The Ft. Hood Killer - Guilty But Not Evil

Psychology Today ^ | November 7, 2009 | Mark Goulston

[Protect the Bill of Rights]

The measure of a civilization is how it treats those who have hurt it.

Major Nidal Malik Hasan was not a bad person. He was even possibly a good person. But he was a very sick person who did a terrible thing.

If you are someone who disagrees with that, then I would suggest you stop reading now.

If however you do agree with me, in addition to being as upset as I was by the Ft. Hood killings -- which were evil acts -- you’d be as curious as I was and am to understand how and why and when Major Hasan did what he did and what if anything we can learn to prevent this from ever happening again.

My first presupposition is that nobody is born bad, but everybody is born vulnerable. By that I mean that I don’t believe that anyone is born evil unless of course you believe in such a thing as the Devil incarnate. However, I think that you will agree that everyone is born vulnerable in that we are all unable to take care of ourselves at birth and must accept whatever parenting or care giving is provided us.

Next I must add a disclaimer that what follows is empirically based on thirty years as a practicing psychiatrist and psychotherapist. It has been verified by formerly enlisted and senior officers from the Armed Forces, but has not been validated by any research or double blinded studies.

How did it happen?

Central to nearly all the people I have treated or spoken with who suffer from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (in preparation of my book, “Post Traumatic Stress Disorder for Dummies”) is the “fear of re-traumatization” and their efforts at any and all costs to avoid it often results in the symptoms they develop.

Soldiers enter basic training as “loosey goosey” enlistees who are then broken down and built back up into fighting machines devoted to fulfilling a mission and the well-being of their fellow soldiers. Imagine those recruits as a “green” rattling Ford pickup truck that can’t take a corner safely, being torn down and rebuilt into a turbo-charged Porsche that can handle any curve thrown at it and you get an idea of what the process is like.

After they finish basic training, it’s pretty heady, adrenaline driven stuff that can make soldiers feel nearly superhuman. Add to that the notion that they are going to fight evil and they can feel like a band of superheroes out to rid the world of villains.

Even Hollywood has jumped on this metaphor with the popular Transformer movies where rattling cars and trucks are broken down and reconfigured and rebuilt into monsters of good and evil. Get the idea?

But then they hit the reality of war face on or rather it hits them in the face. In the process they see horrors and create collateral damage no training can fully prepare you for. Imagine being ordered to run over a young child who will not get out of the way and you can’t swerve to avoid them because of the mine-laden side of the road and hearing the thump of their body as they hit the bottom of your Humvee. Or imagine following orders to take out a sniper nest in a house in a village and then entering it, only to discover a dog, a grandpa, a mother, and two children “shredded” or incinerated by you.

What happens to you when all your training for war runs head on into the debasement of humanity that you perpetrate in waging it?

The trauma cuts you to your core. The horrors that you see and the horrors that you caused won’t leave you alone. You don’t tell anyone else, because you think they’re handling it better than you . You are just weak and missing the “right stuff” that your fellow soldiers have.

Although you never fully get over that trauma that rips you to the center of your being, as in human being, your training is good enough to enable you to get past it through the days and weeks and possibly even the tour of duty you are on. However the damage is done and the crack in the porcelain of what was once your soul remains.

You don’t let the world know about it and you do everything you can to not feel that fragility. But even though you don’t think about it, you believe that if you were re-traumatized that crack would cause you to shatter from the inside out and like Humpty Dumpty, all the king’s horses and all the king’s medics would never be able to put you back together again.

So you live your life avoiding anything that might re-traumatize you. You numb yourself with alcohol or drugs; you withdraw from family matters especially the yelling of your spouse and young children. Every now and then a car backfires or something catches you by surprise and you jump out of your skin, because you had temporarily relaxed your guard and that temporarily removed the paper thin veneer protective graft above your crack. It’s like someone pouring acid in an open cut, except this cut is in your mind.

If you are put in a situation in which you feel you will be re-traumatized, you can go into a state of near panic, in which you resort to your most basic “fight or flight” instincts.

We can’t know for sure, but I believe that the threat of deployment of Major Hasan to first hand have to go into combat and witness and even support Americans killing Muslims was just too much. Previously traumatized by hearing the stories of too many soldiers with PTSD and too many soldiers telling tales of killing Muslims (who he increasingly felt a kinship too) and their families, the fear of now going and perpetrating it firsthand may have proved too much, caused him to panic, and react to that panic by perpetrating the killings he did.

Why did it happen?

Have you ever passed a cut tree and seen all the exposed rings? Each of those rings represents a year in the life of that tree. Some of those rings may look thick and healthy indicating and good year; some may look very thin indicating a drought; some may look darkened indicating a forest fire that the tree survived; some may look nearly rotted indicating some fungal or insect infestation. In your minds eye you can also imagine that those years will have a lot to do with the eventual health of that tree and its overall resilience.

Trees are not the only living creatures that develop from the inside out. Imagine your brain as actually having three brains. Like the rings of a tree layered one upon the other, imagine your human (neomammalian) upper brain is layered upon your paleomammalian middle brain is layered upon your most primitive reptilian lower brain.

Now imagine figuratively that a recruit’s brain and “loosey gooseyness” is due to their three brains being loosely wired together. Then imagine that during basic training, those loose wires are stretched and even broken. But then those three brain are built up in to a tightly wired machine specialized for waging war.

When a highly trained, tightly wired and molded for war brain suddenly runs face into horrors perpetrated upon you and that you perpetrate on others, soldiers show that they are not Transformers, but rather, that they are too human an animal.

When did it happen?

In the face of that, your three brains lose the way they are wired and coupled to each other. But being used to being tightly coupled they will spontaneously recouple, but this time with a new mission. This new mission is to avoid re-traumatization at all costs.

And perhaps that was the mission that Major Hasan was on and that he fulfilled with his bloody massacre. Because lets face it, he may have killed and traumatized many others, but he avoided the re-traumatization that being deployed might have caused.

****

[bold mine]

[popdonnelly]

Why is Hasan the benificiary of all this uninformed and unsupported psychoanalysis? Did we have all this sympathetic shrink talk concerning David Berkowitz? Timothy McVeigh? All this shows is the ingrained prejudices of our elitist society.

[ilgipper]

It has been said many times this week and through the past years. Political correctness is going to be the death of America.

[myknowledge]

Nidal Malik Hasan is GUILTY and EVIL to the core of Islam.

[maine-iac7]

I submit that You, Mr Goulston, are a victim of having spent too much time with deranged patients and are, therefore, suffering from second hand derangement. (That, plus pugging your upcoming book. So transparent)

You write: "Major Hasan to first hand have to go into combat and witness and even support Americans killing Muslims was just too much" ... Post Traumatic Stress Disorder for Dummies”) is the “fear of re-traumatization” and their efforts at any and all costs to avoid it often results in the symptoms they develop.

HOw could fear 're-traumatization'? He hadn't been in combat/tramatized in the first place.

Whether to laugh or to - puke. That is the question.

Earth to pschobabalist: the MAJOR is a psychiatrist. He would not be in combat. He would not be patrolling the roads or hills - he would not be shot at nor have to shoot at his real brothers, the Cretins.

However, as a trained and primed jihardist, he could not reconcile his going to Afghanistan or Iraq where he would be among the enemy who was fighting his muzslime brothers.

Years past, he attended the same mosque, at the same time, as some of the 9/11 bombers - and under the same imam. (Oh, I forgot, we're not to connect any dots on this angle.)

He gave plenty of evidence in the past of his hatred for us infidels and love of islam. PC stopped him form being summarily dismissed from the service, as any such soldier who expressed anti-American sentiments would have been before PC. All the signs were there - provided by Hasan himself.

He was a sleeper, primed and waiting for his orders. That day, that very afternoon, he had a visitor to his apartment: a man with long hair and mustache, dressed in Arab garb. His orders were delivered?

In the meantime, Mr. psychobabblist, where is your sympathy for those lying in hospitals after his "Allah Akbar!" rampage? I didn't catch you mentioning that he started his rampage by jumping on a desk and yelling "Allah Akbar!" (Maybe I missed it? That IS a pretty good clue as to what was really in his mind.)

What about some sympathy for the brave lady cop who nearly died on the sidewalk from massive loss of blood and is now, as doctors say, = well, they say they are fighting to keep her from living the rest of her life in a wheelchair.

What about some kind words for her and her incredible bravery and the trauma she went through and that she will live with the rest of her life. No, I guess you have no sympathy for her or the other victims - who did not create the circumstances that came crashing down on them. Your sympathy got all used up for the JIHARD TERRORIST. (And they are crazy - but not because they may have had a unhappy childhood or any of the rest of your nonsense. Ever hear of the "Age of Responsibility."

\ You, Mr Psychobabblist, are an abomination. Maybe you should see a shrink.

[popdonnelly]

“The measure of a civilization is how it treats those who have hurt it.”

Yes, if it doesn’t effectively punish the people who hurt it, then it won’t be a civilization for long.

The people who rant about the evils of “Wall Street” are they same people who want us to make nicey with the Major Hasan’s of the World.

[mojitojoe]

If you are someone who disagrees with that, then I would suggest you stop reading now.
________________
I stopped reading right there as instructed. Bye

[devolve]

Trial defense experts lining up now

[potlatch]

[Mr Hasan should be put to death according to the Koran]

Most of us might agree with that, but we now live in a world where newspapers and media hesitate to even mention a muslim name in relation to a killing.

I don’t know how we overcome political correctness other than what we are already doing - discussing it and getting out all the pertinent facts we can.

[Liberty1970]

I don't consider myself 'bad'. Sorry you have to feel that way about yourself and others.

Sounds like you are in the same mindframe as the author of this psychobabble.

You can kid yourself and tell yourself that you're OK. But I hope that deep down you realize that you aren't, that there is a God and you are not Him. The prideful person who won't admit to needing help is the one who needs help the most of all.

[Sir Gawain]

Psychobabble.

[mojitojoe]

Let me tell that stupid shrink one thing, any Muzzie comes near my property or on it, he does so at his own risk.

[potlatch]

Lol, I scrolled on this thread and saw your post before the pager lit up and pinged! Was thinking, “how did I miss this one”!

[Trial defense experts lining up now ]
Yes, it will be long and drawn out and won’t go the way we wish it would.

[Texas Eagle]

We can’t know for sure, but I believe that the threat of deployment of Major Hasan to first hand have to go into combat and witness and even support Americans killing Muslims was just too much.

Yo, Dr. Freud, did somebody FORCE Hasan to join the military?

[Texas Eagle]

The FBI better keep an eye on this Ghoulston guy.

Birds of a feather.

[piytar]

The inability to see true evil when it stares you in the face is a sure sign of utter moral bankruptcy, in other words evil.

[CyberAnt]

Not from what I’ve seen .. there is a lot of video of Mosque leaders preaching hateful stuff .. I would hardly call that “sweeten the lessons”.

[CyberAnt]

Geeeeez .. that should have been a humungus clue!

I’m sorry to say PC has kept people from confronting evil.

[maine-iac7]

Fortunately, what happens to this Cretin is not just in the hands of Washington.

I believe one of those killed was a civilian - and the lady cop is a civilian.

Texas has jurisdiction over these crimes - and Texas don't brook murderers -

It will be interesting how the obummer will try to prevent his spiritual brother from meeting Texas justice.

[devolve]

.

Recall when journalists were being killed or captured in Afghanistan?
They were thrilled with a tough US military then

I would limit &/or ban media in all combat theaters or countries where we have troops fighting

Or tell Obama and Congress to go fight our enemies themselves

[Gene Eric]

>> Goulston: "too many soldiers telling tales of killing Muslims (who he increasingly felt a kinship too) and their families"

Too many US soldiers have died because of the ROE implemented to minimize loss of innocent life - Muslim life.

Goulston, the practicing psychiatrist and psychotherapis, fails to point this out - an omission.

How many Muslim school children have US soldiers sheltered?
How many Muslim women have been provided the means to vote?
How many Muslim police officers, infantry, and officials have been trained and protected by US soldiers?
How much time and sacrifice has been given by the US military to rebuild infrastructure and provide reassurance to Muslims overseas?

Does Goulston, the practicing psychiatrist and psychotherapis, question the personal cost of separation the US soldiers and their families endure while providing aid and resources to Muslims overseas?

Does Goulston, the practicing psychiatrist and psychotherapis, question with which Muslim quarter Hasan decided to align himself?

Did Hasan ever thank the US soldiers for the sacrifice they made while fighting along side the Muslims with which he "felt a kinship to"? Or did Hasan feel a kinship to the radical Muslims the military was fighting against?