Unsystematic Theology
A week or so ago, I wrote a post exploring a “link” between clinical depression and the suicide/homicide of Andreas Lubitz. The discussion that ensued in the comments was challenging and instructive. One of the primary contributors to that discussion was Patricia Oliver. I have invited Patricia to write a post of her own on the topic. She has agreed to do so (her post is below). By way of introduction: Patricia’s career has been focused on solving business problems via utilizing the appropriate Information Technology. She has her Masters Degree from Georgia Institute of Technology and is also a certified Pilates Instructor. Her interests include the intersection of faith and real life and differentiating between essential Christianity and American Cultural Christianity. She has recently returned to the US after living abroad for the past 5 years.
By Patricia Oliver
Humans have a strong need to find answers for things that are ambiguous. Psychologists call this a need for cognitive closure. Kruglanski & Webster wrote an article titled, “Motivated closing of the mind: ‘Seizing’ and ‘freezing'” (Journal Psychological Review, April 1996). When something unexplainable happens, such as the Germanwings disaster, we want answers. In the absence of answers, the mind will, unbidden, develop plausible explanations for the unexplained item and then freeze on that explanation, despite evidence that proves otherwise.
We tend to do this each time there is a school shooting or mass killing.
In the absence of terrorism, the most common explanation people put forward is depression / mental illness. In the Germanwings disaster, as in most of the school shootings, we have latched onto depression and/or bullying with the help of the media. For example, a clinical psychologist was interviewed on CNN. She said that flying a plane full of people into a mountain was not something you would expect a person with depression to do. She said they would need to know the copilot’s personality, as well as many other factors. Yet, her voice has been largely unheard.
The media tends to feed us 2 minute sound bytes to explain why the incident occurred, despite more accurate, but more complex, explanations. Along with those 2 minute sound bytes , the media provides us with proposed solutions that are non-solutions. This fulfills our desire for cognitive closure, because we want the problem identified quickly, explained succinctly, and a solution to be developed and implemented. We also want to assign blame. This blame is often targeted at people who had interactions with the person. In my opinion, we don’t only do this due to a need for cognitive closure, we also do it because we need to feel safe, we need to feel like this type of tragedy won’t happen to us or those we love.
In the Germanwings disaster, as in many of many mass shootings, the media has focused on depression. I want to backtrack first to whether or not mental illness on the whole should be immediately latched onto. In an article about Sandy Hook, the author
mentions “the work of Park Dietz, a psychiatrist who, in 1986, coined the term “pseudocommando.” Dietz says that for pseudocommandos a preoccupation with weapons and war regalia makes up for a sense of impotence and failure. He wrote that “we insist that mass killers are insane only to reassure ourselves that normal people are incapable of such evil.”
Some might call the sense of impotence or failure to be a mental illness, but I can’t buy that. Who among us has never had a sense of impotence in a situation where we had no power to change it? Who among us has never had a sense of failure? The mass killers had more than a sense of impotence and failure. They had rage and hatred. Would they have killed those people if they did not have rage, hatred or a total disregard for others?
There are many drivers behind violence, yet we tend to primarily focus on mental illness and specifically depression. Per Allen Frances, Psychiatrist and former DSM-IV Task Force Chairman “‘Mental illness’ is terribly misleading because the ‘mental disorders’ we diagnose are no more than descriptions of what clinicians observe people do or say, not at all well established diseases…There are no objective tests in psychiatry-no X-ray, laboratory, or exam finding that says definitively that someone does or does not have a mental disorder.” The vast majority of people who are diagnosed with MI are not violent. While it is true that a person who is suffering from a psychotic delusion may be violent if he or she believes people are trying to harm them or others, how often does this occur? That scenario is pretty rare. The following article has an interesting take on the subject of violence and mental illness from the point of someone with depression: http://psychcentral.com/blog/archives/2014/06/29/mass-shooters-mental-illness/
Regarding depression, the CDC estimates that 26% of the US population have suffered from depression. Yet, we certainly do not see a corresponding amount of violence from that vast number of people. As the psychologist on CNN stated, people who have depressive disorder or clinical depression are not driven by depression to be violent towards others. Something else is driving the violence, not depression. People who commit acts of violence have another disorder or factor that instigates it. As we search for the causes of murderous acts, I think we need to look to hatred, rage, blaming others or the world for their problems and lack of regard or empathy for others. These are not characteristics of depression or anxiety disorders. Violence is associated with erotomania, antisocial personality disorder, psychopathy, sociopathy, and some types of psychosis. There is at least one study (from Sweden) that noticed a slightly higher incidence of violence (including robbery as violence) in people (males) who had been diagnosed with depression. What we do know, however, is that more people are diagnosed with depression than any other disorder, perhaps more than all other disorders combined. We also know that mental health professionals are reluctant to diagnose people as having more stigmatizing disorders such as personality disorder and those I listed above and are more likely to diagnose them with depression. We also know that many people having the disorders I listed above also have depression. Because of all these knowns and unknowns, we can’t actually state that there is a true link between depression and violence. Additionally, a correlation does not indicate cause and effect.
If you recall the school shooters, the terms anger and rage seem to come up a lot in discussions of the shooters. We, as a society, immediately focused on why they were angry, why they had a lot of rage, why they hated certain people and what we, as a society, need to do to remove those things that triggered their anger, rage and hatred. If the shooter had depression, there was speculation about whether being poorly treated by others caused the depression and rage. Most certainly, all people become angry at times, even people who have depression. There is healthy anger, but there is also poisonous anger. Anger in and of itself is not bad, but it certainly can be. A famous teacher (Jesus, whom I believe was also a theologian) once said “If you hate someone, you have already murdered them in your heart.”
Unresolved anger and our societal acceptance of hatred are part of the equation that leads to violence. Where is the discussion about mass murderers believing they are justified in their rage, hatred, and disregard for other human beings? Where is the discussion about personal responsibility in working towards forgiveness and healing? Where is the discussion about pride, about someone thinking their rights, desires, comforts are more important than others’? Where is the discussion about disdain for other human beings? It’s so easy to immediately blame mass murder on mental illness. We put it in a neat little box and don’t deal with the moral issues around it. This article is from the viewpoint of a clinical professional
Moving on, let’s look at another favorite scapegoat for antisocial behavior: low self esteem. Research is conflicting regarding self esteem and violence. Much research concludes that high self esteem rather than low is a predictor of violence. When the one with high self esteem feels slighted, the response is violent. Much research has shown the majority of prison inmates have high self esteem. Teachers have reported students with high self esteem having the most behavior problems. Those teachers would seem to agree with David Gustaf Thompson, clinical professional and author of the article on Elliot Rodger, who states that Rodger’s behavior was not due to mental illness.
In my opinion, the “values neutral” and “values clarification” movement in US Teacher Ed and schools that began (I think) in the 60s or 79s created more problems than it was designed to solve. Teachers were actually taught to not tell students that things like theft, violence, etc. were wrong. So, it actually became institutionalized for teachers to **not** teach children right from wrong. In a blog such as Patheos, we should be able to use the terms “right”, “wrong” and “evil.” For the sake of those who don’t believe in moral absolutes, I will instead say something is good or bad for society. You can substitute my use of the terms “good” or “bad” as helpful or harmful. Let’s say that say that rage is usually bad for society and that hatred for other people, when not resolved, is bad for society. Let’s also say that some types of hatred are always bad for society. Let’s also say that murder is bad for society and that hatred sometimes leads to murder. We teach a lot about tolerance, which is good. We have successfully taught that prejudice, discrimination, bigotry are not acceptable, but we fail to teach about the destructiveness of hatred, rage, anger and revenge.
Why?
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