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Run amok - causes and definition
contents
- Amok in the story
- Mental causes
- Destroyed corporeality
- narcissism
- How does a rampage develop??
- Death as an experience
The WHO defines amok as an "arbitrary, apparently unprovoked episode of murderous or significantly (alien) destructive behavior. Thereafter, amnesia (memory loss) and / or fatigue. Frequently also the envelope in self-destructive behavior, i. Wounding or mutilation to suicide (suicide). "
"Classic" killing spree usually takes place without warning, but the perpetrators have often been noticed by extreme fears and hostile reactions. Amok states are also particularly prevalent in an environment in which self-destructive aggression is socially respected - for example, in the historic Vikings, in Papua New Guinea or in regions of South Africa.
Amok: When people go crazy and destroy. (Image: Sergey Nivens / fotolia.com) Amok in the story
Amuk means "furious" in Malay and refers to spontaneous acts of violence against bystanders. However, some historians suspect the term Amuco, which means warriors in India who attack their enemies regardless of their own lives.
Warriors in Malaysia and Java shouted "Amok" when they went to battle. These were elite soldiers who also attacked opponents who were far superior in numbers and weapons. Malay legends glorify these "gunmen". In the narratives, these avenged shame often avenge a mass murder in which they find themselves the death.
In Scandinavia, the Berserkr, Bearskin-clad warriors, were notorious for their uninhibited violence. "To go berserk" still refers to uninhibited aggression.
Mental causes
Psychiatrists have long been debating whether rampage is associated with mental disorders. For a long time those affected were considered people who are in a twilight state. That is, their perception of the environment is impaired, they are barely responsive, their thinking is unclear. They perceive situations distorted, they often have sensual hallucinations. They seem like intoxicated. They have no memory of what happens during their twilight state.
Traumatic, epileptic, borderline syndrome, dissociative disorders, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, psychotic, people under the influence of alcohol, medications and drugs suffer from such drowsiness.
In the classic definition of the act as excessive force against others out of control of the violent offender, the process is most likely to be accompanied by a psychosis. A psychosis is a mental disorder in which the relationship to the reality of those affected is so disturbed that they can no longer cope with everyday life. They suffer from hallucinations, delude their environment, and exhibit abnormal behavior: pathological hyperactivity, extreme impulses, and mental and physical blockages.
Psychoses can be both exogenous and therefore physically justifiable, for example due to a brain injury or endogenous, ie an expression of a mental illness. Recent studies indicate that one out of every three victims of the disease suffered from a psychosis.
However, these findings have the catch that only survivors were investigated. Those who run amok in an acute psychosis, but probably survives more than someone who does not, for example, someone with a permanent personality disorder, so a rooted misconduct in conflicts.
Personality disorders include: compulsive, avoidant, dependent, eccentric, baseless, immature, passive-aggressive, paranoid, schizoid and dissocial.
There are several forms of personality disorders. Paranoid people, for example, are extremely suspicious and hypersensitive to criticism and rejection. (Image: KarlGroße / fotolia.com) Aggressive outbursts characterize especially the schizoid, the paranoid, the emotionally unstable (borderline), the narcissistic and the dissocial disorder.
Paranoid are extremely sensitive to rejection, they feel extremely aggrieved and develop phantasy of revenge. They are generally distrustful and distort in their perception neutral reactions of others in hostility. They are pathologically jealous, chronic in themselves, see themselves as victims of conspiracies and insist on being right, even more so when others educate them about their misperceptions.
Dissocial have little empathy. Their behavior contradicts social norms. They are responsible and unscrupulous, can not build long-term relationships. Dissocialists have no frustration tolerance and engage in conflict with violence. They accuse others and rationalize their own wrongdoing. That's why they often start a criminal career early on.
Emotionally unstable live out their impulses unchecked, their moods are constantly changing. You can not plan well and do not reconsider the consequences of their behavior. They do not control their emotional outbursts and react explosively. When others criticize or demand their own claims, emotionally unstable ones often react with violence.
The role of psychiatric symptoms in the massacres is usually overrated. So psychoses hardly play a role in school shootings. It looks different with adult offenders. A study of American Amoctata in 1999 found that up to 67% of the perpetrators suffered from psychotic symptoms, especially under paranoid delusions. Narcissistic disorders were also common. Mental illnesses are only a few cases the main cause of a killing spree.
If mass murderers, like those in Munich, were previously receiving psychiatric treatment, it does not necessarily mean that the mental illness directly led to the crime. Mentally ill people are generally no more violent than mentally "healthy".
People who suffer from depression even commit fewer offenses than people without these problems.
Destroyed corporeality
The cultural scientist Klaus Theweleit became famous for the "men's fantasies" in which he analyzed the psychic foundations of fascism as a destroyed corporeality in authoritarian male groups.
The Taz questioned him about the violence in Munich and Anders Breivik. According to Theweleit, neither the killer in Munich nor Anders Breivik were gunman. Because they had planned their act for a long time, which would contradict the nature of a rampage.
From the point of view of the cultural scientist Klaus Theweleit neither the Munich perpetrator nor Anders Breivik were gunman, since both had planned their actions long term. (Photo: fotofabrika / fotolia.com) Rather, it is a mental disorder whose cause is the destroyed physicality of the perpetrators. These would come from different conflict situations to a point where they wanted to erase the lives of others around them.
Killing is a deliberate act here, even if the killing is done in a state of trance. Only when they have decided to murder do they begin to prepare the act.
This urge to murder was neither politically nor religiously motivated. The perpetrators would "write" their reasons only before the act, but they did not care about them, it was crucial that they reached the point where they would have to kill - and with the greatest possible publicity.
Fundamental disturbance means that they did not succeed in finding their way out of their early symbiosis with their mother. Through psychic rejection or experience of violence they did not develop an ego whose lust is directed towards the outside world, but are plagued by overpowering fears.
They could not develop a loving relationship with others and themselves. For such people the concept of narcissism does not apply. They are driven by fear and despair. According to Margaret Miller, they moved between dedifferentiation and demise. De-differentiation means that they perceive everything external as a threat, as a world in which no one helps them. Disempowerment means to eradicate this outside and thus the people who caused it.
The perpetrators would laugh compulsively when they shot into a crowd and the place is empty. Then everything threatening inside the destroyed body was blown away. Through close shots or knife attacks the killer would dominate the feared in his own body undifferentiated interior of the organ.
In the blackout, he would lose consciousness in close combat and wake up as a "hero" again. The counterpart to this is the paradise of suicide bombers.
The ideology plays only a role in so far as it releases the perpetrators of any personal responsibility. On the other hand, the desire to kill is fundamental. Their own deformation has reached a degree in which physical pleasure can only be experienced through violence against other living beings.
The murderers are often young men in puberty crises, the soil under their feet break away. They are uncertain about their own sexuality, the position in the workplace and would not have reliable friendships. The Munich assassin, for example, would have isolated himself from the environment.
The killing forms of men with this basic disorder are very similar worldwide. They wanted to be killers the world was taking notice of.
Narcissists are over-self-reliant and dependent on the admiration of others. (Image: lassedesignen / fotolia.com) narcissism
Psychiatrists discuss with Amoktätern the narcissistic disorder as a trigger. Narcissists build up a false self that depends on the admiration of others. Internally, however, they feel that their grandiose self-image is wrong and therefore have to prove it again and again.
They constantly feel hurt when others do not permanently confirm to them that they are the greatest, the best or the most beautiful. Self love is not. In fact, narcissists have a very negative image of themselves. They feel powerless, helpless and threatened and split off this experience in the form of grandfather fantasies.
The negative sides of themselves project them onto others and fight their own qualities in these "enemies" from which they run away. Their negative aspects try to destroy them by destroying others. Therefore, they are unable to really resolve real conflicts, and in the case of a case they only stop when the "adversary" is completely destroyed.
Adam Lankford saw similarities between suicide bombers and other suicides. Fear, failure, guilt, shame and anger characterize both. Suicide bombers suffered from mental disorders, 130 of whom had experienced the deaths of people who were close to them. Problems in the family, school and workplace are typical for suicide bombers as for other suicides.
How does a rampage develop??
The deeds are roughly divided into five phases. In the preliminary stage, difficulties accumulate in the social environment, social patterns of orientation collapse or are absent, and those affected perceive their personal status as endangered. If, according to Theweleit, there is already a basic disturbance, such loads act as fire accelerators.
Acute stress leads in the second phase to a tension that can no longer compensate those affected. In the third phase, those affected withdraw from society. At the same time they are depressed and hostile, pondering around on their own and their thoughts are marked by fears and revenge fantasies. Those affected become more irritable. Threats, complaints, accusations against the outside world and constantly repeated "mantras" can be perceived as warning signals.
The victims see themselves surrounded by enemies. Their moods fluctuate between anger and fear.
Rising hatred and anger that inspires destruction. (Image: Minerva Studio / fotolia.com) In the fourth stage, the "confused senses" an overreaction breaks out, haphazard actions of attack and flight are accompanied by extreme excitement. The victims scream, race and indiscriminately attack their victims. In the end, they often turn against themselves.
In previous descriptions, surviving amok runners experienced deep sleep and deep depression.
Death as an experience
For David S. in Munich, these "classical" features are only partially valid. He, too, withdrew more and more. But violence did not break out of "confused senses" and aimlessly, but he planned his murders for a long time.
"Unpolitical" gunmen suffer from a destroyed physicality, could not handle insults, find no recognition in life and "complete" their lives in an act in which they extinguish others and themselves. (Dr. Utz Anhalt, last updated on July 13, 2017)
Specialist supervision: Barbara Schindewolf-Lensch (doctor)
literature
L. Adler .: Amok. A study. Munich 2000.