAss]

11. The textbook profile is 95% Non-Violent

[REP]

15. Based on what was posted, the opinion was not based on his violence but other signs

It's not the violent actions that make me think he may be correct, but everything else. I think - or hope, at least - that most reasonably well-informed people understand that mental illness, no matter how severe, does not automatically turn people violent.

[Bluerthanblue]

12. imo- no 'good' Psychiatrist would make a diagnosis of schizophrenia

without a thorough psychiatric evaluation. This would include a medical evaluation, a physical exam, a mental status exam and appropriate laboratory tests as well as full history of the patients illness.

[cali]

13. well, whatever good means.

Fuller Torrey is definitely considered one of the leading experts on subject.