Is fanaticism is a form of madness?
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Is fanaticism is a form of madness?
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The latest BMJ Head-to-Head is taken from a Mausley debate on whether in cases like Anders Breivik, fanaticism can be diagnosed as a form of madness. We had a really good discussion on this subject a
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Forums » Open clinical » Psychiatry » Is fanaticism is a form of madness?
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Is fanaticism is a form of madness?
posted at 20/7/2012 10:07 AM BST
on bmj.com
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Posts: 1436
First: 7/4/2011 Last: 17/5/2013 |
The latest BMJ Head-to-Head is taken from a Mausley debate on whether in cases like Anders Breivik, fanaticism can be diagnosed as a form of madness. We had a really good discussion on this subject a few months back: Is Anders Behring Breivik sane? Here's are a few excerpts from the two sides of the debate in the BMJ: Yes: www.bmj.com/content/345/bmj.e4612 "Madness and fanaticism are lay terms and have no currency in psychiatry. Does this mean therefore that fanatical killers have to be characterised as “normal”? Taylor identified fanaticism as a focused, highly personalised interpretation of the world that excludes or attenuates other social, political, or personal forces that might be expected to control and influence behaviour.6 This suggests that an acceptable conceptual structure can be identified that might place Breivik, and others like him, within a framework of excessive fanaticism that might be reasonably characterised as a form of madness. Furthermore, such a view has the added virtue of placing the person under secure hospital care and not feeding into his delusional ideational state or that of those who might seek to emulate him." No: http://www.bmj.com/content/345/bmj.e4647 It is a mistake to classify fanatics as madmen. Those football fanatics who sacrificed family and work responsibilities to follow hopeless national teams to Euro 2012 were sad rather than mad. They will derive no benefit or solace from psychiatry. Similarly, psychiatry cannot correct the views of violent racists or political fanatics. To mislabel such individuals as mad is to distract from the individual’s personal moral and legal responsibility for their opinions and actions and the necessity that we understand and address the social and political origins of abhorrent fanatical opinions in an ethnically diverse society. Julian Sheather, the BMA Ethics Manager has also written a good blog that mentions the problems with using psychiatry to medicalise political opinion. You'll have to read it as he frames it far more eloquently than I could relay: http://blogs.bmj.com/bmj/2012/07/16/julian-sheather-anders-breivik-and-the-social-uses-of-psychiatry/ My own views from reading the above are if you categorise fanaticism as a form of madness, it absolves those extremist or fanatical views as being mad or even impossible to understand. Society may want to label someone like Breivik as mad to try to come to terms with an incomprehensible act like his, but at the same time that community may want to see him punished for his pre-meditated acts and therefore would need to be diagnosed as sane. By claiming that fanaticism is a form of madness means that you just write-off these views or acts as being 'mad' and never get any closer to understanding why fanatics are fanatics, and what evidence or prejudice their views are actually based on. Perhaps him as sane means that whilst the majority of us do not agree with his world-view, we can at least understand begin to try and understand the basis of his actions. What does everyone else think? |
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Re: Is fanaticism is a form of madness?
posted at 21/7/2012 1:05 AM BST
on bmj.com
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Posts: 106
First: 13/3/2012 Last: 9/5/2013 |
If the DSM 5 and its supporters have their way, we will all be diagnosed with something that can be paradoxically called "mental health" when it is actually one or two or even three "mental health problems". So technically, we could all be labelled as having a form, differentiated by extent, intensity and depth, of course, of madness. In which case, we can all be declared "sane" as "madness" will be the new criteria for normal. In Australia, I see the latest brilliant action by the government involves the mental health of toddlers. The Healthy Kids Check program in Australia plans to screen 27,000 three-year-olds for signs of mental illness -- even if they are exhibiting normal child-like behaviors. Can you imagine taking their history. "Now what behaviours did the child exhibit as a two year old." All you will get is a biased report, from tired, fed up, exhausted parents who just want the child to be quiet for a while so they can get a sleep or time to think without a three year old asking why. The number of disorders that can be "labelled" at that age based on the perception of others (all that is needed according to the DSM5) and will follow him/her through their entire lives is mind numbing. This programme apparently is for the purpose of determining which three year old children will benefit from interventions ostensibly to make them "normal" at an earlier age. This of course, the blurb offers later, is a good move because it will allow ongoing, lifelong "support" for these children so that their later years will be happier and more productive. They will probably be drugged to the eyeballs before they reach the tender teenage years -that other disruptive stage that is worse than the terrible twos, simply because the kids are now as tall as or taller than the adults who are medicating them. Oh, I wish I had share in the drug companies. I can see a massive increase in sales coming up. But to keep the thread on tract. Depends on the degree of fanatacism. Like one of my professors liked to tell us: We are all mad, it is just the degree that is different and whether that degree disrupts or enhances our own lives, or impinges on the life of others. And he didn't look crazy to me, but he was a fanatic about making sure we studied and learned and improved our minds. |
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Re: Is fanaticism is a form of madness?
posted at 21/7/2012 5:16 AM BST
on bmj.com
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Posts: 1280
First: 9/12/2011 Last: 14/5/2013 |
Sometimes Psychology and Psychiatry get too much into Clasifying things, as Neurosis, and or any number of maladies. Not everything is a mental condition. A good friend of mine is a Psychologist and said I am a bit of a Screwball for doing 900 courses in a year. He said it was a form of fanaticism! But Then again I am just an overachiever in the Elearning realm... DuaneF |
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Re: Is fanaticism is a form of madness?
posted at 21/7/2012 9:50 AM BST
on bmj.com
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Posts: 106
First: 13/3/2012 Last: 9/5/2013 |
I guess the short answer to this depends on whether the fanaticism is yours or the other guy's. If it's your own, of course it's not madness. It's good healthy passion, focus and intensity If on the other hand, it is his, naturally, if you do not share his zest, perseverance and determination, it can be nothing else but madness. |
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Re: Is fanaticism is a form of madness?
posted at 21/7/2012 3:37 PM BST
on bmj.com
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Posts: 6
First: 21/7/2012 Last: 11/12/2012 |
Surely each individual case must be assessed on its merits. A psychiatric evaluation may identify bizarre and clearly delusional ideation. In that case there is a "psychiatric" condition. Of course it would still be necessary to determine the extent to which this psychiatric patient was responsible for specific actions and behaviours. |
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Re: Is fanaticism is a form of madness?
posted at 21/7/2012 5:29 PM BST
on bmj.com
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Posts: 1259
First: 13/4/2010 Last: 19/5/2013 |
Fanatacism can be a form of madness but not all fanatacism is. It depends on "keeping it real". Once you develop pyschotic symptoms such as paranoia or delusions then we have entered a whole different ball game. But there a vast numbers of people who could be described as fanatic about music or sport or food or whatever - eccentric maybe but hardly mad. |
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Re: Is fanaticism is a form of madness?
posted at 22/7/2012 10:32 AM BST
on bmj.com
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Posts: 6
First: 21/7/2012 Last: 11/12/2012 |
The presence or absence of mental illness, according to 2012 psychiatric criteria, defines the "ball game". Anders Breivik apparently precipitated this particular discussion of an age old issue. But we are very short of information about his mental state. We can philosophise about people with fanatical and overvalued ideas but Society wants expert opinion from us to help determine what type of offender he is, for the purposes of .appropriate sentencing. |
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Re: Is fanaticism is a form of madness?
posted at 10/8/2012 10:49 AM BST
on bmj.com
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Posts: 26
First: 10/4/2012 Last: 1/5/2013 |
in the case of Wade Michael Page who went on a rampage in a Sikh temple in Wisconsin it has been suggested that he might have been intending to target Muslims. http://news.yahoo.com/sikh-temple-shooting-mistaken-anti-muslim-terrorism-101000242.html we don't know the motive - probably never will - but if his motive was to target muslims then he did not do his research properly. if this is the case - his fanaticism appears to be a form of madness because he made an decision based on lazy stereotyping. however, there's no obligation for fanaticism to be based on balanced opinion or being well-informed of the facts. |
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Re: Is fanaticism is a form of madness?
posted at 10/8/2012 4:33 PM BST
on bmj.com
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Posts: 578
First: 8/6/2011 Last: 19/5/2013 |
Fanatics are usually people with good intentions but who are carried away by demagogues and speculators. And i can not understand why Anders Breivik, fanaticism should be diagnosed as a form of madness ,but islamists terorism not . Can somebody explain this to me ? |
Forums » Open clinical » Psychiatry » Is fanaticism is a form of madness?
