Anyone read manifesto by UCSB mass murderer Elliot Rodger?

[LoudBark]

Interesting from a psychiatric standpoint.

His mother claims he had Asperger's but apparently no psychiatrist / psychologist gave him that official diagnosis.

He obviously had big, big problems and issues, but reading the manifesto trying to pin point a diagnosis. Social anxiety disorder? Likely. Narcissistic personality? Maybe. Anti social personality disorder? Maybe.

Anyone think he really had Asperger's or what diagnosis did he really have?

His manifesto really didn't scream psychosis like he was completely disjointed from reality like a schizophrenia or a disorder with psychotic features.

It was mentioned in the manifesto that his psychiatrist wanted to put him on risperidone but he refused to take it. He never mentioned an actual diagnosis.

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[erg923]

Ok. First, Why so people keep calling it a "manifesto?"

Second, does it matter what bogus psychiatric box he may or may not have fit into? That debate is silly and pointless, as it assumes 1) that the condition was somehow a casual mechanism for the event 2) treatment could/should have prevented said event.

 

[wolfvgang22]

Yeah, in this case the perpetrator had a mental health provider. I wonder if he was offered any competent psychotherapy?
At the end of the day, it was his fault he chose to harm others. Too bad he didn't face justice in this world. I hope he does in the afterlife.

There is no doubt our society can do a lot more to prevent this kind of violence, such as improve access to competent , complete, evidence based mental health care. This includes competent psychotherapy. Throwing medications at every problem is really only half a treatment. Insurance don't want to pay for necessary and sufficient psychotherapy, despite evidence that it works.

 

[erg923]

Yeah, in this case the perpetrator had a mental health provider. I wonder if he was offered any competent psychotherapy?
At the end of the day, it was his fault he chose to harm others. Too bad he didn't face justice in this world. I hope he does in the afterlife.

There is no doubt our society can do a lot more to prevent this kind of violence, such as improve access to competent , complete, evidence based mental health care. This includes competent psychotherapy. Throwing medications at every problem is really only half a treatment. Insurance don't want to pay for necessary and sufficient psychotherapy, despite evidence that it works.

I think my point was more along the lines of it doesn't really matter what "treatment" he received. Sometimes people do bad things. Many people have done much worse and not have their mental health questioned...because, up until recently, I think it was generally recognized that the choice to do evil things doesn't necessary mean "mental illness." It was a choice, that's all. Said choice has causes, of course...deep rooted ones sometimes. But distorted beliefs about the world and others don't necessarily mean disorder and they aren't always amenable to "treatment" via our current methods. For example, we don't consider racism or sexism a "disorder", and we dont have any effective ways to "treat" it. Similarly, there is no 12-16 session evidence-based psychotherapy for narcissistic rage.

 

[greenlion]

I think my point was more along the lines of it doesn't really matter what "treatment" he received. Sometimes people do bad things. Many people have done much worse and not have their mental health questioned...because, up until recently, I think it was generally recognized that the choice to do evil things doesn't necessary mean "mental illness." It was a choice, that's all. Said choice has causes, of course...deep rooted ones sometimes. But distorted beliefs about the world and others don't necessarily mean disorder and they aren't always amenable to "treatment" via our current methods. For example, we don't consider racism or sexism a "disorder", and we dont have any effective ways to "treat" it. Similarly, there is no 12-16 session evidence-based psychotherapy for narcissistic rage.

Wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong.

Did you even read his manifesto? Yours is the expected conclusion without delving deeper. HINT: It's not so much a 'manifesto' as a highly detailed history of his inner thoughts from preadolescence to the end. Really a very candid diary rather than a "manifesto"

I'm guessing you thought manifesto=narcissistic ravings.

 

[erg923]

No. And I have no interest in it reading it. I don't know to make my position more clear. Its an opinion. This is not a dichotomous issue. Many shades of grey, although I am at loss for how mental health professionals could have played a larger role here.

What part of my post are you labeling as "wrong" anyway? Am I to understand that you believe aggression equates to "mental illness?" That we should force psychotherapy upon those with views of the word and other that we did not agree with? Perhaps you know of an effective treatment for narcissism or sexism that I don't? Perhaps you could elaborate on your view and you proposed solution here?

PS: Aren't you that same yahoo from the psychopharm thread?

 

[greenlion]

I'm disagreeing with your opinion that he couldn't have been amenable to proper therapy. He's not even the typical sexist. He several times refers to females as "angels" and bemoans his worth in society because he sincerely believes that it's tied almost completely (not hyperbole) to how much he's valued by them. That's where he could have been helped.

You wrote a very professional sounding opinion without even bothering to read anything from the subject- other than the news stories, I suppose. Why?

PS- Yes, I'm the poster who you attacked for not being "pro psychology" as you put it.

 

[birchswing]

I heard he was addicted to Xanax prescribed by a family physician. I don't get 1) why benzos are commonly prescribed to this day like candy and 2) why do they tend to (in my experience of knowing people on benzos) pick Xanax which due to its short-half life seems more addicting than Librium, Valium, etc. (I do know why actually, but it seems like a stupid reason: Xanax is a "clean" drug, whereas Valium is "dirty"—the effects they have on your brain are far worse than your liver IMO, though)

Not that it was necessarily a causative factor. But I know people who are given Xanax and because their doctors don't tell them they're going to feel rebound effects, they don't make the connection to why Xanax seemingly makes them feel better but then a day later they feel worse, and think, "Oh, I must need more Xanax." From my very unfortunate experience with benzos, the long-term effects of being on it are bad enough, but the interdose withdrawals and rebound effects are when I could see it being a triggering issue. Not that I would have ever connected it to violence, and not that I am now. From my experience, it's a "feels like I am in Hell and I can't take it" not "I am going crazy and shooting people." But if everyone is playing the game of guessing what set him off, I don't see why you wouldn't look at something that is obviously a huge factor in a person's health (benzodiazepine addiction).

 

[erg923]

I'm disagreeing with your opinion that he couldn't have been amenable to proper therapy. He's not even the typical sexist. He several times refers to females as "angels" and bemoans his worth in society because he sincerely believes that it's tied almost completely (not hyperbole) to how much he's valued by them. That's where he could have been helped.

You wrote a very professional sounding opinion without even bothering to read anything from the subject- other than the news stories, I suppose. Why?

PS- Yes, I'm the poster who you attacked for not being "pro psychology" as you put it.

Are you a trained mental health professional? If not, I am not inclined to listen to your opinions/thoughts on effective treatment.

Could he have benefited form therapy? I don't know. Maybe. Maybe not. I think its entirely the wrong question to ask, as I have already stated.

 

[wolfvgang22]

I heard he was addicted to Xanax prescribed by a family physician. I don't get 1) why benzos are commonly prescribed to this day like candy and 2) why do they tend to (in my experience of knowing people on benzos) pick Xanax...

You and me both, friend. I get so many teenagers in clinic who have been abusing "bars" (Xanax pills).

When I'm teaching medical students about benzos I jokingly tell them in my best Liam Neeson impersonation "If you prescribe Xanax without considering other alternatives I will look for you, I will find you, and I will kill you."
Okay, it's funnier in person, trust me.

 

[birchswing]

You and me both, friend. I get so many teenagers in clinic who have been abusing "bars" (Xanax pills).

When I'm teaching medical students about benzos I jokingly tell them in my best Liam Neeson impersonation "If you prescribe Xanax without considering other alternatives I will look for you, I will find you, and I will kill you."
Okay, it's funnier in person, trust me.

This is OT, but: I'm glad you're saying it. I was put on Ativan as first-line treatment for panic disorder when I was 14. I probably wasn't badly addicted though until I went to college and the school psychiatrist switched me to a high-dose of Klonopin, insisting it was not addictive like other benzodiazepines and that I would need to be on it for life. Going through withdrawal now at 31. I was actually very anti-psychiatry until I found this forum because I hadn't even met a psychiatrist who would admit I had a benzo problem until a few years ago—most wanted to treat my tolerance withdrawal (which they would not have labeled as tolerance withdrawal) with higher levels of benzos. For a long time, the best information I got on my situation was from other sufferers of benzo dependence online. I live in an area where benzos are considered generally harmless and helpful by a lot of psychiatrists for long-term use. I swear that if the psychiatrists on this forum are what normal psychiatrists are like when it comes to judicious use of benzos, where I live it's a twilight zone. My current psychiatrist having lived in the area now for a few years has made me feel finally that I'm not crazy in my impression of that and is so overwhelmed with benzo-dependent patients that she's trying to hire an NP just to handle the basics of setting up and managing taper withdrawal. The rest of the psychiatrists (and I've seen a lot of them) as far as I know are continuing to create the problem that she is having to clean up. Another annoying part is that my original indications are almost entirely gone.

 

[whopper]

A problem with these cases is the public wants to hear what we psychiatrists think, and we don't get enough information to be able to make a statement. The Sandy Hook killer, the state did not release a report till several months after it happened.

 

[Therapist4Chnge]

A problem with these cases is the public wants to hear what we psychiatrists think, and we don't get enough information to be able to make a statement. The Sandy Hook killer, the state did not release a report till several months after it happened.

…and haven't evaluated the person in question. I know people can speak in generalities, but it can be a slippery slope.

 

[Trismegistus4]

I read parts of it (mainly the latter half) and found it fascinating. People keep calling it a "manifesto" because he killed a bunch of people, and killers in the past have had manifestos. But it's really just an autobiography.

The closest we can probably come to a DSM diagnosis for him is avoidant personality disorder. He most definitely did not have narcissistic personality disorder. He made repeated references to himself being "the perfect gentleman" and things like that, but overall he hated himself. Someone with NPD does not have such overwhelming social anxiety that they can't say more than two words to even their close friends, and stay shut in their dorm room for days at a time. If he had NPD, he would have been bending the ear of everyone who would listen about how great he was. Maybe schizotypal, as he read "The Secret" and developed this idea that he was "destined" to win the Powerball.

A lot of what he wrote really resonates with me, (as I've always struggled with social anxiety, low self-esteem, feeling "left out" socially, etc.,) which is a little scary, but fortunately I've never been anywhere near as bad as him. Nevertheless, I believe this gives me some insight into what his mind was like. I see no evidence in his autobiography of a psychotic disorder or a major mood disorder.

 

[whopper]

Manifesto will garner more ratings.
While I worked on a forensic unit, about once a month the hospital had a front-pager type of patient. The news reports were no where close to accurate. Some of them you could intentionally see them spicing it up.

As they say at Marvel Comics, dog bites man who cares? Man bites dog? Now that sells.
Unfortunately the same motto happens in newspapers and the news networks. I wish I could show you a specific case where we had all the information and what the local news reported was deliberately manipulated to make it look like we weren't doing our jobs.

In short there was a guy that was not mentally ill though antisocial and he was stalking a TV journalist that was on that station . He was discharged by the judge during his involuntarily commitment hearing. The news accused the hospital of discharging a "deadly" psychiatric patient (he had no history of violence though his stalking was clearly inappropriate), and refusing to tell the victim (who was on the same channel's news!) and that this violated her rights.

1-the hospital didn't discharge the patient, the judge did
2-he was not determined to be a danger so we were bound by HIPAA not to report to her
3-the TV journalist and the TV station's objectivity was clearly biased

 

[smalltownpsych]

Manifesto will garner more ratings.
While I worked on a forensic unit, about once a month the hospital had a front-pager type of patient. The news reports were no where close to accurate. Some of them you could intentionally see them spicing it up.

As they say at Marvel Comics, dog bites man who cares? Man bites dog? Now that sells.
Unfortunately the same motto happens in newspapers and the news networks. I wish I could show you a specific case where we had all the information and what the local news reported was deliberately manipulated to make it look like we weren't doing our jobs.

In short there was a guy that was not mentally ill though antisocial and he was stalking a TV journalist that was on that station . He was discharged by the judge during his involuntarily commitment hearing. The news accused the hospital of discharging a "deadly" psychiatric patient (he had no history of violence though his stalking was clearly inappropriate), and refusing to tell the victim (who was on the same channel's news!) and that this violated her rights.

1-the hospital didn't discharge the patient, the judge did
2-he was not determined to be a danger so we were bound by HIPAA not to report to her
3-the TV journalist and the TV station's objectivity was clearly biased

I think this really points out how poorly understood the law and mental health system is by the general public. Unfortunately, we spend too much time speculating about "diagnoses" for people like this and bloviating about it on 24 news channels and we spend very little time educating people about how the system really works or doesn't work, but education doesn't get ratings!

 

[whopper]

It doesn't get the ratings...

And usually at the time, even if we know what's going on, we cannot disclose it to the community.

One of the few times I've seen someone very fairly tell our side of the story on a local radio show, it was a police officer. In that specific case, a psychiatric patient killed someone. The police officer mentioned that our ability to determine the future is not that great (true), but we're the best bet and we try to do our best.

And the irony of the situation was while that police officer explained things very well, that was one of the few times where I knew what was going on and I knew the psychiatrist was piss-poor. While I didn't know the specifics of whether or not that doctor should've been held responsible for malpractice or negligence, I did know that
1-that doctor saw the patient just days before the killing
2-that doctor had a long history of faking notes, not really interviewing patients, and giving them very poor medication regimens.

Total irony. The one freaking time someone rushes to our defense it happens to be for a doctor that didn't deserve one.

 

[cookymonster]

I read parts of it (mainly the latter half) and found it fascinating. People keep calling it a "manifesto" because he killed a bunch of people, and killers in the past have had manifestos. But it's really just an autobiography.

The closest we can probably come to a DSM diagnosis for him is avoidant personality disorder. He most definitely did not have narcissistic personality disorder. He made repeated references to himself being "the perfect gentleman" and things like that, but overall he hated himself. Someone with NPD does not have such overwhelming social anxiety that they can't say more than two words to even their close friends, and stay shut in their dorm room for days at a time. If he had NPD, he would have been bending the ear of everyone who would listen about how great he was. Maybe schizotypal, as he read "The Secret" and developed this idea that he was "destined" to win the Powerball.

A lot of what he wrote really resonates with me, (as I've always struggled with social anxiety, low self-esteem, feeling "left out" socially, etc.,) which is a little scary, but fortunately I've never been anywhere near as bad as him. Nevertheless, I believe this gives me some insight into what his mind was like. I see no evidence in his autobiography of a psychotic disorder or a major mood disorder.

Narcissists fundamentally DO hate themselves. There are different subtypes of narcissists that vary primarily in how insightful they are in to this, and the extent to which they defend against it with grandiosity and devaluing of other people. On the other side of the grandiose (malignant) narcissist is the covert (vulnerable) narcissist. Gabbard has made criteria on the latter I can't seem to track down, but here is a web page with a description:
http://sparkster.hubpages.com/hub/The-Covert-Narcissist

I haven't read his writings, but from what I've read in the news, he harbored infernal shame and rage and reacted with a lot of grandiose fantasies (his mass murder was his way of going down as the "alpha male"). Those sound like the common defenses to me.

 

[Trismegistus4]

I haven't read his writings

Then do so. What stands out on page after page of his autobiography is not narcicissm; it's extreme social anxiety.

I don't see how you can read what he wrote and come away with the impression that he had narcicisstic or antisocial personality disorders, schizophrenia, or Asperger's Syndrome. Regarding the latter, he did understand social cues, he could read facial expressions, body language, and tone of voice, he was aware of what was and was not socially acceptable behavior. It was his inability to deal with such matters due to his extreme social anxiety that caused him so much distress.

 

[vistaril]

You and me both, friend. I get so many teenagers in clinic who have been abusing "bars" (Xanax pills).

When I'm teaching medical students about benzos I jokingly tell them in my best Liam Neeson impersonation "If you prescribe Xanax without considering other alternatives I will look for you, I will find you, and I will kill you."
Okay, it's funnier in person, trust me.

that's funny, because I know many physicians in other specialties who are afraid to send their outpts to a psychiatrist because they are afraid they will eventually end up on xanax, lamictal, seroquel, and ambien....

 

[hamstergang]

that's funny, because I know many physicians in other specialties who are afraid to send their outpts to a psychiatrist because they are afraid they will eventually end up on xanax, lamictal, seroquel, and ambien....

Of course you do. In your world, psychiatrists screw things up and other doctors know better ways to handle psych issues.

 

[birchswing]

Of course you do. In your world, psychiatrists screw things up and other doctors know better ways to handle psych issues.

There are good and bad doctors. Where I live, out of the bad doctors, I've only met psychiatrists and one ER doctor. If I extrapolated my world view of psychiatry based on my experiences, which I at one point did, I would have said the entire field of psychiatry was full of negligent, ignorant, glib pill pushers. I wish I could name names or that some government official would investigate these people because they're still in business creating more addicts.

Having said that, I was in my young 20s when I got mad at the field of psychiatry in that abstract way, and I have since then been able to get in touch with a knowledgable psychiatrist out of town. It also helped to find this forum where psychiatrists talk in a way where you can detect an IQ. I'm talking about the difference between getting tech support from Apple and say . . . pretty much any other 800 number you have to call for tech support these days. There is a night and day difference between what is discussed as the standard of care in this forum and what is actually the standard of care in the real world for a lot of people.

The one thing that annoys me on this forum is the talk about benzo-seeking patients. And it is because it seems like it is hard for some good psychiatrists to believe that some psychiatrists really are that bad and have addicted their patients unwittingly to drugs. You can go to benzobuddies.org and see me along with thousands of other people who are helping each other get off these drugs. I don't know of people who want to become addicted to benzodiazepines of all drugs. I'm a person who wouldn't take Tylenol as a kid because I saw no need. I was someone who would have never taken recreational drugs and never have. I'm terrified of medications. I was terrified of Ativan when I was put on it at 14. I was so terrified of Klonopin when I was put on it at 18 that I had an out-of-control panic attack from the idea of being on a new drug. But even if I were drug-seeking, there's no high in the recreational sense. The same results can be obtained with alcohol, well perhaps without the sloppiness alcohol causes--I have never drunk in my life. The point is that there's no drive to take the drug except to not go into withdrawal, and the sad part is that many people aren't given that one piece of information (that benzos will lead to withdrawal symptoms, whether you stay on the same dose or decrease) by the very people who are supposedly experts in managing a very small set of classes of drugs. The psychiatrist who put me on Klonopin told me in absolute terms that it was like an anti-depressant version of Ativan and in no way addictive. He had patients on it for 15-20 years with no ill effect, he told me.

I look at this as a disease model. Benzodiazepines are the "virus." I was exposed to them by a psychiatrist. Given my environment, psychiatrists were the places I was exposed. According to my family doctor, GPs don't prescribe benzos where I live. I have a really good family doctor and asked if he would take over my meds because I couldn't find a psychiatrist who would get with the Ashton Manual withdrawal taper. He said he would never prescribe a benzo--it came with too many headaches. My psychiatrist now is having to reject patients on benzos because she has too many. I am guessing it has to do with DEA regulations. She has become the local go-to person to manage tapers, and she will freely say that these people were not addicted by family doctors but by the very incompetent psychiatrists that seem to congregate in my neck of the woods.

I wish for my own health that I had seen a GP before a psychiatrist. I believe that in my environment, which contains a lot of bad psychiatrists, I would have been safer in terms of less chance of exposure, meaning indefinite prescription, and not become physically dependent on those drugs. There are so many things that could have been tried first.

My point is not to say that iatrogenic addiction is caused more frequently by psychiatrists. I have no idea what the numbers on that are. But bad psychiatrists are dangerous to a person's health—there is no doubting that.

 

[Armadillos]

that's funny, because I know many physicians in other specialties who are afraid to send their outpts to a psychiatrist because they are afraid they will eventually end up on xanax, lamictal, seroquel, and ambien....

Seriously where is this dystopian psych world you practice in?

At first I was giving you the benefit of the doubt, but over the last while I've gotten to rotate at several different locations on non-psych rotations and all these things you say about other specialties relationship to psychiatry is just not even close to the way I'm seeing it in the real world. From the outpatient side, all of these community based FM/IM/ObGyns are desperate to get many of their patients into see a psychiatrist. Also from doing admissions in community hospitals I can tell you that far and away the most absurd psych regiments were never from psychiatrists. Literally saw at least one patient a week admitted for something unrelated, but on med rec found they had been on TID Benzos for years and recently started taking a stimulant because they have been finding it harder to concentrate lately and their PCP had samples of some shift work disorder stimulant handy.

 

[birchswing]

Seriously where is this dystopian psych world you practice in?

At first I was giving you the benefit of the doubt, but over the last while I've gotten to rotate at several different locations on non-psych rotations and all these things you say about other specialties relationship to psychiatry is just not even close to the way I'm seeing it in the real world. From the outpatient side, all of these community based FM/IM/ObGyns are desperate to get many of their patients into see a psychiatrist. Also from doing admissions in community hospitals I can tell you that far and away the most absurd psych regiments were never from psychiatrists. Literally saw at least one patient a week admitted for something unrelated, but on med rec found they had been on TID Benzos for years and recently started taking a stimulant because they have been finding it harder to concentrate lately and their PCP had samples of some shift work disorder stimulant handy.

All of us are going to have anecdotal stories. My dental hygienist's husband saw a psychiatrist for depression. Was put on an SSRI and got jumpy. Was put on Xanax because his anxiety was "hiding" under his depression. He now had two dx: anxiety and depression, OK not too unlikely but also one med that was obviously causing side effects and one that is going to cause him a world of pain if he stays on it.

I'm not a doctor. I haven't even graduated from college. But it's clear to me the only thing that would settle this debate is good empirical data. Personally, it's hard for me to imagine GPs dipping into a bucket and pulling out benzos often because of the suspicion it would draw. Giving out antidepressants—I could see that. In a psychiatrist's office, it seems to have the aura of justifiability. Presumably the person is there because they believe they have a mental heath issue, and I would more expect to see a psychiatrist prescribing those drugs. More justified in the eyes of whoever, if anyone, is really observing and regulating these things. Now maybe back in the Mad Men era this is what family doctors were doing. But again, my view is colored by personal experience--as is all of ours--and by location. The US is huge geographically and relatively sparsely populated.

 

[smalltownpsych]

Maybe if they gave this guy Xanax, he wouldn't have gone on a killing spree.

Actually, one thing that frustrates me about cases like this is that I would like to know what the mental health providers did or didn't do in this case so that I could learn from it for my own clinical practice. Reading his writings tells me very little. I would love to be able to review his file because that, in conjunction with what he revealed in his own writings would be useful.

 

[erg923]

I think reading his writings is relatively pointless, as I generally do not trust that what he viewed as his problem was actually "the problem." Frankly, I am suprised trained MH professionals are buying into this so readily.

 

[smalltownpsych]

For me, the writings are just one source of data. Without collateral information, you are correct, it is pointless. It reminds me of when I would evaluate abusive men at the jail, they were all victims of circumstance and it was all her fault. They all sang the same tune with minor variations on the theme.

 

[Trismegistus4]

For me, the writings are just one source of data. Without collateral information, you are correct, it is pointless. It reminds me of when I would evaluate abusive men at the jail, they were all victims of circumstance and it was all her fault. They all sang the same tune with minor variations on the theme.

Right, collateral information like the interview with one of his friends mentioned in his autobiography, who said "usually all you would get were one word, monosyllabic answers from him," that he was "He was so shy and painfully awkward," and "he had a boring personality and he didn’t talk?"

Or the interview with a former roommate of his who describes how Elliot just sat in his room alone, didn't accept their invitations to social functions, and when he did talk just seemed like he was trying to "get to the end of the conversation" as fast as possible?

 

[erg923]

Is there some kind research relating shyness (or social anxiety disorder) to increased levels of aggression....much less the choice to engage in mass murder, that I am not aware of here? Serioulsy, who gives a ****? I feel like the more we speculate about this, the more it looks like psychiatry wants to create simplistic explanations for anti-social behavior/choices. Its all bull**** folks, and it bad for ya-George Carlin

 

[Armadillos]

Is there some kind research relating shyness (or social anxiety disorder) to mass murder that I am not aware of here?

While obviously 99.99999999% of shy teenagers aren't mass murders, its does seem to be the trend (if Im remembering correctly) that the vast majority of these mass shooters are young, white, males who largely kept to themselves and would not pass the "weird dude" test if you met them for the first time in a social setting.

 

[erg923]

While obviously 99.99999999% of shy teenagers aren't mass murders, its does seem to be the trend (if Im remembering correctly) that the vast majority of these mass shooters are young, white, males who largely kept to themselves and would not pass the "weird dude" test if you met them for the first time in a social setting.

By this logic, then being "white" would be a casual factor too.

 

[notdeadyet]

I don't have time to read books I'd actually ENJOY. Manifestos are kind of low on the reading list....


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[smalltownpsych]

Really? A quote in the mass media from a "person who knew him"? That is beyond useless. Also, I completely agree with your point about the ridiculous speculations that have no predictive value.

 

[Trismegistus4]

Really? A quote in the mass media from a "person who knew him"? That is beyond useless. Also, I completely agree with your point about the ridiculous speculations that have no predictive value.

Hearing someone who knew him talk about him is not only useless, but beyond useless? You have a pretty strict standard for usefulness.

The main factor confusing this debate is that, to expand upon my post upthread, anyone who thinks this kid had schizophrenia, or Apserger's syndrome, or that he was homosexual, or a conservative patriarchalist, are thereby revealing their lack of ability to get inside the head of someone with severe social anxiety. He was absolutely paralyzed by fear in a social situation. He could not speak, or act, or react. All he could do was get out of there. In addition to this, he had several factors contributing to his sense of isolation and alienation:

1. He had a somewhat peripatetic and fractured childhood, in which he was born in England but moved to the USA, and his parents divorced when he was five.
2. His father remarried to a woman who hated him and verbally abused him.
3. His parents had equal visitation rights, so he spent half his time at his father's house, but his father was often away for weeks at a time for work, leaving him in his father's house with his stepmother who hated him.
4. He was of mixed race, unable to fully identify with being either white or Asian.
5. His parents both worked in the entertainment industry, and rubbed elbows with the rich and powerful. He occasionally got to attend red-carpet premiers, VIP advanced movie showings, backstage parties, etc., attended by all these record company executives, movie producers, and glamorous people. Yet his parents weren't rich, famous, or powerful themselves, leading to envy and resentment over not actually being one of these people. (This was also the source of his fixation on tall, leggy, tanned, popular, Southern California blonde 9's and 10's as the only type of women he was interested in. Had he found a social milieu where he fit in more, he might have been able to be content with, say, a cute nerd girl.)

Given his crippling social anxiety, he was unable to find any healthy outlets for his frustration with the above, causing his isolation and rage to bottle up until the only way out he could think of was a murder-suicide.

This isn't an "excuse." I'm not saying it was good that he did this. I'm trying to understand the situation, unlike people who call explanations like the above "simplistic" then turn around and say he did this because he was a misogynist, no further explanation needed. It's all right there in his autobiography. But I guess you think he chose to write a 143-page fictional document and email it to everyone he knew for no reason.

Also, I'll say again: anyone who thinks "why didn't he just make friends? Why didn't he just go out? Why didn't he just talk to girls?" clearly does not have the ability to get inside the head of someone with severe social anxiety.

 

[slappy]

I don't have time to read books I'd actually ENJOY. Manifestos are kind of low on the reading list....

Amen to that.

 

[erg923]

Hearing someone who knew him talk about him is not only useless, but beyond useless? You have a pretty strict standard for usefulness.

The main factor confusing this debate is that, to expand upon my post upthread, anyone who thinks this kid had schizophrenia, or Apserger's syndrome, or that he was homosexual, or a conservative patriarchalist, are thereby revealing their lack of ability to get inside the head of someone with severe social anxiety. He was absolutely paralyzed by fear in a social situation. He could not speak, or act, or react. All he could do was get out of there. In addition to this, he had several factors contributing to his sense of isolation and alienation:

1. He had a somewhat peripatetic and fractured childhood, in which he was born in England but moved to the USA, and his parents divorced when he was five.
2. His father remarried to a woman who hated him and verbally abused him.
3. His parents had equal visitation rights, so he spent half his time at his father's house, but his father was often away for weeks at a time for work, leaving him in his father's house with his stepmother who hated him.
4. He was of mixed race, unable to fully identify with being either white or Asian.
5. His parents both worked in the entertainment industry, and rubbed elbows with the rich and powerful. He occasionally got to attend red-carpet premiers, VIP advanced movie showings, backstage parties, etc., attended by all these record company executives, movie producers, and glamorous people. Yet his parents weren't rich, famous, or powerful themselves, leading to envy and resentment over not actually being one of these people. (This was also the source of his fixation on tall, leggy, tanned, popular, Southern California blonde 9's and 10's as the only type of women he was interested in. Had he found a social milieu where he fit in more, he might have been able to be content with, say, a cute nerd girl.)

Given his crippling social anxiety, he was unable to find any healthy outlets for his frustration with the above, causing his isolation and rage to bottle up until the only way out he could think of was a murder-suicide.

This isn't an "excuse." I'm not saying it was good that he did this. I'm trying to understand the situation, unlike people who call explanations like the above "simplistic" then turn around and say he did this because he was a misogynist, no further explanation needed. It's all right there in his autobiography. But I guess you think he chose to write a 143-page fictional document and email it to everyone he knew for no reason.

Also, I'll say again: anyone who thinks "why didn't he just make friends? Why didn't he just go out? Why didn't he just talk to girls?" clearly does not have the ability to get inside the head of someone with severe social anxiety.

The fact that he wrote one IS the most telling. Thinking that he is the star of this show, so to speak, tells me everything I need to know.

 

[smalltownpsych]

Hearing someone who knew him talk about him is not only useless, but beyond useless? You have a pretty strict standard for usefulness.

The main factor confusing this debate is that, to expand upon my post upthread, anyone who thinks this kid had schizophrenia, or Apserger's syndrome, or that he was homosexual, or a conservative patriarchalist, are thereby revealing their lack of ability to get inside the head of someone with severe social anxiety. He was absolutely paralyzed by fear in a social situation. He could not speak, or act, or react. All he could do was get out of there. In addition to this, he had several factors contributing to his sense of isolation and alienation:

1. He had a somewhat peripatetic and fractured childhood, in which he was born in England but moved to the USA, and his parents divorced when he was five.
2. His father remarried to a woman who hated him and verbally abused him.
3. His parents had equal visitation rights, so he spent half his time at his father's house, but his father was often away for weeks at a time for work, leaving him in his father's house with his stepmother who hated him.
4. He was of mixed race, unable to fully identify with being either white or Asian.
5. His parents both worked in the entertainment industry, and rubbed elbows with the rich and powerful. He occasionally got to attend red-carpet premiers, VIP advanced movie showings, backstage parties, etc., attended by all these record company executives, movie producers, and glamorous people. Yet his parents weren't rich, famous, or powerful themselves, leading to envy and resentment over not actually being one of these people. (This was also the source of his fixation on tall, leggy, tanned, popular, Southern California blonde 9's and 10's as the only type of women he was interested in. Had he found a social milieu where he fit in more, he might have been able to be content with, say, a cute nerd girl.)

Given his crippling social anxiety, he was unable to find any healthy outlets for his frustration with the above, causing his isolation and rage to bottle up until the only way out he could think of was a murder-suicide.

This isn't an "excuse." I'm not saying it was good that he did this. I'm trying to understand the situation, unlike people who call explanations like the above "simplistic" then turn around and say he did this because he was a misogynist, no further explanation needed. It's all right there in his autobiography. But I guess you think he chose to write a 143-page fictional document and email it to everyone he knew for no reason.

Also, I'll say again: anyone who thinks "why didn't he just make friends? Why didn't he just go out? Why didn't he just talk to girls?" clearly does not have the ability to get inside the head of someone with severe social anxiety.

The reason that I said beyond useless is that it is second-hand information from a source (the someone who knew him) that I would have no idea what their perspective or motive or anything might be. The individuals writings are actually much more useful than that.

You also might want to take into account his WoW involvement as part of the picture. How much time did he spend in the virtual world? If it was too much, why would his parents allow that? These are all good questions when looking at a case study; however, as scientists we need to recognize that any extrapolation from this data is not warranted and is a logical flaw. In other words, all of these factors can not be identified as causal, I just spent the last three years working with a lot of kids that met some if not all 5 of those criteria and they all responded to these factors in a variety of ways. The setting where i worked was specifically tailored to rich kids with social anxiety. This kid, from what you describe, would have been right in the middle of what we worked with. I agree that a cumulation of stressors or negative experiences appears to be correlated with increased social and emotional dysfunction, but we are nowhere near able to make the leap to saying what form that dysfunction will take.

 

[Shikima]

The reason that I said beyond useless is that it is second-hand information from a source (the someone who knew him) that I would have no idea what their perspective or motive or anything might be. The individuals writings are actually much more useful than that.

You also might want to take into account his WoW involvement as part of the picture. How much time did he spend in the virtual world? If it was too much, why would his parents allow that? These are all good questions when looking at a case study; however, as scientists we need to recognize that any extrapolation from this data is not warranted and is a logical flaw. In other words, all of these factors can not be identified as causal, I just spent the last three years working with a lot of kids that met some if not all 5 of those criteria and they all responded to these factors in a variety of ways. The setting where i worked was specifically tailored to rich kids with social anxiety. This kid, from what you describe, would have been right in the middle of what we worked with. I agree that a cumulation of stressors or negative experiences appears to be correlated with increased social and emotional dysfunction, but we are nowhere near able to make the leap to saying what form that dysfunction will take.

Hey now, don't be dissin' online gaming!

 

[Indodo]

A lot of absolutes being thrown around. Don't you people know that is ALWAYS the wrong answer on the board exam.

 

[freaker]

While obviously 99.99999999% of shy teenagers aren't mass murders, its does seem to be the trend (if Im remembering correctly) that the vast majority of these mass shooters are young, white, males who largely kept to themselves and would not pass the "weird dude" test if you met them for the first time in a social setting.

And come from divorced and fractured households. If you read through the UCSB student's journal, you see how his experiences molded his view on women and the role they were supposed to play in his life v. what was unfolding in his.

There are a lot of cultural trends that we may see more of. Interestingly, these shootings didn't really happen that frequently until recently.

Mass shootings by decades:

1900′s:0
1910′s:2
1920′s:2
1930′s:9
1940′s:8
1950′s:1
1960′s:6
1970′s:13
1980′s:32
1990′s:42
2000′s:28
2010-2013:14

 

[smalltownpsych]

Hey now, don't be dissin' online gaming!

I almost dropped out of school in undergrad because I got a little too far into the virtual world of the first MMORPG - Ultima Online! Not saying they cause mass murder, that's for sure, but I have seen some negative effects both first hand and in patients. A good clinical reference to consult is the South Park Episode on World of Warcraft.

 

[Trismegistus4]

The reason that I said beyond useless is that it is second-hand information from a source (the someone who knew him) that I would have no idea what their perspective or motive or anything might be. The individuals writings are actually much more useful than that.

You also might want to take into account his WoW involvement as part of the picture. How much time did he spend in the virtual world? If it was too much, why would his parents allow that?

I agree that the individual's writings are very useful, but earlier you dismissed them.

For the umpteenth time, all this information is available in his autobiography. He started playing World of Warcraft when he was 13, and quit when he was 17 because he realized it was considered a "nerdy" hobby and would cause "hot" girls to look down on him. Except for a two-week stint when he was 19, he hadn't played WoW in five years when he went on his killing spree.

He definitely had absent parents. For the last year of his life, he was living in an apartment in Isla Vista, but not actually taking college classes, and apparently his parents had no idea. He kept living there and registering for classes to hide from them the fact that he wasn't actually in college; then he would just drop the classes a few weeks in. His mother apparently thought tossing a BMW 3-series his way would solve all his problems. He stayed shut in his room in his apartment much of the time. He became obsessed with winning a huge lottery jackpot, and after several failed attempts to win the Megamillions, developed the idea that he was "destined" to win the Powerball instead, and actually drove to Arizona (a five-hour trip one-way) four separate times to buy Powerball tickets as they didn't have the Powerball in California. He spent thousands of dollars on lottery tickets.

I'm trying to understand the resistance to his autobiography. People keep thinking they can make intelligent comments on this case without any more information than is available in biased mainstream-media toss-away articles. Then when someone brings up the kid's 143-page life story, they just dismiss it out of hand. I really recommend anyone interested in this case at least skim parts of it to see what I'm talking about. It's a cogent, coherent, linear description of his thought processes. He remembers an amazing amount of detail from childhood. He can tell you exactly how he came to believe and think the way he did. It's not the disjointed, disorganized, delusional ramblings of a psychotic person. He was clearly an intelligent person; you can tell just by his writing style. Google it and see for yourself.

 

[erg923]

People keep thinking they can make intelligent comments on this case without any more information than is available in biased mainstream-media toss-away articles. Then when someone brings up the kid's 143-page life story, they just dismiss it out of hand. I really recommend anyone interested in this case at least skim parts of it to see what I'm talking about. It's a cogent, coherent, linear description of his thought processes. He remembers an amazing amount of detail from childhood. He can tell you exactly how he came to believe and think the way he did. It's not the disjointed, disorganized, delusional ramblings of a psychotic person. He was clearly an intelligent person; you can tell just by his writing style. Google it and see for yourself.

I think there is a fundamental disagreement here about 1.) separating "motives" from behavioral choice/free will 2.) What it means when someone who does this kind of thing writes an "autobiography."

I think one needs to be careful about misplaced empathy in these situations. The act of reading this thing plays right into this person's pathology. I mean, an "autobiography" for goodness sake?! Get real, kid. His assumption that HE should be "the star" of this saga IS the pathology! For goodness sake trismegistus, you are trained mental health professional and he is sucking you right in. Wake up, bro. Your subsequent advertising of this thing is exactly what he thought he deserved. It narcissistic rage, its dehumanization, its envy. It's NO different than the Columbine kids. And while I believe ALL human life is valuable/sacred, I have pretty much zero empathy for these folks. Other than acting during the course of a psychotic delusion, there is nothing about any of the mental disorders that you want to give him that would prevent knowing right from wrong. He had alot of distorted views of the world (so do lots of people)...and then he made a choice to agress towards others. Period.

 

[vistaril]

I think there is a fundamental disagreement here about 1.) separating "motives" from behavioral choice/free will 2.) What it means when someone who does this kind of thing writes an "autobiography."

I think one needs to be careful about misplaced empathy in these situations. The act of reading this thing plays right into this person's pathology. I mean, an "autobiography" for goodness sake?! Get real, kid. His assumption that HE should be "the star" of this saga IS the pathology! For goodness sake trismegistus, you are trained mental health professional and he is sucking you right in. Wake up, bro. Your subsequent advertising of this thing is exactly what he thought he deserved. It narcissistic rage, its dehumanization, its envy. It's NO different than the Columbine kids. And while I believe ALL human life is valuable/sacred, I have pretty much zero empathy for these folks. Other than acting during the course of a psychotic delusion, there is nothing about any of the mental disorders that you want to give him that would prevent knowing right from wrong. He had alot of distorted views of the world (so do lots of people)...and then he made a choice to agress towards others. Period.

quality post erg.

the only good news to have come out of that tragedy is at least the evil guy was eliminated as well

 

[Armadillos]

I think there is a fundamental disagreement here about 1.) separating "motives" from behavioral choice/free will 2.) What it means when someone who does this kind of thing writes an "autobiography."

I think one needs to be careful about misplaced empathy in these situations. The act of reading this thing plays right into this person's pathology. I mean, an "autobiography" for goodness sake?! Get real, kid. His assumption that HE should be "the star" of this saga IS the pathology! For goodness sake trismegistus, you are trained mental health professional and he is sucking you right in. Wake up, bro. Your subsequent advertising of this thing is exactly what he thought he deserved. It narcissistic rage, its dehumanization, its envy. It's NO different than the Columbine kids. And while I believe ALL human life is valuable/sacred, I have pretty much zero empathy for these folks. Other than acting during the course of a psychotic delusion, there is nothing about any of the mental disorders that you want to give him that would prevent knowing right from wrong. He had alot of distorted views of the world (so do lots of people)...and then he made a choice to agress towards others. Period.

I dont think being interested in what "made him tick" means that we are feeling bad for him or making excuses for him. Most narcissists dont shoot people, so people have a lot of curiosity in thinking about what signs he may have shown that set him apart from your garden variety arrogant and angry at the world adolescent. Saying he is "evil" after he kills a bunch of folks is a no brainer, what most people are interested in is if there would have been anyway to figure that out before he actually killed a bunch of people. What point in his life did he click over from being a normal kid to an evil kid, was he ever normal, etc, etc.

 

[Trismegistus4]

I think there is a fundamental disagreement here about 1.) separating "motives" from behavioral choice/free will 2.) What it means when someone who does this kind of thing writes an "autobiography."

I think you lack a fundamental ability to distinguish between "understand" and "sympathize with." You don't have to sympathize with Hitler to understand why he did what he did. And reading Mein Kampf is a perfectly relevant way to understand it.

I think one needs to be careful about misplaced empathy in these situations. The act of reading this thing plays right into this person's pathology.

Do you think the act of reading Mein Kampf plays right into Hitler's pathology? So historians studying World War II should not read Mein Kampf, they should just say "Hitler was an evil person, period. Nothing to learn here" and drop the subject? How about people interested in the Unabomer case? Should they not read his manifesto, because doing so "plays right into his pathology?"

I mean, an "autobiography" for goodness sake?! Get real, kid. His assumption that HE should be "the star" of this saga IS the pathology! For goodness sake trismegistus, you are trained mental health professional and he is sucking you right in. Wake up, bro. Your subsequent advertising of this thing is exactly what he thought he deserved.

No, it isn't. What he thought he deserved was sex with a hot blonde Southern California girl. If you were actually willing to examine the relevant information, you would know this. And I'm not advertising anything. If you don't want to read his document, don't. There are certainly better uses of your time. But if you refuse to look at it, you have no right to comment on this case, because you're ignoring the best source of information we have about him.

It narcissistic rage, its dehumanization, its envy. It's NO different than the Columbine kids.

It's much different from the Columbine kids. They were not losers with extreme social anxiety who worked themselves into a lather over their inability to get girls. They left comparatively little information about their motivations. And while I agree that Elliot Rodger's thinking involved dehumanization, envy, and rage, it was not narcissistic. You seem to have latched onto this idea that "narcissism" was the "root cause," as though he were born an inherent narcissist and that caused all his other problems as well as his murderous acts. It didn't. If you read what he wrote, you would see that.

Other than acting during the course of a psychotic delusion, there is nothing about any of the mental disorders that you want to give him that would prevent knowing right from wrong.

Now you're demonstrating that you're not even comprehending my posts. I'm the one who's saying that I don't think he met criteria for any DSM diagnosis, other than maybe avoidant personality disorder, unlike all these other people who want to explain him away with Asperger's or whatever.

He had alot of distorted views of the world (so do lots of people)...and then he made a choice to agress towards others. Period.

Question: do you think it's worth examining the reasons for Islamic terrorism, or the high rates of black violent crime? Or do you think we should just stick our fingers in our ears, say "la la la, I can't hear you, they're evil, period!"

 

[erg923]

Hitler?! Are you serious?

This guy was an upper middle class yuppie with dreams of chicks...and, apparently, the lottery. Get real man. Apples and oranges.

 

[erg923]

I just think we disagree on the importance of examining individual motives for mass murders of this type. I continue to maintain that reasons are similar in all of these (sans those influence by delusion) and that fulfilling their "fantasy" only reinforces the behavior and thus may enable further incidents.

If there is ONE thing I learned in my 7 years of graduate study in psychology its that we are one of the worst estimators of our own behavior. We are terrible at it, actually. Do the research man. The social psych lit is pretty rich in this area. I am pretty surprised that you view a killers autiobio as "the best" possible evidence. The way I was trained about human behavior/cognition, it is actually one of the worst (least reliable). So, forgive me I don't trust his views and explanations of his own behaviors. Research tells me its not a very reliable source.

 

[smalltownpsych]

I agree that the individual's writings are very useful, but earlier you dismissed them.

For the umpteenth time, all this information is available in his autobiography. He started playing World of Warcraft when he was 13, and quit when he was 17 because he realized it was considered a "nerdy" hobby and would cause "hot" girls to look down on him. Except for a two-week stint when he was 19, he hadn't played WoW in five years when he went on his killing spree.

He definitely had absent parents. For the last year of his life, he was living in an apartment in Isla Vista, but not actually taking college classes, and apparently his parents had no idea. He kept living there and registering for classes to hide from them the fact that he wasn't actually in college; then he would just drop the classes a few weeks in. His mother apparently thought tossing a BMW 3-series his way would solve all his problems. He stayed shut in his room in his apartment much of the time. He became obsessed with winning a huge lottery jackpot, and after several failed attempts to win the Megamillions, developed the idea that he was "destined" to win the Powerball instead, and actually drove to Arizona (a five-hour trip one-way) four separate times to buy Powerball tickets as they didn't have the Powerball in California. He spent thousands of dollars on lottery tickets.

I'm trying to understand the resistance to his autobiography. People keep thinking they can make intelligent comments on this case without any more information than is available in biased mainstream-media toss-away articles. Then when someone brings up the kid's 143-page life story, they just dismiss it out of hand. I really recommend anyone interested in this case at least skim parts of it to see what I'm talking about. It's a cogent, coherent, linear description of his thought processes. He remembers an amazing amount of detail from childhood. He can tell you exactly how he came to believe and think the way he did. It's not the disjointed, disorganized, delusional ramblings of a psychotic person. He was clearly an intelligent person; you can tell just by his writing style. Google it and see for yourself.

How much time per day did he spend on WoW during a crucial social-developmental period of his life? That says a lot right there. His parents reward him with a fancy car, for what? There are long=term residential treatment options that parents who have resources can send there kids. What did the mental health professionals suggest as course of treatment? Unfortunately without more context, I still think it is not very helpful to read the manifesto, but I did glance through it. For me the resistance about his manifesto is because of the over-valuing of this source of information by many in our profession and then some actually spewing non-scientific opinion and speculation and over-generalizations in the mass media. That's what really burns me up! A little speculation here on this forum isn't too bad. We just need to recognize it for what it is.

 

[Trismegistus4]

Hitler?! Are you serious?

This guy was an upper middle class yuppie with dreams of chicks...and, apparently, the lottery. Get real man. Apples and oranges.

Well, you're the one saying he was so horrific and evil that we should pay no attention to him at all lest we fulfil his fantasies.

I just think we disagree on the importance of examining individual motives for mass murders of this type. I continue to maintain that reasons are similar in all of these (sans those influence by delusion) and that fulfilling their "fantasy" only reinforces the behavior and thus may enable further incidents.

If there is ONE thing I learned in my 7 years of graduate study in psychology its that we are one of the worst estimators of our own behavior. We are terrible at it, actually. Do the research man. The social psych lit is pretty rich in this area. I am pretty surprised that you view a killers autiobio as "the best" possible evidence. The way I was trained about human behavior/cognition, it is actually one of the worst (least reliable). So, forgive me I don't trust his views and explanations of his own behaviors. Research tells me its not a very reliable source.

I know what you mean, but you have to acknowledge the fact that he wrote throughout his autobiography that he was going to go on a killing spree, then he did so.* But it seems like you think I'm saying we should read his autobiography in a concrete way, to learn what his own specifed, logical reasons for doing what he did were. That's not what I'm saying (though it does contain lots of useful factual details about him, like all the crap about his parents being divorced, moving around, changing schools, getting bullied, playing WoW, wanting to be a skateboarder but not being good at it despite lots of practice so he gave up, etc.) I'm saying if you read a long piece of writing by someone, anyone, about themselves, you grasp the gestalt of it, you get a sense of their writing style, and how one thought leads to another in their minds, and you gain insight into their temperament, their mode of thought, the lens through which they view the world. That is relevant, useful information for understanding why someone does what they do.

If I understand you correctly, you seem to be saying that anyone who 1) kills a bunch of people and 2) leaves behind some sort of document or video about themselves by way of explanation, is, ipso facto, a "narcissist," and we should not examine or talk about the aforementioned documents or videos because that would give the narcissist some sort of "credit." But, if so, your idea that he is a "narcissist" is an a priori assumption, based not on any evidence about the case, but on the taking for granted of the axiomatic belief that points 1 and 2 above inevitably mean narcissism. I'm saying, no, you should read what he wrote; you'll come to understand his mode of thought, and see that his chief problem, the "root cause" if you will, was extreme social anxiety. But you keep saying, "no, it wasn't," without examining the evidence, because you already "know" that anyone who kills a bunch of people and writes a 143-page document about themselves is a narcissist.

(*Though his "day of retribution" was an utter failure in terms of living up to his plans. He had planned to enter the house of the "hottest sorority on campus" and slaughter all the women there. Instead, when he knocked on the door and no one answered, he just shot two girls outside the house, neither of whom were that good-looking. Seems that's the way it always goes with these mass killers. Harris and Klebold planned to completely blow up Columbine High School, and utterly failed to do so.)

How much time per day did he spend on WoW during a crucial social-developmental period of his life? That says a lot right there. His parents reward him with a fancy car, for what? There are long=term residential treatment options that parents who have resources can send there kids. What did the mental health professionals suggest as course of treatment?

I don't know that he met criteria for a long-term residential treatment facility. We do know that his psychiatrist, Charles Sophy, tried to prescribe risperidone for him. However, this guy is one of these rich-and-famous SoCal doctors who poses in public with porno sluts, so he's probably a quack. His parents also tried to hire several "life coach" type people to meet with him and try to help him with his social skills in the last years of his life, including a ladies' man type who was specifically supposed to help him learn how to talk to girls, but it was too little too late. He was so far mired in his own pessimism and hopelessness at that point that he barely even engaged with them. He even wrote about them, "there is nothing men like Dale can really do to help me attract girls and lose my virginity. They can’t mind-control girls to be attracted to me."

Unfortunately without more context, I still think it is not very helpful to read the manifesto, but I did glance through it. For me the resistance about his manifesto is because of the over-valuing of this source of information by many in our profession and then some actually spewing non-scientific opinion and speculation and over-generalizations in the mass media. That's what really burns me up! A little speculation here on this forum isn't too bad. We just need to recognize it for what it is.

I agree that it's speculation, and I wouldn't break the Goldwater rule and offer "official" public commentary on this case as a psychiatrist. But some people seem to be saying we shouldn't even speculate on this forum.