James Holmes reminds me of Charles Ng.

[Archae]

Remember Charles Ng?
He and his buddy Leonard Lake kept "sex slaves" and murdered a number of people in their survivalist compound.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Ng

Ng played all sorts of games with the courts until he was finally found guilty.

I think James Holmes plans to do likewise.

Holmes isn't crazy.
He's an attention whore.

[slackmaster]

1. How could someone who shoots up a theater full of innocent people not be mentally ill?

Are you suggesting he's evil?

I regard the concept of evil as a primitive religion-based explanation for what we now call psychopathy or sociopathy.

[Archae]

2. Sociopath, yes.

Actually certifiably crazy, I don't think so.

He never got the attention he wanted, being a good student.
Now he's got all the attention he wants.

[slackmaster]

3. Personality disorders are mental illnesses too. Severe cases can lead to extreme dissociation.

The effect on a person's behavior is as unpredictable, and can be as devastating, as a schizophrenic break or acute drug toxicity.

Here is some light recreational reading - Proposed personality disorder types for DSM-V:

http://www.dsm5.org/ProposedRevisions/pages/proposedrevision.aspx?rid=469

[Tom Ripley]

8. Yes, and prisons are already filled with people with personality disorders

The medical community and the justice system are inevitably going to have to reach yet another compromise.
And it won't be pretty.

[laundry_queen]

12. Not totally true

Someone with a personality disorder still recognizes reality and what is expected of them. They are able to make the right choice when it benefits them. Also, personality disorders are notoriously difficult to treat, especially what was called cluster B PDs.

People with mental illness often have no idea that what they are doing is wrong, or that they are even doing what they think they are doing. Someone with mental illness can recover completely with the right treatment. That will never happen with someone with a PD. With AsPD and NPD they simply learn how to be better manipulators. With others, daily functionality can improve but the underlying disorder remains. There is no medication to 'cure' a PD and the person with the PD has to want to go through intensive therapy to change.

Legal definition of insanity is rather strict. I like the way Jeff Toobin put it - if you think someone is possessed or the devil and that killing that person will save someone else or even the world, you are still legally sane. If you think you are chopping down a tree while you are, in reality, killing someone, then you are legally insane (for the purpose of a murder defense). I'm pretty sure that by that definition, James Holmes won't be found insane.

[slackmaster]

13. I hope you never experience seeing a BPD victim go off the deep end. Many of them commit suicide.

I watched it happen starting almost exactly a year ago and ending on January 30 this year. My friend's condition spiraled down out of control, but she refused treatment and ended up taking her own life.

It was chilling. I felt helpless. I did everything I could think of to help her, but it was no use. I can't imagine she could have ever intentionally committed violence against another person, but she hurt a lot of people including me in many ways on her way out.

I think she had a basic grip on reality but her self-image and attribution of thoughts and emotions in others were very badly distorted. She felt she was being stalked and persecuted for at least the last 20 years of her life, and that was just one facet of her emotional turmoil. Her family and friends all see her decision to end her life as the culmination in a long series of bad decisions. From her perspective I'm sure it seemed like a reasonable choice, but to everyone else her actions were not at all rational.

[flamingdem]

15. Is BPD very different from schizophrenia?

What I don't understand is the functionality levels. The Aurora shooter was very functional, but I think schizophrenics have trouble functioning and handling complex tasks. That would make him closer to what you describe as BPD.

[slackmaster]

17. Yes, very different. Borderline victims can be very high-functioning but inside they are miserable.

Medication is of some use in treatment of BPD but without appropriate, specialized psychotherapy it's useless or worse. It's a long, hard road to a more normal outlook on life.

The most successful form of treatment for BPD is called Dialectical Behavior Therapy or DBT. If you are even slightly interested in the topic, please read this New York Times article in which Dr. Marsha Linehan, who invented DBT, discusses her own struggle with what is now known as BPD.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/23/health/23lives.html?_r=1&adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1343488238-70vL7R5VR8HdoUj02dT8YA

I'm not qualified to speculate much about the Aurora shooter, but I'll just say that the onset of schizophrenia can be very sudden. My friend who died of complications from BPD this year (i.e. suicide) slid downward for about 40 years beginning in her mid-teens. I knew her from age 10 until her death.

[flamingdem]

20. Thanks for this link

She sounds like an authority to learn from regarding mental illness

[REP]

4. Ng is a dependent personality; without Lake, he may not have killed anyone

I'm not saying Ng isn't an evil little fuck; he is. I just think his pathology is much different from Holmes's.

[Tom Ripley]

7. I agree with you on all of your points

Ng is indeed an evil little fuck, but he got drawn into Lake's Operation Miranda sickness.
Left to his own devices, Ng would have just continued along the path of theft, lying, using, and other typical antisocial behaviors.

[grasswire]

5. didn't M. Scott Peck suggest quantifying "evil" as a DSM entity? nt

[Tom Ripley]

6. Does that mean Holmes is going to really pork up and wear bigass windshield glasses?

[Douglas Carpenter]

9. imprisoning sex slaves under the direction of someone else and shooting up a movie house are miles

apart. As sick and twisted and pure evil as the Leonard Lake/Charles Ng team were - they actually did have a clear motive. They wanted sex slaves. A sick motive for sure - but nonetheless a clear motive. There was something in it for them. There was a possibility that they would never get caught and they thought they would never get caught. Whatever motives were driving Mr. Holmes - I cannot even imagine what he thought was in it for him and he surely expected to either die or get caught. Charles Ng probably was a pure sociopath of the most extreme sort - dependent upon the guidance of an even more extreme sociopath, Leonard Lake. Charles Ng had a long record of anti-social behavior and constantly getting in trouble. Mr. Holmes life sounds as quiet as a church mouse with little or no history of anti-social behavior. I can imagine what motivates someone who kills to obtain something like money, sex or power especially when they don't expect to ever be caught. I cannot imagine what motivates someone like Mr. Holmes who was not going to obtain money, sex, power or anything else and could only hope at best and if he is very lucky for a life locked up in a loony ben until he dies. Shooting up a movie theater is driven by forces far stronger than simply the desire for attention especially when the attention meant being hated by everyone. That is not attention seeking of of a normal mind. I find the suggestion that Mr. Homes is not crazy to be completely ludicrous.

[Archae]

10. It's not the crimes themselves that make Ng and Holmes similar.

It's the willingness to play games with the system.

Holmes is already playing games, putting on an act.
Now, it's the "Gee, I got amnesia!" con act.

[Douglas Carpenter]

11. there is no evidence that Holmes is putting on any kind of act

It's possible he is - I suppose. But there is no evidence to support that at least at this time. Of course Holmes is nuts. To suggest he is not is truly preposterous. Whether or not he meets the legal definition of "not guilty by reason of insanity" is another matter. In fact I suspect no matter how strong a case there is that he meets that legal standard - the courts will rule that he is competent having been corrupted by political pressure for revenge taking precedence over thoughtful and objective analysis.

[Swede]

14. When did you examine him?

And what qualifications do you have to examine him?

[The Midway Rebel]

16. I do not normally do this but +1

I love it when everybody has a PhD in psychology.

[originalpckelly]

19. Trust me, from the look on his face...

that man is on a high dose of antipsychotics. I guarantee it.

[originalpckelly]

18. Um, no if he was seeing a psychiatrist...

that would be the kind of doctor you see when nuts.

Just sayin'.