Chuck Bednar for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online
The recent attacks on French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo and earlier attacks that resulted in the death of a Canadian military reservist in Ottawa have led one forensic behavior specialist to investigate what drives a person to commit such heinous acts.
These attacks, author Dr. Matthew H. Logan explains in the peer-reviewed journal Violence and Gender, represent a type of perpetrator that is rarely discussed – an individual who is so obsessed with what is known as an “overvalued idea” that it ultimately defines their identity, leading them to commit acts of violence with zero regard for the consequences.
The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, a manual published by the American Psychiatric Association that establishes the standard criteria for the classification of mental disorders, defines an overvalued idea as “an unreasonable and sustained belief that is maintained with less than delusional intensity,” Logan explained.
In other words, these individuals “have idealized values, which have developed into such an overriding importance that they totally define the ‘self’ or identity of the individual,” the author writes. “It is an unreasonable belief over which the person has become obsessed to the extent that he/she is unable to adapt to different circumstances. Although they can remain functional, they have a high degree of affect (e.g., anxiety or anger) when there is a threat to the loss of their goal or object of the belief and may take action they believe is justified.”
In the Ottawa case, the perpetrator, a man named Zehaf-Bibeau, was a recent convert to Islam who had been born into a wealthy family but was homeless at the time of the incident. He was reportedly frustrated by failed attempts to get a passport to travel to Iraq, Libya, and Syria, and despite his existing criminal record, his act is likely the result of overvalued ideas.
“Overvalued ideas are not delusions,” he wrote in the study. “They are in the middle of a continuum of obsessional doubts to delusional certainty. People with overvalued ideas are not completely and irrationally fixed in their beliefs. However, rigidity of belief makes it more resistant to any treatment and able to ignore the consequences of acting on their value. As a result, they are more likely to commit violence than persons with delusions.”
In a statement he added that even though the Paris attackers had deeper ties within terrorist organizations, the individuals themselves still fit the description of people acting on overvalued ideas. Logan, a 28-year veteran officer with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, said to expect more of these kinds of attacks as lone wolves “unite on common beliefs and themes.”
“The violence we witnessed in Paris just days ago shook the world,” said Dr. Mary Ellen O’Toole, a Senior FBI Profiler/Criminal Investigative Analyst and the Managing Editor of Violence and Gender. “It was coldblooded, purposeful, and seemingly without remorse, driven by a unique self-righteous ideation of the killers.”
Logan’s report, she added, “explains the ‘motivating mindset’ of young male offenders, sometimes loners and sometimes part of a group, whose ‘overvalued ideas’ combined with their own psychopathology is what motivates them to engage in this type of terror. ‘Overvalued ideas do not constitute mental illness,’ according to Dr. Logan, which makes this senseless, savage violence seem even more chilling and despicable.”
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