Posted on 12/18/2012 4:12:14 PM PST by servo1969
Psychiatrist James Knoll told CNN’s Headline News today that Adam Lanza, the perpetrator of the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre, was acting in a “ritualistic” way during the horrific events. Knoll, who does research at the State University of New York Upstate Medical University, said in a recent report that killers like Lanza see themselves as “pseudocommandos … driven by strong feelings of anger and resentment, in addition to having a paranoid character. He plans out the offense ritualistically, and comes prepared with a powerful arsenal of weapons.”
The report continues: “[The pseudocommando] most often kills in public during the daytime. And has no escape planned. Pseudocommandos are 'collectors of injustice' who nurture their wounded narcissism and ultimately retreat into a fantasy life of violence and revenge."
Knoll wrote that killers like Lanza have an “obliterative mindset … his ‘self’ is already dead and … his physical death is of little consequence” in his own mind.
Knoll emailed HLN to let them know that psychiatry couldn’t do much about these sorts of people. “We think far too shallow about these events. We concern ourselves with metal detectors, security systems, 'profiles,' preventing 'the mentally ill' from obtaining firearms. This is shallow, facile thinking. Want to make a material impact? Think deeper. Cultivate a respect for how to teach compassion, nonviolence and personal responsibility in individual minds.”
(Excerpt) Read more at breitbart.com ...
Lanza was in the autistic spectrum and was incapable of having many of the grand issues that this psychoblabber proposes he had.
Autism comes in degrees. With some it can be strong enough to retard their social capabilities but is not strong enough to retard their desire to form meaningful connections with other human beings, which is probably a bit frustrating for some people.
I wonder what role “SW:Revenge of the Sith” had to play.
LOL!!!!!!!
THAT was one of the best responses I’ve seen on Freep!I will borrow it. ha.
Kudos!( and no, I’m not smart enough to know where that word Kudos came from, I just use it to sound smart).ha.
Don’t they have hours of interviews with these mass killers? (Dahmer, Gacy, Holmes, etc.)
Either the experts are keeping their findings more secret than the Dead Sea Scrolls, or they really don’t know how to pre-diagnose it.
How do you cultivate this in someone born without empathy or awareness?
To say these kind of people need intensive therapy is an understatement. However, I'm not sure they're redeemable; their brains are different. In spite of all the hand wringing over gun control, the real issue is treatment of the mentally ill and detection of the dangerous.
I have known people like that- they have that “Oh yeah? well I’m going to show YOU..” attitute
They are sick and twisted
I have Asperger’s and my brother had syndromal autism and was low functioning. While I am not as far gone as some Asperger’s folks are I still have problems identifying social cues and I’ve often struggled with sarcasm and metaphorical alliteration.
And autism and Asperger’s are a spectrum that ranges from low functioning, medium functioning, to high functioning.
While I have problems with sarcasm I’m sure that you don’t and that you’re perfectly able to read this post and ferret out where I’ve implied that you should go have sex with yourself.
Megan
Hey, we used to have a huge institution to do just that. It was called Religion.
Applying the word narcissist to a person with autism, regardless of their level of social functioning, is something of a conflict in terms. They can’t read people very well or even at all with some. Successful manipulators they are not. Grandiose? They do have their fascinations that could appear that way, but it isn’t to impress anyone else, they’re just compelled, it seems.
I think this psychologist is talking out of his backside too.
Second, Autism and Asperger's Syndrome (two distinctly different neuro-developmental disorders, despite the DSM-V completely removing the Asperger's label) exist on a continuum from very mild to very severe.
Third, both Autism and Asperger's manifest differently in each case, regardless of the degree of severity of the disorder.
I have for 16+ years worked with children with Autism and Asperger's Syndrome. It is possible that Lanza was a person with Asperger's or High Functioning Autism. These individuals are often very bright. I have a son-in-law who is a person with undiagnosed Asperger's Syndrome (He has a high school aged son from his first marriage diagnosed with Asperger's. He and my daughter have a four year old daughter who, as yet, is undiagnosed, but presents nearly all of the characteristics of Asperger's). My son-in-law works in the ITT department for our local school district. With computers he is extremely gifted. With people and social situations, not so much.
Please, please, please, before commenting regarding the issue of Autism and/or Asperger's Syndrome, do some serious research. Not every person with Autism is retarded (yes, thanks to Obozo, we're not suppose to use that term). They are not all prone to violence. Not all cases of this disorder present the exact same characteristics or symptomology.
How do you teach compassion to someone who, according to educators who knew him, could feel no physical or emotional pain?
This actually describes somebody else I know of.....
Excessive narcissism with a position of near absolute power, what happens when the “I Won” gets seriously offended?
“Please, please, please, before commenting regarding the issue of Autism and/or Asperger’s Syndrome, do some serious research.”
I’ve lived with Asperger’s all my life and lived with my brother’s autism until he died eight years ago from pneumonia.
I’m not a psychiatrist, I just have family who are in the field. However, from what I’ve gleaned over the years through them, this diagnosis seems muddled in regards to his alleged autism.
Autistic individuals can have violent outbursts in some cases, but they can’t have it both ways of him being low functioning autistic as the media tried making it out, and also capable of such planning.
Then again, this could just be the result of pop psychology and the immediate rush to judgement on the MSM’s part.
Sorry, that was directed at other people.
LOL... great response.
Sorry for posting to you a second time but I wanted to respond to this:
“First, there is no validated evidence that Lanza had Autism or Asperger’s Syndrome.”
I appreciate that. At the same time the picture of Lanza that is being shown in the media is pretty typical of someone who is ‘in the club’. I really don’t have any actual evidence that President Obama is black but then it’s somewhat obvious from his picture.
Ditto with Lanza.
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