James Holmes may have Aspergers?

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well that's a bit unsettling.

Even if he has AS (which I think he does) I think he has now slipped into a psychotic state or paranoid schizophrenia, so I am not sure they would even be able to get a reasonable profile on him now to classify him as AS.

A huge thank you to all our resident WP on line experts. And I mean that sincerely, I have learned a great deal about psyche profiling while reading this thread. Thank you sharing your years of study.

For me a final conclusion is not at hand, and may never happen.

Who really knows Jimmy.

But my guess is he took some cues from Brevik and regurgitated his own brand of crazy. His overall constitutional health has deteriorated considerably over the years, [more than one would naturally expect] so prolly a hard drug addiction could be implicated.

Actually, per the ICD10 psychosis is not exclusive of Aspergers, but if he is diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia, it would not be possible to be diagnosed with Aspergers under the DSMIV, by the same diagnosing professional, as Paranoid schizophrenia takes precedence per the diagnostic criteria.

Very possible though that different diagnosing professionals will come up with different diagnoses as has been discussed per Breivik and Martin Bryant in this discussion.

Personally, I just can't see Schizophrenia being a possibility, unless he's had such since adolescence and he's in the chronic stage (which is hard to distinguish from an ASD). The acute onset of such usually requires hospitalization for some time due to the loss in functioning; it moves on to the chronic stage then.

Grossly disorganized and vagrant behavior are the norm for Schizophrenia, whereas coping mechanisms in the form of routines and order allow those with ASDs to often function and plan to a greater extent.

I just think he wouldn't have been able to function as he did if it were Schizophrenia.

Paranoid PD can account for any paranoid ideation he has though; that can account for social withdrawal too. You need to question the individual to get his reasons though (might not be paranoia).

I agree that is often how schizophrenia is described, per cases of schizophrenia in the general population, but it is not always the case, particularly in rampage killings, as schizophrenia per the research done in 2000 of 102 documented rampage killings, is the mental illness most often evidenced as diagnosed among close to half of the rampage killers studied with a documented diagnosed mental illness.

Kacyznski is pretty good example of an individual diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia, that carried out detailed killings for close to 23 years without getting caught. And refused to admit that he had a mental illness for purposes of trial which is a hallmark of schizophrenia.

Interesting too that when he was young, his mother thought he might be autistic, but didn't follow through with testing, well before there was a DSM diagnosis of autism spectrum disorders.

His diagnosis of schizophrenia was questioned by some professionals who interacted with him in prison later in his life.

Tested with an IQ of 167 as a youth, and afraid of people and buildings. An extremely unique human being, that really doesn't meet the expectations of stereotypes associated with schizophrenia as a young man. Schizophrenia manifests itself like a spectrum, similar to autism, with similar associated genetic markers.

A common perception is that all schizophrenics hear voices and have hallucinations, while some only experience psychosis, delusion, and paranoia. Some people whom are treated live full and reasonably happy lives, and many would never know they were diagnosed with schizophrenia through observable behavior.

The same is associated with the genetic association of a lack of empathy, lack of fear, and remorse seen among psychopaths; those same potential genetic associated traits, in others result in no behaviors outside of the social norm, and are suspected traits among the heroes among us in the military and law enforcement.

It takes an extremely rare mix of factors, including human ones, to come together to result in a rampage killing, or serial killing, beyond the social norm. It's not really an issue that can be assigned specific to mental illness and/or psychopathy, just associated with it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ted_Kaczynski

James Holmes was not the academic genius that Ted Kacyznski was.

Unlike his daddy, James Holmes' high school B average grades could not get him into UCLA, Stanford or UC Berkeley, the schools that awarded diplomas to his father. Instead he went to UC Riverside and then the U of Colorado, from which he withdrew, supposedly for failing a post-graduate exam.

Former researchers who are now respected scientists, and who knew him from a summer camp at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies, said he was a "dolt, "not any sort of superscientist," and a "mediocre" student who was stubborn and did not listen to direction.

And here's another thought: James Holmes was a failure as a gunman and a bomber.

With as much ammo and semi-automatic firearms that he armed himself to kill innocent people in Theater 9, he should have been able to kill more than the 12 people who died and the 59 people he wounded. Why was he a failure? Because after amassing his small arsenal and thousands of rounds, he did not familiarize himself or train with them. Why not? He could not get into the local shooting range to practice handling and firing them. Because the range owner thought his application was hinky and so did not extend range membership to him.

And after being arrested, James Holmes told the local cops about the bombs in his apartment. He failed to kill anybody with his booby trapped apartment.

And then one week before the murders, he mailed to a U of CO psychiatrist his journal that detailed his plans to kill people. The mailed journal got stuck in the school mail room. If he wanted to be found out before he did the nasty mayhem, he failed to realize that people go on vacation during the summer.

If he has AS, he's probably a failure at that too.

WORD

I don't think it's wise to judge anything based on said individuals success or lack of, unless his "failings" led him to suffer from some form of acute psychotic event (which then led on to a chronic psychotic illness).

There can be many reasons why the amount killed was "low" compared to wounded; a dark theater hinders careful aiming after all. Also, some people survived direct head and neck shots in this event (not just secondary shrapnel wounds); the amount killed can easily be proportionate to the caliber of the weapon used and modern medical care (.223 is notoriously known for its bipolar like effects; sometimes it works "well", other times not; ammunition chosen has a large say).

I know of no one that can reasonably be compared to Kacyzinski, as he is one of a kind.

There is no human failure much worse than a rampage killing, regardless of diagnosis, or the killings that Kacyzinski was responsible for. There are no words of success per achievement applicable to either action, per the social norm. However, conditions like schizophrenia are not a human controlled failure, it is an organic brain condition, with similar genetic markers associated with autism.

The condition of schizophrenia is suggested to have in part, led to the end of a promising career for Kacyzinski, and before Holmes succumbed to whatever forces where associated with his crime, he wasn't any less valuable a human being than anyone else, he had problems, as many other adolescents and young adults have, but there is no evidence that he harmed anyone with his actions, before that point, and was doing what he could to make achievements in life.

If delusions were associated with Holmes behavior, there is potentially no rhyme or reason for many of his actions, other than what exists in his mind. And as far as academics go, Bryant Martin had a measured IQ of below 70; a high level of IQ or academic achievement is certainly not a requirement in a scale of rampage killing such as this one, as evidenced per Martin's rampage killings.

The media appears to have jumped on the academic success theme, to sensationalize this story, before they had all the facts.

That's nothing new, as we see that in almost all major news stories, and in part, it is likely because of the overwhelming amount of information that can be made readily accessible in a matter of minutes. Journalists are losing their ability for patience like many others in society.

Your speculation on whatever psychological problems James Holmes might have is just that: Speculation. Nobody who knows him, if they ever did, is speaking up. And he is supposedly not talking to prison psychiatrists.

And poor Holmes. Now he's been reduced to the level of a nasty Martin Bryant.

I'm not equating any of these rampage killers with each other. Quite the opposite, I'm suggesting that there are no single factors specific to rampage killing, whether it is intelligence, diagnosis of a mental illness, age demographic, gender, economic status, or any other of the many factors associated with each unique individual. Per the article I linked from psychology today, no one can provide a recipe for what makes a rampage killer.

There are common factors associated but no evidence that they work alone as causal factors, or there is any common element that all rampage killers share, beyond the described act.

There is a fairly good agreement among diagnosing professionals, reported to date, that Holmes may be experiencing delusions and/or psychosis from observing his behavior, as well as from an analysis of his documented actions, however it will likely be months before we hear any official diagnosis.

And as I stated in the last post, there is no evidence that Holmes harmed anyone as an adolescent or areas of concern that would indicate that he was at risk for that type of behavior at that point in his life, which has been reported by experts, in criminal profiling, already linked in this thread.

And as far as the autism spectrum or any other diagnosable childhood condition in the DSMIV, it is highly unlikely that a disorder where symptoms are evidenced as a young child, went without notice for 18 years by a mother that was a psychiatric nurse.

Of course that's not to suggest that the young man did not potentially have associated traits, just unlikely that symptoms working together that rise to the level of a diagnosable disorder, were present for a potential diagnosis, before he reached adulthood.

I am in no position to diagnosis Holmes, or to speculate on an actual diagnosis, but reports provided to date, by actual armchair psychiatrists, and professionals, are leaning toward the potential of a diagnosis of schizophrenia. That too is speculation, but never the less educated speculation from professionals that have evidenced credentials.

And of course while there aren't too many individuals here that offered up an opinion that they can relate through their own experiences of schizophrenia, here is a link to a site for support for schizophrenia, for the opinions of those that report they are diagnosed. Scanning the comments, they aren't much different than what one sees in this thread. Some think it's possible, some don't, some are offended at the suggestion, some aren't. But, people really got bent out of shape over Scarborough's speculation, as it was overreaching beyond what one would expect from any media professional or professional qualified to actually diagnose someone.

http://www.schizophrenia.com:8080/jiveforums/thread.jspa?messageID=404070&tstart=0

Note that such evidence is not required, but simply indicative. Ted Bundy didn't have an apparent history of that type of behavior either.

What if he's just a mean angry S.O.B.?He wanted to be in the spotlight,he wanted power over helpless people and he meant to hurt them.I don't think he's Bi- polar,on the Autism spectrum,or Schizophrenic I think he has Narcissistic personality disorder,I'm really tired of all the media sensationalizing these tragic events,it just encourages more violence since they all want their 15 seconds of fame.It's like the attention seeking child who acts out just to get someone to notice even if the attention thet get is negative.Now the bar is set even higher and the next one to embark on another shooting will have to outdo Holmes.

The weirdest thing about the shootings is that everyone knows that the Joker has green hair, not red hair. This makes me think that he must be at least a little bit crazy. It's like he was trying to do a "themed crime", but he is so nuts that he couldn't get the theme right.

The Joker thing is likely a misquote and people digging ever deeper to find a reason for the situation. Note that the person who made the statement about him saying he was the Joker is in New York. I am skeptical of the statement.

Currently, Holmes is trying to convince the jail staff that he has amnesia and doesn't know why he's in jail:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/2 ... _ref=crime

Of course, amnesia does not really work that way, but whatever.

Transparent lies to evade responsibility for wrongdoing is a common psychopathic trait.