Out on a limb

Enmeshment, continued.

Dr. Coplan reviews the case of Dee Dee and Gypsy Blancharde, and draws parallels to Nancy and Adam Lanza.

Do you ever get the feeling of déjà vu (“I’ve seen this all before”)? Do you ever hope that you are wrong? I’ve been having both of these feelings today.

I’ve been blogging about Adam and Nancy Lanza, their probable enmeshment (a condition in which one individual “takes over” the life of another), as well as the fact that Nancy Lanza claimed a self-invented diagnosis of Multiple Sclerosis and represented Adam has having a non-existent seizure disorder (go here and here). Whether she actually believed these things to be true, or whether her motives were more conscious and explicitly manipulative, we do not know. Thereby hangs the difference between malingering and Munchausen Syndrome (or, in the case of her representation of Adam, Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy). In either case, it’s pretty clear to me that mom was the driving force behind events – until the very end. Adam had been so cut off from the outside world by his mother, that the only way he saw to free himself was “to shoot his way out”. That doesn’t explain why he went on a rampage at a nearby elementary school; for that we have to look at Adam’s own neurodevelopmental and neuropsychiatric issues. But his rage toward his mother can be accounted for as a reaction against years of parent-child enmeshment (which has been described by researchers as “emotional incest” .) Read the rest of this entry »

I am in an interesting conversation with a reader on Facebook about the Newtown shootings.

I am in an interesting conversation with a reader on Facebook about the Newtown shootings. Her most recent post asks: “What other parties do you think bear responsibility?”

Here is what I wrote:

The Office of the Child Advocate’s report goes into painstaking detail on the shortcomings of the school district and the medical community. The OCA report documents numerous instances in which the school district deviated from recommended practices. To cite but one example, the SD persisted in classifying Adam as “Other Health Impaired” rather than “Autistic” or “Emotionally Disturbed.” Quoting from the report: “By this point [2006 – six years before the fatal outcome], there were multiple indicators that AL met statutory-regulatory criteria and applicable guidance for autism spectrum disorders or, alternatively, for emotional disturbance… Read the rest of this entry »