Diagnosing insanity 170 years apart : Pierre Rivière and Anders Breivik

Content Provider	Semantic Scholar
Author	Nilsson, Lars Siersbæk Parnas, Avital Parnas, Josef
Copyright Year	2015
Abstract	In 2011 Anders Behring Breivik, ABB, slaughtered 77 civilians in a twofold attack in Oslo and on the island of Utøya, Norway. During his trial ABB’s sanity or lack thereof was fiercely contested. Two psychiatric evaluations arrived at radically different diagnoses of psychosis and personality disorder respectively. Though unrivalled in its bestiality, the case of ABB is not unique. In 1835, a French peasant Pierre Marie Rivière, PMR, in a seemingly incomprehensible act of cruelty killed his immediate family. Some contemporaries, including Esquirol, saw in PMR the traces of radical irrationality (psychosis) while others ascribed his deeds to an evil personality. Thus a basic disagreement on the nature of rationality and madness appears to have persisted across the centuries. The aim of this paper is to clarify the sources of this diagnostic divergence and to shed some light on pressing epistemological and clinical issues related to the diagnostic process, its conceptual foundation and the question of differential diagnosis.
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Alternate Webpage(s)	http://www.sakkyndig.com/psykologi/artvit/nilsson2015.pdf
Language	English
Access Restriction	Open
Content Type	Text
Resource Type	Article