By Bob Gaydos

Cameras captured images of the shooter in Lewiston, Maine.

Well, it is was another typical week in America: A mass shooting, a judge telling Donald Trump, in effect, to shut up and Republicans in the House of Representatives choosing a “leader” who doesn’t believe in the separation of church and state, wants to give rich people more money and take food away from the not-so-rich.

 Let’s be mercifully brief and start with (1.) the Republicans’ latest demonstration that it is a political party out of touch with a majority of Americans and has no interest in actually governing, to wit, the election of Mike Johnson (who?!) to be Speaker of the House, with a mandate from the rightwing extremists who control the GOP to (2.) refuse to negotiate with President Biden and the Democrat-controlled Senate on pretty much anything, as quickly evidenced by Johnson’s (3.) opposition to further aid to Ukraine, (4.) tying aid to Israel to (5.) a cut in funding for the Internal Revenue Service, which would mean fewer agents to audit the rich, billions less in taxes paid and a larger budget deficit and (6). a cut in SNAP benefits, which provides food to the needy, who presumably should just (7.) pray for a miracle from the Almighty, which would seem to be the guiding principle for a man who, as a Christian Nationalist, believes the U.S. is a Christian nation, refers to the Constitution’s “so-called ‘separation of church and state’” and was once (8.) dean of a law school at a Baptist university in Louisiana that never opened its doors to teach its “biblical worldview,” which Johnson can now try to bring to the Congress instead and maybe even lead the Freedom Caucus Trumpers in praying that (9.) Judge Tanya Chutkan, presiding over Trump’s election overthrow attempt trial in Washington, D.C., doesn’t finally lose patience with the pathological liar and toss his twice-impeached, four times indicted rear end into jail for repeatedly violating her orders not to threaten or harass prosecutors, potential witnesses or court personnel as he continues to demean the status of the office he once held while his successor, Joe Biden, (10.) demonstrates just the opposite, including (11.) a trip to Maine to mourn with survivors and, indeed, the whole state, for the 18 victims (nearly the average toll for shooting deaths in a year in Maine) of a mass shooter, who chose kids’ night at a bowling alley to start his killing spree, one that was (12.) predicted by the shooter himself, his family, his superior officers and other members of his Army Reserve unit, flagged by a two-week stay in a psychiatric facility in New York State, including an evaluation at the military hospital at West Point, none of which, apparently (13.) was reason enough for anyone in any position of authority in the entire state of Maine to take his assault rifles and ammunition away from him before he actually did what the voices in his head were telling him to do, because Maine (14.) is one of those states where people are free to buy any kind of guns any time and walk around with them anywhere they please and (15.) doesn’t have a “red flag“ law requiring that guns be taken away from people who exhibit all the behaviors this shooter did, a situation that is (16.) likely to get the attention of lawmakers there who have always felt proud to proclaim, “Things like that don’t happen in Maine.”

    (17.) Not anymore.

rjgaydos@gmail.com

James Holmes, charged in Colorado mass shooting

By Gretchen Gibbs

David Brooks slays me. There’s so much that’s right about the New York Times columnist, and I want to be able to say, “I like some Republicans, for instance David Brooks.” But then in the midst of saying something interesting, he gets it all wrong.

Like his July 23 comment on the latest Colorado massacre, in which he said that we need more treatment programs to deal with the potentially violent. As a psychologist, I applaud any call to increase the number of treatment programs for the emotionally troubled. Let’s ignore for the moment that the mental health profession is not adept at either identifying potential violence or treating it. What I want to address is the thrust of his essay, the need for psychological approaches, not sociological critiques, to address violence. There’s the rub. Psychological factors operate within a social context and we ignore that at our peril.

All forms of mental disorder vary according to cultural norms. For instance, the percentage of individuals with eating disorders exploded in the 1970s as the approved image for women became thinner. Self-cutting and other self-mutilation became a serious clinical problem only in the last 15 years or so, along with the acceptability of body piercings and tattooing.

It’s hard to know what the factors are that contribute to our culture of mass violence, other than the notoriety that the perpetrators attain. Shooting a lot of people is a sure-fire way of attaining attention for individuals who feel they are not receiving their just desserts. There’s a copy-cat aspect, as when a teen commits suicide and then others who hear about it also make attempts. Perhaps restricting the amount of publicity the killer receives would be a good plan. Let’s focus on the victims.

Gun control plays some role, as it’s clear that having assault weapons available leads to a higher degree of potential havoc when somebody has a violent outburst.  Michael Moore explored the topic in a film, using the previous Colorado massacre, and concluded it wasn’t the guns per se, as Canada has similar gun availability yet much lower levels of violence than in the U.S.  Moore concluded that it was a culture of fear and distrust in the U.S. that led to so much violence.

We need to figure out what the factors are and address them, not just act as though a mass killer is some deviant human being in isolation from society. I see David Brooks’ attitude as part of a larger picture in which cultural factors are ignored in attempting to understand emotional problems.

The American Psychiatric Association is about to come out with a new version of its diagnostic manual. Lest you think this boring, remember that your insurance will only pay for psychological treatment for diagnoses that exist within this manual. For instance, if you have a marital problem, you’ll have a devil of a time getting your treatment paid for, as there are no diagnoses for marriage difficulties.

The premise used by the APA in this new version is that mental illness is an actual biological illness, to be treated medically. Seventy percent of the committee working on the revision of the manual has ties to the pharmaceutical industry. Some of their revisions seem an attempt to broaden drug treatment. For instance, at the present time there is a distinction in the manual between depression and experiencing grief after a loss. This distinction was going to be eliminated, meaning that normal reactions to a death or other tragedy would be labeled as illness, and millions of ordinary people would receive unnecessary prescriptions, with sometimes serious side effects.

Grief is painful, but it’s different from depression, and drugs are not the answer. After much criticism, the manual will retain the distinction between depression and grief. The committee, however, has not responded to the extensive criticism it has received from over 50 mental health organizations and 11,000 clinicians, including me, protesting the exclusively medical orientation.

What’s happened to the last 60 years of discoveries from psychology, sociology and anthropology?  Has everybody forgotten we’re products of our environment?

gretchen@zestoforange.com