As you type an instant message, send an email, or have a spirited phone call, have you ever wondered whether the U.S. Government is listening in? And, if so, would they understand that you weren’t serious when you said that you wished some politician would die before he or she could raise taxes again?
Dr. Nidal Malik Hasan, the Fort Hood killer, has done more to assuage Americans’ fears about government surveillance than any official ever could.
The guy exchanged email with Anwar al-Awlak, an outspoken advocate of jihad who moved from suburban Virginia to his ancestral home of Yemen (source).
The guy posted pro-suicide bombing arguments to Islamic Web sites using his own name, “Nidal Hasan” (source).
The guy stood up in front of a group of U.S. Army officers and said that “non-believers should be beheaded and have boiling oil poured down their throats.” (source; original slides)
Was this guy arrested? Harassed by federal agents? No. In fact, despite poor job performance, he was promoted to Major in the U.S. Army! Instead of summonses to tedious court proceedings, the government sent him paychecks.
The bad news is that the same government that determined Dr. Hasan was a prime candidate for military promotion is trying to teach America’s children math and English as well as run most of our health care system. The good news is that it would appear our free speech rights are stronger than we imagined.
[Separately, as noted in this Telegraph article, the incident with Dr. Hasan calls into question the efficacy of psychiatry:
Selena Coppa, an activist for Iraq Veterans Against the War, said: “This man was a psychiatrist and was working with other psychiatrists every day and they failed to notice how deeply disturbed someone right in their midst was.”
The American Psychiatric Association says that it is “science-based”. If the discipline demonstrably lacks predictive power, is it fair to say that it is somehow scientific? (I am not saying that I agree with Ms. Coppa’s assertion that Dr. Hasan was “deeply disturbed”, only that if expert psychiatrists could not predict that Dr. Hasan was likely to act on his stated beliefs, it would be nice to know what psychiatry can predict.)]
In “The Gift of Fear”, Gavin de Becker explains that these warning signs are often missed because people ignore their intuition:
http://www.amazon.com/Gift-Fear-Gavin-Becker/dp/0440508835/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1258384550&sr=1-1
“Strong on Defense” by Sanford Strong provides a more applied look at the “inner game” of staying safe.
http://www.amazon.com/Strong-Defense-Sanford/dp/0671535110/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1258384598&sr=1-1
Well, there is the obvious point that he must have been disturbed since he believe he had an omnipotent imaginary friend. If you are going to posit that he is still SANE even with that belief, then you are going to miss all sorts of other clues, I imagine.
The guy in the office next to his is thinking, “I’m glad this patient won’t deter my weekend plans of eating the flesh and drinking the blood of my messiah…” but we STILL consider him sane while we think Hasan is off his rocker.
I am not certain that Hasan did anything inconsistent with his beliefs. Since we are a nation founded by religious nuts, we should have some sort of medal for him.
What can psychiatrists predict?:
(1) “On an annual basis the median Psychiatrist Salary is greater than $177,000.” and that “A typical employment benefits package is worth over $20,000 per year.” [http://www.healthcaresalaryonline.com/psychiatrist-salary.html]
(2) As they have an monopoly on prescribing medication, including speed and valium, based on essentially self evaluation (“do you get bored?”, “do you feel stress?” – um, yes and yes…) they will have amply satisfied customers,
(3) Any dissatisfied customers were broken anyways, so there is little expectation of help – any improvement can be claimed as a victory, any worsening or steady state written off.
More positively, one can claim that they are not in the prediction business, but the change business – if someone *wants* to change the psychiatrist can open their handbook of practices and prescribe use what appears to work (or at least not harm too much). They can “predict” that the prescribed treatment is a good thing to try. Lawsuits and regulations prevent too extreme or crackpot treatments (and doctors) from staying in the long run, thus adding some measure of safety over a complete free market (though sanctioned mistreatment – sometimes horrendous – and the rapid fad like nature of treatments make this questionable).
Is it scientific? Empirical bodies of work can be as useful as theoretically backed ones – as long as one is careful to carefully test the “facts” and understand limitations. Psychiatry is not “inspectable”, in that one cannot easily judge the quality/effectiveness of a doctor, and therefore there will be huge variation in quality. The level of medium quality quite possibly makes the net impact of psychiatry for society negative – by giving doctors too much power/credence relative to their efficacy poor outcomes will occur.
Colin,
“Since we are a nation founded by religious nuts, we should have some sort of medal for him.”
Thomas Jefferson, Ben Franklin, hardly religious nuts. Even Paris HIlton’s great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandfather and father of the Bill of Rights George Mason*, while an avid churchgoer, played a key part in Jefferson’s efforts to disestablish the anglican church in Virgina in 1779. See “The Revolution in Virginia, 1775-1783 By John E. Selby, Don Higginbotham” on google books for details. So, I think that your statement is not true.
*something happened in that family
MR,
Psychiatry has many of the traits you describe primarily because of our indefensible drug prohibition. There are actually some patients whose mental pathologies require the care of a physician, but they are far outnumbered by largely-functional people who choose to take psychoactive pharmaceuticals, and are required by the law to consult a psychiatrist about their choice.
Perhaps if our laws were rationalized, psychiatry would be freed from the glut of drug-seekers that now plague it and would flourish as new ways to care for the profoundly disturbed were discovered. It’s more likely that plummeting demand would force many psychiatrists to take some medical refresher courses and find new specialties.
In any case, predicting crime/terrorism is not on the brief now, and probably wouldn’t be in such a hypothetical future either. If the pathetic state of “forensic science” is any indication, I wouldn’t expect a focus on crime prevention to make psychiatry more scientific, anyway.
Phil, your opening thesis (that govt surveillance is not as bad as feared) overlooks one crucial point: Hasan is a Muslim, and the Army’s zeal to be “inclusive” seems to have trumped security concerns (and still does: concerns about a “backlash” seem more pressing than learning any lessons about security). I feel that non-Muslim Americans would be treated somewhat differently if they were to emulate Hasan.