via Forensic Psychiatry News by Mike Nova on 4/17/12
Mike Nova
The second evaluation, about 300 pages long, made by the psychiatrists Terje Toerrissen and Agnar Aspaas on a request from the court after widespread criticism of the first one, was completed on April 10, 2012, just six days before the trial, but was not released, and according to the leaked information, found him afflicted with "narcissistic personality disorder" with "grandiose self" and not psychotic at the time of the alleged crime and presently and therefore legally "sane".
The latest psychiatric report was confidential, but national broadcaster NRK and other Norwegian media who claimed to have seen its conclusions said it described Breivik as narcissistic but not psychotic.
Torgensen gets the impression that Breivik found an ideal place to nourish his delusions of grandeur in the anti-Islamic scene full of crusader fantasies. “This was coupled with an extremely sadistic disorder,” Torgensen says. “This disastrous combination could explain the scale of his violence.”
The new report from forensic psychiatrists Terje Tørrissen and Agnar Aspaas concludes that he did not have “significantly weakened capacity for realistic evaluation of his relations with the outside world, and did not act under severely impaired consciousness”.
"Our conclusion is that he (was) not psychotic at the time of the actions of terrorism and he is not psychotic now," Terje Toerrissen, one of the psychiatrists who examined Breivik in prison, told The Associated Press.
Thus, as it almost always happens in complex forensic psychiatric cases, it was left for the infinite wisdom and common sense of the court, unburdened by the "sophisticated" and empty psychiatric jargon, to decide by itself, and rightly so, the "main questions" of the accused's mental illness or mental health and his "sanity" or "insanity" and to make its own, judicial decision regarding the issue of legal responsibility. Both mutually conflicting (but not mutually exclusive) forensic psychiatric evaluations, which, no doubt, were performed in good faith and with utmost professional diligence, will be taken into account by the court, but were rendered almost irrelevant by their contradictions. Once again, psychiatry, pretending to be a medical discipline and a science, was humiliated and reduced to the position of a laughing stock for the public and the media.
Mr. Breivik's skillful and astute lead defense lawyer, Mr. Geri Lippestad, treating his client with respect and at the same time with appropriate professional distance and apparently convinced of his client's mental illness and "insanity", chose a strategy of presenting Mr. Breivik to the court and to the public "as is", letting him to reveal himself and his presumed mental illness fully as the engine of alleged criminal behavior, apparently counting that it will be convincing enough for both the judges and for the court of public opinion.
“This whole case indicated that he is insane,” Geir Lippestad told reporters. “He looks upon himself as a warrior. He starts this war and takes some kind of pride in that,” Lippestad said. Lippestad said Breivik had used “some kind of drugs” before the crime to keep strong and awake, and was surprised he had not been killed during the attacks or en route to Monday’s court hearing.
Lippestad, a member of the Labour party whose youth wing had been the target of Friday’s shooting rampage, said he would quit if Breivik did not agree to psychological tests.
Geir Lippestad said the new report means Breivik's testimony will be crucial "when the judges decide whether he is insane or not." The trial started on April 16 and is scheduled to last 10 weeks.
Mr. Breivik declared himself undoubtedly and completely "sane" and consistently, if somewhat eerily out of place and time, painted a self-portrait as a model and self-sacrificing ideological warrior, taking as an insult any, albeit "professional" opinions otherwise and dismissed them with anger and indignation.
“On this day,” he said, “I was waging a one-man war against all the regimes of Western Europe. I felt traumatized every second that blood and brains were spurting out. War is hell.”
"Breivik told the court that "ridiculous" lies had been told about him, rattling off a list which accused him of being a narcissist who was obsessed with the red jumper he wore to his first court hearing, of having a "bacterial phobia", "an incestuous relationship with my mother", "of being a child killer despite no one who died on Utoya being under 14".
He was not insane, he repeated many times. He claimed it was Norway's politicians who should be locked up in the sort of mental institution he can expect to spend the rest of his days if the court declares him criminally insane at the end of the ten-week trial. He said: "They expect us to applaud our ethnic and cultural doom... They should be characterised as insane, not me. Why is this the real insanity? This is the real insanity because it is not rational to work to deconstruct ones own ethnic group, culture and religion."
All this is fine and dandy, and, no doubt, the aforementioned infinite wisdom of Scandinavian level headed justice (impersonated in a stern but motherly demeanor of the presiding Judge Wenche Elisabeth Arntzen) will eventually emanate from its somewhat obscure, slowly but surely turning and unstoppable wheels, hopefully to almost every one's satisfaction. And eventually, this horrendous crime, the purp and the trial will be almost forgotten and placed into archives for further studies.
But the nagging questions remain and will remain for some, and probably a long time: is psychiatry really a science? Or is it just a collection of "professional" opinions, mixed with convenient labels and outdated jargon? What is "sane" and what is "insane"? And how far should the justice go in its modern "humane" stance?
Breivik Trial and The Crisis Of Psychiatry As Science - Links
Breivik Trial and The Crisis Of Psychiatry As A Science
Breivik is not the only one who is on this trial. Psychiatry as a science is on this trial also, just like on many other trials where forensic psychiatric involvement is sought. This is highlighted by the two contradictory psychiatric assessments of the accused, with their directly opposing diagnostic impressions and directly conflicting main general conclusions. The first forensic psychiatric evaluation, completed on November 29, 2011 by the psychiatrists Torgeir Husby and Synne Sørheim found Breivik to be "paranoid schizophrenic" and "psychotic" at the time of the alleged crime and presently and therefore legally "insane". A leaked copy of the initial psychiatric examination described his crusader fantasy as a product of the "bizarre, grandiose delusions" of a sick mind.The second evaluation, about 300 pages long, made by the psychiatrists Terje Toerrissen and Agnar Aspaas on a request from the court after widespread criticism of the first one, was completed on April 10, 2012, just six days before the trial, but was not released, and according to the leaked information, found him afflicted with "narcissistic personality disorder" with "grandiose self" and not psychotic at the time of the alleged crime and presently and therefore legally "sane".
The latest psychiatric report was confidential, but national broadcaster NRK and other Norwegian media who claimed to have seen its conclusions said it described Breivik as narcissistic but not psychotic.
Torgensen gets the impression that Breivik found an ideal place to nourish his delusions of grandeur in the anti-Islamic scene full of crusader fantasies. “This was coupled with an extremely sadistic disorder,” Torgensen says. “This disastrous combination could explain the scale of his violence.”
The new report from forensic psychiatrists Terje Tørrissen and Agnar Aspaas concludes that he did not have “significantly weakened capacity for realistic evaluation of his relations with the outside world, and did not act under severely impaired consciousness”.
"Our conclusion is that he (was) not psychotic at the time of the actions of terrorism and he is not psychotic now," Terje Toerrissen, one of the psychiatrists who examined Breivik in prison, told The Associated Press.
Thus, as it almost always happens in complex forensic psychiatric cases, it was left for the infinite wisdom and common sense of the court, unburdened by the "sophisticated" and empty psychiatric jargon, to decide by itself, and rightly so, the "main questions" of the accused's mental illness or mental health and his "sanity" or "insanity" and to make its own, judicial decision regarding the issue of legal responsibility. Both mutually conflicting (but not mutually exclusive) forensic psychiatric evaluations, which, no doubt, were performed in good faith and with utmost professional diligence, will be taken into account by the court, but were rendered almost irrelevant by their contradictions. Once again, psychiatry, pretending to be a medical discipline and a science, was humiliated and reduced to the position of a laughing stock for the public and the media.
Mr. Breivik's skillful and astute lead defense lawyer, Mr. Geri Lippestad, treating his client with respect and at the same time with appropriate professional distance and apparently convinced of his client's mental illness and "insanity", chose a strategy of presenting Mr. Breivik to the court and to the public "as is", letting him to reveal himself and his presumed mental illness fully as the engine of alleged criminal behavior, apparently counting that it will be convincing enough for both the judges and for the court of public opinion.
“This whole case indicated that he is insane,” Geir Lippestad told reporters. “He looks upon himself as a warrior. He starts this war and takes some kind of pride in that,” Lippestad said. Lippestad said Breivik had used “some kind of drugs” before the crime to keep strong and awake, and was surprised he had not been killed during the attacks or en route to Monday’s court hearing.
Lippestad, a member of the Labour party whose youth wing had been the target of Friday’s shooting rampage, said he would quit if Breivik did not agree to psychological tests.
Geir Lippestad said the new report means Breivik's testimony will be crucial "when the judges decide whether he is insane or not." The trial started on April 16 and is scheduled to last 10 weeks.
Mr. Breivik declared himself undoubtedly and completely "sane" and consistently, if somewhat eerily out of place and time, painted a self-portrait as a model and self-sacrificing ideological warrior, taking as an insult any, albeit "professional" opinions otherwise and dismissed them with anger and indignation.
“On this day,” he said, “I was waging a one-man war against all the regimes of Western Europe. I felt traumatized every second that blood and brains were spurting out. War is hell.”
"Breivik told the court that "ridiculous" lies had been told about him, rattling off a list which accused him of being a narcissist who was obsessed with the red jumper he wore to his first court hearing, of having a "bacterial phobia", "an incestuous relationship with my mother", "of being a child killer despite no one who died on Utoya being under 14".
He was not insane, he repeated many times. He claimed it was Norway's politicians who should be locked up in the sort of mental institution he can expect to spend the rest of his days if the court declares him criminally insane at the end of the ten-week trial. He said: "They expect us to applaud our ethnic and cultural doom... They should be characterised as insane, not me. Why is this the real insanity? This is the real insanity because it is not rational to work to deconstruct ones own ethnic group, culture and religion."
All this is fine and dandy, and, no doubt, the aforementioned infinite wisdom of Scandinavian level headed justice (impersonated in a stern but motherly demeanor of the presiding Judge Wenche Elisabeth Arntzen) will eventually emanate from its somewhat obscure, slowly but surely turning and unstoppable wheels, hopefully to almost every one's satisfaction. And eventually, this horrendous crime, the purp and the trial will be almost forgotten and placed into archives for further studies.
But the nagging questions remain and will remain for some, and probably a long time: is psychiatry really a science? Or is it just a collection of "professional" opinions, mixed with convenient labels and outdated jargon? What is "sane" and what is "insane"? And how far should the justice go in its modern "humane" stance?
Breivik Trial and The Crisis Of Psychiatry As Science - Links
via Google News on 4/17/12
 AFP |
Norwegian killer says he would do it all again
AFP By Nina Larson (AFP) – 5 hours ago OSLO — The gunman behind last year's Norway massacres said he would "do it again" as he took the stand at his trial on Tuesday, after a judge who called for him to face the death penalty was dismissed. and more » |
via anders behring breivik - Google News on 4/17/12
"Sí, lo haría de nuevo", afirma el autor de la matanza de Noruega
ElHeraldo.hn Anders Behring Breivik aseguró que actuó en una situación de urgencia en nombre de su pueblo, su cultura y su país. Pidió ser liberado. Anders Behring Breivik durante la segunda jornada de su juicio. (AFP) Sí, lo haría de nuevo", dijo este martes el ... and more » |
via anders behring breivik - Google News on 4/17/12
 BBC News |
Manifesto 'will shed light' on Anders Behring Breivik
BBC News Anders Behring Breivik's defence lawyers, Geir Lippestad and Vibeke Hein Baera, say his manifesto video "will shed light on who he is". Breivik, who carried out bomb and gun attacks in Norway last year which left 77 people dead, pleaded not guilty on ... Breivik defends Norway attack, says would do it againGlobalPost all 3 news articles » |
via Google News on 4/17/12
Norway Killer Says He Would Do it Again
Voice of America (blog) The gunman on trial for killing 77 people in Norway last year described his killings as a “preventative” attack committed in order to avoid a wider civil war, adding that he would do it all over again. In a lengthy address to the court Tuesday, ... and more » |
via Google News on 4/17/12
 msnbc.com |
Norway mass killer Anders Breivik: I was motivated by goodness and 'would have ...
msnbc.com During his statement, Breivik showed no remorse and made no admission of guilt. ITN's Paul Davies reports. By Alastair Jamieson and Ian Johnston, msnbc.com Self-confessed mass killer Anders Behring Breivik told his trial in Norway Tuesday that he was ... and more » |
via Google News on 4/17/12
Anders Behring Breivik's speech: 'Christians today are a persecuted minority'
Canada.com By Nina Larson, AFP April 17, 2012 12:03 PM Norwegian mass killer Anders Behring Breivik approaches the witness box during the second day of his terrorism and murder trial in Oslo Tuesday. Breivik, who killed 77 people, said his shooting spree and bomb ... and more » |
via Google News on 4/17/12
Lay judges a common feature in Scandinavia
GMA News OSLO - Professional magistrates in Scandinavian countries are generally assisted by lay judges chosen by civil society, as is the case in the trial of Anders Behring Breivik for Norway's twin attacks. The Oslo court on Tuesday removed Thomas Indreboe, ... and more » |
via Google News on 4/17/12
Norway Shooter Defends His Slaughter in Open Court: 'I Would Have Done It Again'
TIME By AP / KARL RITTER Tuesday, Apr. 17, 2012 (OSLO, Norway) — Norwegian gunman Anders Behring Breivik insisted Tuesday he would massacre 77 people all over again, calling his July rampage the most "spectacular" attack by a nationalist militant since ... and more » |
via Google News on 4/17/12
Icy civility at Oslo horror trial grips world
Chicago Tribune OSLO (Reuters) - When the trial of Anders Behring Breivik started, prosecutors and court-appointed psychiatrists lined up to shake his hand, smiling. One psychiatrist even bowed. The killer of 77 people smiled back. Few Norwegians blinked an eye. and more » |
via Google News on 4/17/12
 gulfnews.com |
I would have done it again, Norwegian killer says
gulfnews.com By Mick O'Reilly, Senior Associate Editor Image Credit: AP Breivik arrives at the courtroom in Oslo, Norway, on Tuesday He will have five days to explain why he killed 77 people on a day of hate-fuelled rampage. Dubai: For two hours in July, ... and more » |
via Google News on 4/17/12
Distinctive salutes have run the political gamut
gulfnews.com AP Oslo: Black power. White power. Nazis. Communists. Causes across the political spectrum have long used distinctive salutes to identify themselves. After an Oslo courtroom guard removed Anders Behring Breivik's handcuffs on Monday, the far-right ... and more » |
via Google News on 4/17/12
 Stuff.co.nz |
Massacre victims guilty
Stuff.co.nz Judges decide not to televise Anders Breivik's testimony in which he boasted he carried out the most "sophisticated and spectacular" attack in Europe since World War II. OPENING STATEMENT: Anders Behring Breivik raises his fist as he arrives to ... and more » |
via Google News on 4/17/12
 Sydney Morning Herald |
Victims just like Hitler Youth, says mass killer
Sydney Morning Herald Giving evidence ... Norwegian mass killer Anders Behring Breivik arrives for the second day of his terrorism and murder trial. Photo: Reuters OSLO: The teenagers he killed were not innocent non-political children but people guilty of upholding ... and more » |
via Google News on 4/17/12
 The Guardian |
Remorseless and baffling, Breivik's testimony leaves Norway no wiser
The Guardian Tuesday was the day Norwegians hoped they might begin to understand how Anders Behring Breivik became the worst mass murderer in the country's recent history. Almost nine months after killing 77 people in three brutal hours, Breivik took to the stand ... and more » |
via Google News on 4/17/12
Video: Norway killer Anders Breivik calls attack "sophisticated and spectacular"
Vancouver Sun OSLO — The gunman behind the Norway massacres said he was inspired by al-Qaida as he took the stand Tuesday at his trial, after a judge who called for him to face the death penalty was dismissed. Rightwing extremist Anders Behring Breivik said his ... and more » |
via anders behring breivik - Google News on 4/17/12
Breivik defends Norway attack, says would do it again
GlobalPost Breivik's defense attorney Geir Lippestad (R), flanked by attorneys (FromL) Odd Ivar Groen, Tord Jordet and Vibeke Hein Baera at Breivik's farm, during a recent inspection. (Gorm Kallestad/AFP/Getty Images) Anders Behring Breivik read an incendiary ... and more » |
via anders behring breivik - Google News on 4/17/12
 gulfnews.com |
Anti-Muslim sentiment on the rise in Europe
gulfnews.com By Mick O'Reilly, Senior Associate Editor Prosecutor Inga Bejer Engh (left) and defendant Anders Behring Breivik (second from right) in a discussion during court recess for lunch on Tuesday. Dubai: The gunman who massacred 77 people in Norway last ... Far-right anti-Muslim network on rise globally as Breivik trial opensMuslimVillage.com Global Anti-Islam Far-right Network GrowsOnislam.net Witness for the Defense?AINA (press release) Press TV -The National all 22 news articles » |
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via anders behring breivik - Google News on 4/17/12
 The Guardian |
Anders Breivik: the victims' voices
The Guardian Propped up outside Oslo's central court on Tuesday afternoon, Eivind Thoresen reflected on all that he had heard in Anders Behring Breivik's evidence. "It's really hard to explain, but I feel really empty inside," said the 26-year-old. |
via anders behring breivik - Google News on 4/17/12
 The Guardian |
Anders Breivik says he killed to protect indigenous Norwegians (+video)
Christian Science Monitor In testimony today, Anders Behring Breivik, the Norwegian behind the 2011 attacks, compared himself to World War II commanders who decided to bomb Japan to prevent further loss of life. By Valeria Criscione, Correspondent / April 17, 2012 Norwegian ... Confessed killer Anders Behring Breivik: Attacks were 'spectacular'Los Angeles Times Anders Behring Breivik claims victims were not innocentThe Guardian Norway mass killer Anders Behring Breivik defends massacre: "I would have done ...CBS News New York Daily News -Voice of America -Wall Street Journal all 5,083 news articles » |
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