Could Breivik (who murdered 77 people in Norway) ever be described as NOT mentally ill?

[AgentZigzag]

Could someone who deliberately chose to murder 77, mostly young, people for an ideological cause, be classified as not mentally ill?

Surely the act of believing such a thing was a 'necessity' indicates he has mental health problems i.e. that something other people have that stops them killing people wasn't there?

But could the level of planning to do such a thing only possible if a person had a level of 'sound mind'?

Just to pre-empt some points that might come up-
-I don't think mentally ill people are 'nutters' or 'mentalists', and know people with mental health problems are more likely to have violence meted out on them than be the perpetrators of violence
-I don't mean any disrespect to the victims or families of the victims asking the question, I was thinking about the 'grey' areas of mental illness where someone's diagnosis might not fit neatly into a category from the DSM
-I haven't spoken to Breivik or know anything about his mental health, so am not passing comment on whether he is mentally ill or not, but am thinking about a wider definitions of people who try to rationalise killing lots of people.

Ronson is only a layman though. He makes a few half valid points re the testing but I wouldn't put too much store in his observations. 'the psycopath test' was lightweight entertainment stuff really.
I tend to think Brevik is a psychopath or has strong psychpathic traits. Just because he says he had to train himself to be strong and not to crumble on the day doesn't for one second mean it's true. Psychopaths are arch manipulators, it probably serves a purpose of his for him to frame it in that way, ie: ' I'm not a psychopath, I trained the empathy out of myself' is a message to his potential followers that they can do the same. Quite simply it's Brevik propaganda and spin.
It suits his purposes and that is where the psychopath is always coming from. I think his so called self training was pleasurable fantasy that grew into rehearsal but in no way do I believe he ever had remorse or hesitation about his actions. I believe he enjoyed it.

Well as a qualified nurse I can confidently say he is without doubt a psychopath! No emotion display whatsoever and I would throw in paranoid delusional psychotic also.

It's a difficult question, whether psycholpathy is an 'illness'. I tend to think not. I think it occurs due to a cluster of conditions both environmental and genetic. It's a neurological state rather than a chemical illness like Bipolar or Schizophrenia.

To me bipolar/schizophrenia are defnitely biological/chemical illnesses where the person can lose voilition over their actions and may be in a state where they don't know the difference between right and wrong through no fault of their own.

Psycholpathy is different. Their empathy is impaired but they do know the difference between right and wrong but they don't care. They will do whatever serves themselves. Whatever satisfies their impulses. I believe psychpathy is on a spectrum I think there are many sorts of them. From the very intelligent, manipulative right down to the far less successful sophisticated 'glamourous' ones.

A pschopaths motivation is self satisfaction, money, attention, sex, glory, narcissistic thrill, sadistic thrill, power thrills etc. They will quite clinically plan how to get those things fulfilled with the least possible cost to themselves. So Brevik will be trying to get the least amount of time for the maximum amount of self exposure for his 'cause'. I believe though in his case the so called 'cause' is a vehicle for his vanity and narcissism. He wants attention and adoration and to feel powerful, intelligent, an efficient and cold killer while dressing it all up in an 'idealogy'.

It wouldn't suprise me if he goes from obsession to obsession but always with himself as the centre of the fantasy.

My understanding is that the Norwegians are looking closely at a mental health diagnosis because that is their only chance to keep him locked away for life: a life sentence in a criminal court wouldn't amount to more than 21 years and then they'd have to let him out. They cannot throw away the key because the law will not allow them.

But if he is found insane, they need never release him.

The big drawback of course is the lack of closure for those affected if he is not help responsible.

It is my understanding that while a 21 year sentence is the maximum that can be given, but whether he is freed at the end of it would depend on the risk that he is felt to pose.

If he is found insane then he will go to hospital, and would not be released if he was still felt to present a significant risk.

Either way it shouldn't be relevant to the diagnosis - that has to be made accurately and then the disposal follows from that rather than finding someone insane because you don't like the prison term that they will get otherwise.

Ruthie84 - Are you being serious?

I absolutely agree, fireice, they should not be thinking along those lines.

I think some people are jus evil. They know wat they are doing is wrong but do it anyway. Its unfair on those who have MH issuses as they will b stigmatised.

I can see what you're saying fireice, but don't the two uses of sane/insane (in a legal or laymans way) not really impact on each other because they're used and mean totally different things in different places?

You wouldn't use a laymans definition in a legal context or vice versa, so a layman not understanding the distinction between it being more a legal rather than medical term wouldn't influence them into stigmatizing people with mental health problems. (not sure I'm following that myself tbh )

The dehumanisation of people is a good point sashh.

What you're asking (with the zombie scenario) is what would it take for me, personally, to kill someone. Not some abstract idea in my head like the running of a film you know has been scripted, but to actually stand in front of someone and choose to end their life.

I think using someones children as a righteous justification seems a common pull in lots of 'stories', like how many times do you see bruce willis a mans daughter being threatened or killed and then used as the reason why he goes on a killing spree to get her back/revenge? Loads. You can minimize the deaths because in the back of your mind you think you might do the same, you think they must be less than human to be able to do such horrible things.

The threat to your children when you think it's coming from another social group (like in Rwanda) probably isn't any less than if it was coming from one person.

I'm not sure that I did follow you (bit late ), but the topic under discussion at the moment is about the court case, and the court will certainly apply a legal definition to sanity. I think that this thread shows that a lot of people do make judgements about sanity as they see it and feel that the court should see it the same way, even though the actual meaning that they attach to the term may be quite different.