Comments on: Scott Lively on Columbine

By: Cal - a Columbine Massacre Researcher

Cal - a Columbine Massacre Researcher — Sat, 01 Oct 2011 03:26:42 +0000

Most people who talk about Columbine only do so from their point of view, and cannot be objective no matter how much information you show them that contradicts what they believe.

By: Trinidad. Adventist.Gay?!

Trinidad. Adventist.Gay?! — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 15:46:40 +0000

“Abiding Truth”!

By: Evan

Evan — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 11:06:57 +0000

David Blakeslee –
I was wondering if determining their mental health status doesn’t come too late in the process of prevention. Also if their problems stemmed from inadaptation to social environment, how they had been treated in that environment played a role. There are more causes to mental health problems, of course, but this factor could be addressed better in education to reduce tensions. It seems that affect dysregulation plays an important role in youth violence and maybe getting psychology involved in early education could help moderate that. Check out this recent thesis which deals with the subject (large document!).
Even if school teasing and bullying may not directly or solely cause the mental problems, they can trigger a disproportionate response, like you said. So, do you think that raising awareness about this among educators and peers and getting professionals involved in the education act could make a significant difference? As opposed to singling out a few and referring them to mental health profs?
PS. This is an idea I thought about some time ago, unrelated to this subject, that part of the emotional problems with teens and adults may come from two sources: a general one (social normativity), and a particular one – that education systems largely favour developing and exercising the rational part of cognition, to the detriment of dealing with the emotional side.

By: David Blakeslee

David Blakeslee — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 22:20:35 +0000

There are different kinds of “rampages”…one local here (Kip Kinkle http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/kinkel/trial/#4) was clearly mental health influenced…he was referred to a local psychologist, put on anti-depressants, encouraged by his parents and his teachers. He improved, but later went off the meds. He started purchasing guns well in advance of the attack. He murdered both his parents. Went to the school and shot a bunch of kids, was subdued and became weeks later, morbidly depressed. Later, a battery of psychological tests confirmed severe depression, but with auditory, command hallucinations.
In prison and on meds, he clearly grieves for the loss of his family and his school members.
The key component for me here is prior documented mental illness and that the homicides are not followed by his own suicide (an attempt to escape punishment).
Columbine and many other white mass murders lack attempts to seek mental health treatment (they are forced referrals) and end in the suicide of the perpetrator. This is often true in cases of male spousal abuse and domestic violence.
The key component seems to be the wish to punish (through murder) and the wish to avoid accountability (through suicide)…

By: Evan

Evan — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 19:54:49 +0000

David Blakeslee said: The defect in empathy during such rampages is so profound. ..Grossly disproportionate to any hurt they have suffered.
I agree with that. And I think that there should be open debate that should consider all possible causes, not just the obvious human factor of individual inadaptation.
Actually I would be more concerned with the fact that psychiatrists and psychologists like the ones quoted in the link provided by Warren find it expedient to lay the blame on the mental health status of those two kids. It’s like telling the community ‘It’s OK, you don’t have to do anything to prevent it. They were sick. Continue as you are.’ Instead of doing that, it would be more responsible for them as professionals to seek ways to promote more inclusiveness in social groups and nip such acts in the bud. I think that both parents and educators have a silent culpability in how these kids turned out.
Two 17 and 18-year-old kids taking a whole year scrupulously preparing themselves for a massacre in their school sounds hard to believe. WHat happened to all the crazy stuff that people do when we’re in high school, like smoking, going to parties and stuff.
It seems to me that their paths have been blocked somewhere, which made them develop into depressive and deeply resentful individuals. Some people commit murders out of impulse, making a state-dependent mistake that they later regret. This type of school shooters appears to be remorseless, which points to a deterioration of mental health that takes place in time and which should have been noticed by parents and other people around them. If they failed to notice it, then the defect in empathy worked on both sides and professionals should play a role in fixing that. I don’t agree with laying public blame only on the shooters, because the preventive smart thing to do is to defuse any future intention in other people by recognising the problems that lead to that build-up of motivation, in the first place.
Maybe educators in the developed world, where most of these events take place (USA, Germany, Finland), should start considering changing the aims of education in schools from this 19th century old paradigm of acquiring language, forming concepts, exercising memory, problem solving, etc, to a new way of dealing with the person in its entirety, to include emotional cognition too. This is where professionals must step in and do some preventive work, IMO.