A Message on Sandy Hook and Mental Health Awareness
Emmy, Golden Globe and Tony Award winning actress
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Ms Liann
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The term "mental illness" is sometimes interchangeably used with the
word "evil", because certain types of not-normal mental processing is
evil and diagnosed as a form of "insanity".
Particularly, there are definitions for each variety of "abnormal
psychology" and a standard reference book (DSM-IV) which collects the
definitions for standardized use across society.
The worst of the worst of the criminally "insane" is the "sociopath",
so-called, or also called "psychopath", like the villains in "Silence of
the Lambs" movies. The modern terminology is "ANTI-SOCIAL PERSONALITY
DISORDER".
It is possible for one person to have more than one problem at the same
time, and sometimes that could cause misunderstanding one diagnosis for
another.
In the case of Adam Lanza, he had two distinct other conditions: (1) a
form of Autism, not known to induce violence, and (2) a peculiar
insensitivity to feeling or pain, which may be part of sociopathy, or
not, as sociopaths lack emotional empathy feelings for others being
harmed by themselves.
More than the necessary three minimum symptoms of sociopathy can be
found in Adam Lanza's final week. Whatever else was going on, sociopathy
was part of it, probably the dominating central part of it.
Learning a bit about "sociopathy" is useful in any understanding of what
happened and how to avoid similar from happening next time.
The term "mental illness" is sometimes interchangeably used with the word "evil", because certain types of not-normal mental processing is evil and diagnosed as a form of "insanity".
Particularly, there are definitions for each variety of "abnormal psychology" and a standard reference book (DSM-IV) which collects the definitions for standardized use across society.
The worst of the worst of the criminally "insane" is the "sociopath", so-called, or also called "psychopath", like the villains in "Silence of the Lambs" movies. The modern terminology is "ANTI-SOCIAL PERSONALITY DISORDER".
It is possible for one person to have more than one problem at the same time, and sometimes that could cause misunderstanding one diagnosis for another.
In the case of Adam Lanza, he had two distinct other conditions: (1) a form of Autism, not known to induce violence, and (2) a peculiar insensitivity to feeling or pain, which may be part of sociopathy, or not, as sociopaths lack emotional empathy feelings for others being harmed by themselves.
More than the necessary three minimum symptoms of sociopathy can be found in Adam Lanza's final week. Whatever else was going on, sociopathy was part of it, probably the dominating central part of it.
Learning a bit about "sociopathy" is useful in any understanding of what happened and how to avoid similar from happening next time.