Sociological Psychosis

Submitted by Van Gross, MD (United States), Nov 23, 2009 at 09:48

Once again, Dan, great investigative reporting on your part.
And again, my new neuropsychiatric paradigm- "Sociological Psychosis" speaks to the Hasan horror. Here are key features of this new model:

1- The definition of "psychosis" must be entirely reworked.
2- Psychosis as an entity must be defined beyond its present formulation- i.e. a disorder mostly set apart from cultural triggers. Current definitions of psychosis include disorders like schizophrenia which is believed to be heavily biological. That idea has to be scrapped. Hasan is simply not the case of a schizophrenic who happens to be Muslim. That biological tendency now dominating psychiatry (not all of medicine by the way) is the reason in part why a Hasan was not identified as psychotic and removed from his job. It was not simply a case of political correctness dictating "hands off the Muslim-American".
3- Sociological Psychosis argues that the culture or religion (such as Islam) that precipitates mental derangement must be understood as the underpinning for someone "snapping" rather than what is now the accepted view- i.e. someone snaps because they are psychotic and their belief system is secondary to an intrinsic brain disorder that warps their perceptions (I should add that there is no universally accepted biological marker for schizophrenia akin to insulin deficiency equaling diabetes).

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