Surviving a terrorist attack changes people. I know; I survived two. It would have been easy to get caught up in the trauma and recoil in fear. Some attack outward in retaliation. As a psychiatrist, I became passionate about understanding the origins of terrorism, examining how the world is able to produce the kinds of destructive attacks that are now commonplace. Now it looks like this.1 As a woman who developed breast cancer and was seeking recovery after becoming an addict, I was open to all avenues of healing. It was at the intersection of understanding and surrender that I discovered transformation. When viewed through a spiritual lens, the desire for destruction turns out to be a desire for connection in tattered clothes.
In the wake of surviving the terrorist attack and its traumatic effects, I experienced a spiritual awakening that was essential to my recovery. This awakening consisted of an active awareness of my deep interconnectedness with something much larger than myself, whether it be God or the universe. Ironically, for myself and some of my patients, addiction is a transition from obedience (indicated by the need to acquiesce or rebel) to surrender (opening oneself to the subjectivity of others, thereby being expanded upon). provided a path to transition to Spirituality, a sense of interconnectedness with oneself, society, and the universe, can be an antidote to trauma. The spiritual journey involves turning inward to overcome the trauma rather than reenacting the violence. This is a journey that people should start without going to prison.
Cutting-edge quantitative research from my psychiatry research team2—Illustrating the prevalence of undiagnosed mental illness among mass shooters in the country, encouraging dialogue about the stigma of mental illness and recognizing terrorists as socially responsible monsters objected to. In addition to untreated mental illness, our research found that many mass shooters suffer from abuse and marginalization. Tragically, mental health stigma also played a significant role in preventing these perpetrators from receiving psychiatric treatment.
Rather than dismissing adolescent school shooters as “weirdos,” many of them had experienced child abuse that robbed them of their identity and ability to feel joy.3 Common themes among these youth shooters were abuse, alienation, online radicalization, and exposure to firearms. Partly due to fear of stigmatization, these adolescent shooters and their families hid symptoms of mental illness from their treating psychologists, which contributed to the lack of proper diagnosis. . When misdiagnosed, the underlying psychotic symptoms worsened. Many of these individuals were capable of planning and carrying out mass shootings while also potentially becoming psychopathic.
The possibility of incorporating spirituality as one of the paths to healing from trauma lies in the case of a domestic shooting of an adolescent with undiagnosed and untreated schizophrenia. Consider the “AM” of the adolescents selected in our study. Tragically, it was only after being imprisoned and receiving proper medication that this young man was able to not only stop his chronic auditory hallucinations, but ultimately experience a spiritual transformation. .
At age 15, he shot and killed his parents for the first time. The next day, he went on a shooting rampage at the high school, killing two of his students and injuring 25 others. Similar to the history of many of the youth shooters we studied, AM was highly intelligent, suffered from learning disabilities, and was bullied.
From the age of 12, she began to suffer from hallucinations of male voices. One voice belittled him and mocked him, and another voice told him to kill him. He also had delusions that the government had implanted a chip in his brain, which he believed was causing his auditory hallucinations. Prior to the shooting, AM had a history of violence, including using explosives to try to stop his hallucinations. The forensic psychiatrist who examined him at trial after his shootings concluded that his violent crimes were the direct result of an unmedicated psychotic process that had accumulated over three years and had taken over his sense of self. He said that.
AM appeared “normal” and hid his psychotic symptoms from the judge, lawyer, and doctors. Because this troubled young man was afraid of being labeled mentally ill. Before the shooting, his parents, both members of his family, had hidden from their son’s psychologist that he himself suffered from severe mental illness. His parents stopped treatment for AM several months before the shooting. Despite his auditory hallucinations, they claimed he was “fine” and no longer required psychological care. However, his father admitted to his friend that he was “terrified” by what his son might do but felt he “had no choice”. He threatened to send his son to military school.
The tragic irony of AM and many of the other shooters we studied was that their psychoses responded well to antipsychotic medications. Their violent actions may have been prevented if they had received proper psychiatric treatment before the shootings. Sadly, in the immediate aftermath of the shooting, just 10 days after receiving antipsychotic medication, AM no longer suffered from auditory hallucinations and felt no remorse for having killed his parents and classmates. expressed. Currently incarcerated, AM is compliant with his antipsychotic medication and is no longer psychotic or violent.
spirituality essentials
While incarcerated and properly medicated, AM earned his GED and BA degrees and began his spiritual journey. He teaches yoga in the prison’s mental health ward, and he maintains a daily spiritual practice of meditating and praying for those he has harmed.
Healing has a double meaning. The forgotten collective humiliation of marginalized peoples, which generates a desire for destruction, can be transformed by incorporating a new spiritual lens of interconnectedness. Effective psychological and psychiatric treatment is also important. This healing can only happen if we reduce the stigma of mental illness, respect the needs of those who suffer from mental illness, and remain open to new avenues for healing. Children don’t have to go to prison to get the treatment they desperately need.
References
1. Cerfolio, Nebraska. (2023). Psychoanalytic and spiritual perspectives on terrorism: The desire for destruction. Routledge.
2. Serfolio, NE, Glick ID, Khamis D, Lawrence M. (2022). A retrospective observational study of psychosocial determinants and psychiatric diagnoses of mass shootings in the United States. Psychodynamic psychiatry. 2022;50:513-528.
3. Shengold, L. Murder of the Soul: The Effects of Childhood Abuse and Deprivation. (1989). Yale University Press.
