[Book review] Mass murder, mental illness, and men | EurekAlert! Science News

Mass murder, mental illness, and men | EurekAlert! Science News.

From the 11 May 2015 post

 

IMAGE: VIOLENCE AND GENDER IS THE ONLY PEER-REVIEWED JOURNAL FOCUSING ON THE UNDERSTANDING, PREDICTION, AND PREVENTION OF ACTS OF VIOLENCE. THROUGH RESEARCH PAPERS, ROUNDTABLE DISCUSSIONS, CASE STUDIES, AND OTHER ORIGINAL CONTENT,… view more

CREDIT: ©MARY ANN LIEBERT, INC., PUBLISH

 

 

 

Author Michael Stone, MD, Columbia College of Physicians and Surgeons and Mid-Hudson Forensic Psychiatric Hospital, New York, NY, provides an in-depth look at the scope of mass murders committed in the U.S. during recent decades, describing the crime as “an almost exclusively male phenomenon.” Most mass murderers have a mental illness characterized by a paranoid personality disorder that includes a deep sense of unfairness and a skewed version of reality. Unfortunately, this profile of the men who have committed mass murders has often led to the unwarranted stigmatization of the mentally ill as a group as being inherently dangerous, which is not the case.

Dr. Stone points in particular to the growing availability of semiautomatic weapons as a key factor contributing to the increasing rate of random mass shootings in the U.S. during the past 65 years. The number of events nearly doubles in the 1990s compared to the 1980s, for example.

[Press release] Sickness and health between men and women

From the 19 February 2015 University of Washington press release

by Scott Weybright, College of Agricultural, Human & Natural Resource Sciences

PULLMAN, Wash. – Gender and personality matter in how people cope with physical and mental illness, according to a paper by a Washington State University scientist and colleagues at the University of the Thai Chamber of Commerce.

Men are less affected by a single-symptom illness than women, but are more affected when more than one symptom is present. The number of symptoms doesn’t change how women are affected, according to Robert Rosenman, WSU professor in the Department of Economic Sciences.

Rosenman worked with Dusanee Kesavayuth and Vasileios Zikos, both at UTCC in Bangkok, Thailand, on the study.

“Women are more impacted by illness than men, unless more than one symptom is present,” said Rosenman. “Then men are more impacted than women. And perhaps more importantly, personality affects how women handle becoming sick, while men of all types react the same.”

…

 

DSM-5 will capture the dynamic nature of mental illness

From the 20 July 2012 post at KevinMD.com

Much of the debate over the future edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders(DSM-5) has centered on what disorders will be added, modified or dropped. But lost in the discussion is a change that will align disorders along a developmental continuum—one that looks at them across the lifespan. This shift will provide clinicians with a critical perspective that until now has been missing.

 

Historically, disorders were classified in DSM by symptom manifestation and patient presentation. As a result, they generally were grouped by discreet stages of life, as if there were no connections or implications from one stage to another. In particular, the opening chapter of DSM-IV, “Disorders Usually First Diagnosed in Infancy, Childhood, Adolescence,” segregated such conditions as attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, pica, rumination and autism disorder from the rest of the manual. The implication was that disorders in the “child” chapter affect only children and disorders in the rest of the manual affect only adults….

 

…

he need for these changes is obvious: The real world doesn’t work within distinct boundaries, and clinicians are not best able to understand potential connections, interrelations and ramifications when they only consider a single, narrow point in time. A young girl who lashes out with persistent and significant anger could presage a young adult with similarly explosive behavior, for example. Conversely, a middle-aged man’s extreme anxiety might reflect a difficult recent event, such as a divorce or layoff. But it also might be a problem that first manifested itself decades earlier, in panic attacks or a fear of leaving the house. In both cases, diagnosis as well as treatment will be more clinically useful if the factors involved are evaluated through a longitudinal lens.

This different perspective will especially benefit women, for whom mental disorders are often linked to specific ages or periods of life. We know that young women between 15 and 22 are much more likely to have negative body image than young men and to develop eating disorders, low self-esteem, depression, self-harm and,  in the most extreme cases, suicide. But what happens after 22?  Even with treatment, the risk of recurrent depression remains, and it often needs to be assessed in terms of the extra emotional and physical issues many women face throughout their lives—because of lower income, discrimination, sexual harassment and violence….

Related articles

• Press Release from the American Psychiatric Association: Diagnostic & Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5) Draws Nearly 2,300 Public Responses (jeanettebartha.wordpress.com)
• In the age of anxiety, are we all mentally ill? (msnbc.msn.com)
• Exploring the Proposed DSM-5 Criteria in a Clinical Sample (leftbrainrightbrain.co.uk)
• Checklist vs. Diagnostic & Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM): Mental Health Service Debate (jeanettebartha.wordpress.com)
• Sandusky’s “Mental Illness” Defense (thedailybeast.com)
• Two Who Resigned From DSM-5 Explain Why (psychologytoday.com)
• In the Age of Anxiety, are we all mentally ill? (vancouversun.com)
• Two resign from DSM-5 Personality Disorders Work Group over “seriously flawed” proposals (dxrevisionwatch.wordpress.com)
• ADHD in DSM-5: Lower Specificity, Increased Rates (madinamerica.com)
• DSM 5 Continues To Ignore Critics (psychologytoday.com)
• Autism Criteria Critics Blasted by DSM-5 Leader (medpagetoday.com)