THOUGHTS ON MOTIVE FOR NEWTOWN MASSACRE

        
                It has been a very long time since I have been able to blog and there have been significant reasons for all that.  However, since the massacre at Newtown I feel an obligation, as a mental health professsional, to share my thoughts.  And what I have come to believe I have not heard from any of the professionals interviewed heretofore....and I cannot understand why.

               We quickly learned about the autism layered with asbergers that Adam Lanza suffered.
He was described throughout his school days as 'weird' and as 'a loner'.  He also was said to be 'brilliant'. He did not interact with others. Therefore he must have been the kind of young person who was totally aware of himself and of what others thought about him.  My conclusion is that Adam Lanza was filled with self loathing. His days in school must have been painful for him (eventhough he was said to not have the ability to feel 'pain'---if he was cut he would not feel it), but I believe that mental pain can be strongly felt even if a severe physical injury could not be.

               This kind of pain which I believe Adam was in all through his school years, must have filled him with self loathing.  And the loathing must have been seen as derived from the woman who had given birth to him. I feel that Adam Lanza had to have hated his mother for 'making him the way he was'.  He could indeed 'blame' her for everything. And what a stroke of luck for him that she introduced him to the art of 'shooting' and that she stored all these weapons right in the home they shared!

              At the same time I believe Adam Lanza wanted to prevent as many young children as he could from going through all that he had gone through.  With the weapons his mother had brought into his life, he found the means to 'save the children'.  He was adept at shooting and planned his attack very carefully.  It had to begin with the death of his mother as she, in his mind, was 'responsible' for all of the miserable life he had been leading for so long.  Logically then, the murder of his mother had to be followed immediately by the attempt to murder, thus to protect, all these children from having to deal with the horrors of life which Adam Lanza felt were so destructive to survival.

             Have not any of you out there heard stories of parents who killed their children in order to protect them?  That to me is what I felt was the motive behind all that took place December, 14th in Newtown, Ct.  Just something that the forensic psychiatrists and psychologist who have been involved may want to consider.

             Hope you have felt some enlightenment, even if you totally reject it, from this session.

Mimi Scott, Ph.D
mscott13@aol.com
www.drmimiscott.com
212 721-2979
917 846-2449