Skip to main content

The myth, misconception and misdirection of motive in mass shootings

 

Photo: Vernon Bryant, Dallas Morning News 

Almost the first thing you hear out of the mouths of police after a mass shooting is: “We’re looking for a motive.”

In Gilroy, CA, the FBI is investigating the shooting at the Gilroy Garlic Festival as domestic terrorism. In El Paso, TX, police are describing the shooting as a possible hate crime and act of domestic terrorism, and focusing on the manifesto written by the shooter. Police in Dayton, OH, are still looking for a motive for why 24-year-old Connor Betts murdered nine people in 30 seconds.

But if we want to prevent shootings, asking about motive will just get you a useless answer to the wrong question. Police might feel as if they have an explanation for why 19-year-old Santino William Legan murdered three people, and why 21-year-old Patrick Crusius murdered 22 people. But motives don’t explain the roots of why those three young men, or any other mass shooters or bombers, foreign or domestic, start their journey as innocent babies and end up on a road to killing people. And in those roots, are our solutions.

If you use the lens of the science of adverse childhood experiences, the answer reveals itself, and usually pretty quickly.  

In a recent Los Angeles Times article, “We have studied every mass shooting since 1966. Here’s what we’ve learned about the shooters”, Jillian Peterson and James Delaney of The Violence Project wrote: “First, the vast majority of mass shooters in our study experienced early childhood trauma and exposure to violence at a young age. The nature of their exposure included parental suicide, physical or sexual abuse, neglect, domestic violence, and/or severe bullying.”

Here's why that’s important….it’s all about that road from cute baby to distressed murderer. Childhood trauma can lead people to becoming killers, if there’s no intervention. It can also lead to people having heart attacks, cancer, arthritis, becoming alcoholic and suicidal. That was originally revealed in the CDC-Kaiser Permanente Adverse Childhood Experiences Study.

The ACE Study showed a remarkable link between 10 types of childhood trauma — such as witnessing a mother being hit, living with a family member who is addicted to alcohol or who is mentally ill, living with a parent who is emotionally abusive, experiencing divorce — and the adult onset of chronic disease, mental illness, being violent or a victim of violence, among many other consequences. The study found that two-thirds of the more than 17,000 participants, who were mostly white, had an ACE score of at least one, and 12 percent had an ACE score of four or more. (For more information, see ACEs Science 101and Got Your ACE Score?) Subsequent ACE questionnaires include experiencing bullying, the foster care system, losing a family member to deportation, racism, community violence and being a war refugee, among other traumatic experiences. ACEs are now divided into three types: adverse experiences in families, adverse community experiences, and adverse climate experiences.

The point is — and the science is irrefutable now — just as a bullet ripping through flesh and bone, if a kid experiences something that causes toxic stress, damage to the structure and function of the brain will occur. How, and if they heal, depends on a kid being given resilience from adult who is able to do so — parent, caregiver, teacher, coach, imam — as well as the health of the social and physical environment in which they live.

This is all part of ACEs science, which includes ACEs, the bad things that happen to you when you’re a kid; the toxic stress from ACEs that damage a kid’s brain; how that toxic stress affects their health and behavior; how toxic stress can be passed on from generation to generation through our genes; and, most important and relevant to how we prevent shootings, how the brain and body can heal.

Most pertinent here, is how toxic stress affects health and behavior. The data is startling: The more ACEs you have, the greater the risk for chronic disease, mental illness, violence and being a victim of violence. People have an ACE score of 0 to 10. Each type of trauma counts as one, no matter how many times it occurs. You can think of an ACE score as a cholesterol score for childhood trauma. For example, people with an ACE score of 4 are twice as likely to be smokers and seven times more likely to be alcoholic. Having an ACE score of 4 increases the risk of emphysema or chronic bronchitis by nearly 400 percent, and attempted suicide by 1200 percent. People with high ACE scores are more likely to be violent, to have more marriages, more broken bones, more drug prescriptions, more depression, and more autoimmune diseases. People with an ACE score of 6 or higher are at risk of their lifespan being shortened by 20 years. 

Kids experiencing trauma act out. They can’t focus. They can’t sit still. Or they withdraw. Fight, flight or freeze — that’s a normal and expected response to trauma. So they can’t learn. The schools that respond by suspending or expelling them just further traumatize them, and drive them into the prison system.

When they get older, they cope by drinking, overeating, doing drugs, smoking, as well as over-achieving or engaging in thrill sports. To them, these are solutions. They’re not problems. Nicotine reduces anxiety. Food soothes. Some drugs, such as meth, are anti-depressants. So telling someone how bad smoking is for them isn’t likely to make much of an impression if it relieves anxiety.

I’d bet that the shooters’ ACE scores were pretty high.

Although we can’t predict if a kid with ACEs will express their toxic stress outwardly in violence to others, or turn inward to do more harm to themselves, or, in some cases, do both, we know enough to intervene at every step of the way…and should. Warning signs will always show themselves, if we’re educated to see them. And if we address these signs, we have a better shot at preventing not just violence, but all other ways childhood adversity can affect us as adults if our systems integrate practices based on ACEs science.

And there are plenty of examples of how integrating ACEs science in organizations and systems is diverting kids affected by ACEs from lives of violence and disease:

  • An elementary school in San Diego stops suspending and expelling students. They don’t need to. And the kids’ grades, test scores and attendance climb. Teachers are happier and less stressed.
  • A health clinic in Pueblo, Colorado, sees a 30 percent drop in visits to the emergency room.
  • A juvenile diversion program in Philadelphia reduces arrests from 1600 to 500 in three years. In San Diego, during the first year of a juvenile detention facility that was built to be trauma-informed from the ground up, there were no violent incidents whatsoever.
  • Pediatricians say they have a better relationship with parents and their kids. They can address developmental problem, identify family violence earlier, and help heal families.
  • After one year, family courts that integrate the Safe Babies Courts approach see 99 percent of the kids suffer no further abuse.
  • A family physician in Tennessee who treats people addicted to opioids sees that 99 percent of his patients are able to hold down a job.
  • Within 24 to 48 hours after a person recovers from an opioid overdose in Plymouth County, MA, a police officer visits and offers to take them to a rehab facility right then and there. And then says, “How about I treat you to dinner on the way?” The result? A 26 percent drop in opioid overdoses, while other nearby counties see an 84 percent increase. 
  • A batterer intervention program in Bakersfield, CA, sees recidivism rates fall from 60 percent to six percent.
  • In Cowlitz County, Washington, youth suicide and suicide attempts drop 98 percent.

But back to the myth, misconception and misdirection of motive: If not motive, what should we focus on instead? How about a forensic analysis of ACEs and resilience factors in mass shooters’ childhoods? You can begin to envision this approach in the news articles that focus on “What do we know about the shooter?” Here are examples from the Los Angeles Times and the Ohio Dispatch.

What I’m talking about is taking this approach further by identifying every step along the way that a family, a school, a pediatrician, a coach, people in the faith-based community, police, foster care, juvenile detention, probation, youth organizations, etc., could have intervened to help that child and/or their family when it was clear the kid was troubled. (And troubled kids are often a symptom of a troubled family and/or a troubled community, which need help.) And after figuring out the solutions, embedding those new healing practices in all of those organizations.

I’m not advocating using this approach to blame families, organizations, systems or communities. I’m advocating doing this so that our organizations and systems can move from blame, shame and punishment in changing human behavior to what really works: understanding, nurturing and healing.

Add Comment

Comments (41)

Newest · Oldest · Popular

Thinking aloud for debate:   On the question of why mass shooters with "high ACEs" seem to be primarily men  vs women  --  I do not have the sources in front of me, but I am sure that someone in this group will quickly cite multiple sources to substantiate that (at least in the school age spectrum)  young males with "high ACE" history are more likely to respond to life, to threats, to frustration with aggression ("fight") versus females who are more likely to dissociate ("freeze"), and maybe self-harm or self-medicate (depending on the specific ACE category) in response.   I cannot recall the degree of difference, but there is a difference between male and female behavioral response.  It is in the data.

 

Some of the science is based on relative changes in amygdala-size associated with males versus females with "high ACEs".

Last edited by Daun Kauffman

There are many structural factors that need to be addressed to prevent childhood adversity as well as gun violence--including very practical factors like access to guns and, specifically assault weapons.  I am quite struck that *racism* is not being discussed as an important structural factor in any of these posts--since in our white supremacist society--it is a driver of many forms of structural violence that traumatize children--and appears to be a very powerful factor in the dehumanization process that drove this particular person who committed mass murder in El Paso.  We cannot discuss ACEs and their impact on children without discussing how racism, misogyny, other forms of oppression are sources of childhood trauma and drivers of how violence is perpetuated individually and structurally.  ACEs conversations that do not explore and discuss how trauma is rooted in oppression are not going to result in significant, societal, worldwide social justice changes that need to happen to prevent further adversity for children, families and communities.  

Agreed, Leigh. We include racism in ACEs, as well as mysogeny, sexism, discrimination based on nation of origin, religion, ethnic group, etc. Anything that causes toxic stress is an ACE.

I'll be writing more about that soon.

Vincent J. Felitti, MD posted:
Grayson Lookner posted:

I've been reading Hannah Arendt's "The Origins of Totalitarianism" about the rise of nazism in Germany and some of the economic and social factors that created a generation of monsters; and some of the parallels with today are uncanny. Arendt had no knowledge of ACEs or the biochemical factors at play in trauma. I think there is a fascinating albeit terrifying connection between trauma and extreme ideologies."The Origins of Ideology" is a book that needs to be written.

It's important to realize that, the brain being essentially a neurochemical machine, anything that produces brain activity will produce biochemical changes there.  Typically, these are intermediate mechanisms, not basic causes.  This is important to keep in mind when trying to figure out WHY something is happening.  

An 81 year old woman on 24-hour a day oxygen for lung failure expressed this nicely.  Heavily molested as a child, she got significant relief from 3 pack a day smoking because of the anxiety-reducing effect of inhaled nicotine (apart from its significant long-term damage).  Moreover, the cloud of smoke now continually surrounding her helped keep people at a certain distance.  She married slender and at age 35 her husband convinced her to stop smoking for her health.  Suddenly she was flooded by male sexual attention that she had no experience with.  Profoundly anxious, she ate to reduce her anxiety. This helped and she gained from 130 pounds to 310, which really helped reduce sexual attention.  However, she also went into acute and chronic respiratory failure because the lung damage she could handle at 130, she could not handle at 310.  She went on 24-hour oxygen for 2 decades, when she entered our Obesity program.  We took her down from 310 to 150 and she no longer needed the oxygen.   Congratulating ourselves on this success before we really understood the complexity of the issues going on, she was again flooded with male sexual attention.  Badly frightened, she consciously decided to get back over 300 pounds and accept the fact she'd be on constant oxygen the rest of her life.  

I have a video interview with her where she makes the profound comment that, "It's important to understand that weighing 300 pounds and smoking 3 packs a day are not the problem.  They are the symptoms of the problem."  I often wished I Had met her and she had told me this fifty years ago; it would have made my professional life a lot easier.

Obviously corelation does not equal causality, but there is certainly a connection. Arendt also spoke of how many millions of people in Europe after the First World War, due to myriad factors, had become "isolated" and "atomized." She spoke of the great masses of "superfluous men" who had been created or locked out of the economic lives of their communities. This to me sounds very reminiscent of people raised in alcoholic homes. Norman Ohler also recently wrote a brilliant book based on source material called "Blitzed" about how a drug epidemic in Weimar Germany portended the rise of nazism. There is no denying that for one reason or another, these conditions have resurfaced in America at present. That should terrify us all.

 

I looked at a map of the states with the highest rates of ACEs and the lowest rates of ACEs. Not surprisingly, the states with the highest rates were some of the poorest and least educated states. If I'm not mistaken 8/10 of the states with the highest ACE scores voted for the candidate that used the most inciteful rhetoric in the last presidential election.

 

I think toxic stress throughout a lifetime can make people feel bitter and resentful. They look outwardly for causes of their inner distress. An ideology that provides easily identifiable scapegoats is has a seductive lure for many who have found that life hasn't treated them fairly from a young age. A lot goes into an ideology, but it is clear that there are many people who are not happy in our current system with the status quo who are ready to take extreme action up to and including commiting acts of terrorism.

 

How can we provide an environment in which these people can come back to reality? Is it even worth trying? With so much social, professional, psychological, and medical denial around the fundamental role that ACEs play in shaping our world and our individual experiences, it seems like a long shot to convince people that instead of blaming immigrants for their problems, that they should instead look to their childhoods.

Obviously the politicization of research is and should be very taboo, but as we've seen with out groundbreaking science that threatens to upend our understanding of ourselves and our places in the world -- such as that of climate change -- perhaps such politicization is unavoidable.

Leigh Kimberg posted:

There are many structural factors that need to be addressed to prevent childhood adversity as well as gun violence--including very practical factors like access to guns and, specifically assault weapons.  I am quite struck that *racism* is not being discussed as an important structural factor in any of these posts--since in our white supremacist society--it is a driver of many forms of structural violence that traumatize children--and appears to be a very powerful factor in the dehumanization process that drove this particular person who committed mass murder in El Paso.  We cannot discuss ACEs and their impact on children without discussing how racism, misogyny, other forms of oppression are sources of childhood trauma and drivers of how violence is perpetuated individually and structurally.  ACEs conversations that do not explore and discuss how trauma is rooted in oppression are not going to result in significant, societal, worldwide social justice changes that need to happen to prevent further adversity for children, families and communities.  

Thank you.

Daun Kauffman posted:

Thinking aloud for debate:   On the question of why mass shooters with "high ACEs" seem to be primarily men  vs women  --  I do not have the sources in front of me, but I am sure that someone in this group will quickly cite multiple sources to substantiate that (at least in the school age spectrum)  young males with "high ACE" history are more likely to respond to life, to threats, to frustration with aggression ("fight") versus females who are more likely to dissociate ("freeze"), and maybe self-harm or self-medicate (depending on the specific ACE category) in response.   I cannot recall the degree of difference, but there is a difference between male and female behavioral response.  It is in the data.

 

Some of the science is based on relative changes in amygdala-size associated with males versus females with "high ACEs".

Yes, it is in the data for sure. Which to me begs the question of why, if gender is such a strong indicator for who will become a mass shooter, are we not focusing on that. ACEs is not, in fact, a strong indicator. As I mentioned  in my comment, white U.S. males are likely to experience a lower ACE score than almost any other segment of the population particularly if you build in historical or generational trauma, and yet are the most likely to be mass shooters. It makes little sense, then, to be looking at ACE scores - as they are currently defined - in order to understand this American phenomenon. What I do agree with the author on is looking at resilience. I believe this would be the most productive avenue of inquiry.

Last edited by Sophie Morse

Males have a higher rate of depression.  Dr. Gabor Mate' during his 2019 Scotland presentation, refers to depression as a result of depressed healthy anger during ones childhood.  Draw your own conclusions.

 

Attachments

Images (1)
  • mceclip0

 I disagree with the comment (paraphrased) that the majority of the mass shooters are white males and they as  a population group are most likely to have a low ACE scores so  it makes little sense to look into ACE scores . Although this group may have less of a percentage of high ACEs,I would say that the shooters who are white probably have a high ACE score.  I work with many different population groups of different races and all groups are susceptible to getting multiple ACEs and I think that we should look at why white males with HIGH ACEs  become mass shooters. We had a mass shooting about a mile and a half from my office about three years ago (San Bernardino CA) those shooters were Middle Eastern male and female. I  have seen most races involved in mass shootings. Perhaps since the largest population group in the US is white could be the reason that as what has been stated,that most shooters are white. I have not broken down the percentage of each population group and matched it up with the percentage of shooters in each catagory as it pertains to race and that could be done.This calculation needs to be done in order to correctly  target the potential shooters.(maybe I shouldn't have used the word target .  In the San Bernardino mass shooting there were a man and a woman and they were Middle Eastern.  I appreciate the opportunity to participate in these postings and to read and learn about ACEs which has opened up the door for my understanding. Before this I was concentrating on  lives lived with CHRONIC ADVERSITY.ACEs is where it starts and contributes to lives with chronic adversity.

 

        Many who have ACEs and continue to live in chronic adversity are an inspiration to others as they trudge the road of life helping others in their own plight.Let me speak as an ACE filled person who lives a life of chronic adversity and has created a safe place for felons,abused and victimized persons for over 40 years and have helped over 1,000 people in this population group.My office is about a mile and half from the site of a mass shooting in San Bernardino about three years ago(est).I am in one of the poorest zip codes in the US and have a high crime rate.We think politics have little to do with mass shooters .It is their excuse.I think that these shooters feel validated to carry out their merciless act after they hear famous people in the news talk out about politics,immigration and other hot issues.These shooters are already locked and loaded.Their damage was done years ago. Sure some of these ACE filled individuals look outwardly other than their families but most blame their families ,some don't even know they have ACEs and just think that this is life and they deal with it sometimes in a self destructive manner and others who may not physically hurt their children ,often neglect them not even realizing that they are doing so because that is how they grew up. Somewhere along the family line ,one will do some real damage but for most it is a slow death as they drink,smoke,overeat,and take drugs. 5 who have left my group have died violent deaths,3 were shot to death,one knifed to death,and one in a drunk driving accident. I have attended some funerals,visited some in jail but mostly I put them to work and give them job skills and responsibilities so that they have a purpose in life and can make a living. I have had some come in single ,then get married,have children and then their children came to work for me.I have had some grandparents who worked for me call me and ask if I can put their grandchild to work because he is getting into trouble. I have many races here all working together.I think that to make this racial,political ,gets us off track of the problem of living with ACEs and preventing them. I am aware that growing up in certain minorities is an ACE in itself because there are racial issues that put the child at a disadvantage so that awareness needs to be stated in order to enlighten  others so that we can effect a change for the coming generations.Believe it or not we are much better off regarding racial issues now than 50 years ago,20 years ago,10 years ago. We are getting there. I have seen and experienced the changes. I was born in 1949.   I really think that putting blame on politics,certain groups of low educated,poor persons living in states that voted for the president are predicted shooters are way off  our mission of treating and preventing ACEs.

Dear Fred Fruehan- Thank you so much for sharing about your experience and the important, life-saving and healing work you are doing. It is inspiring to hear about how you have sustained such healing relationships over multiple generations in families--at the same time, my heart breaks to hear of your losses. My hope is that we become a country and world in which all children have safe, stable, nurturing childhoods and the opportunity to thrive as adolescents and adults. To achieve this we will need many healing programs like the one you lead as well as many political changes--at the same time. There are so many structural factors built into society that cause harm. You raise the issue of poverty--which is perpetuated by political policy decisions. I raise the issue of racism--which is pervasive in the US and globally.  Breaking the cycle of the inter-generational transmission of ACEs will require us to address both the intense suffering people are experiencing due to adversity on an individual basis and the political decisions that perpetuate adversity for individuals, families and communities.  I have faith that we can do both of these things at the same time.  Thank you for sharing more about your inspiring work.

Passing on Disorganized Attachment to kids...It’s what I’ve seen all over rural America and it’s made much worse by the stress of no jobs, yep... policies like ending AFDC (a democratic policy decision), three strikes (also a Democratic decision), so I would really like to see OB-Gyn clinics and Pediatrics offices assess maternal attachment some way so that parents can get the education they need to resolve their own traumatic attachment so this doesn’t continue to be passed down through the generations.

Attachment trauma can affect rich folks, middle class folks and poor folks.... I think everywhere everyone is looking for someone to scapegoat - it was the poorest kids where I grew up.  Somewhere else, maybe someone else. 

Where do ACEs come from?   What is the root cause?   They don’t just come out of the blue or grow on a tree.  

No matter how one looks at this - it will always in some way involve dysfunctional parenting.  Parents need to be protected in their most important job so that kids can be loved and can grow up healthy.  It is always going to be stressed parents who cannot parent or even just parents who were stressed when the infant was in the womb but somehow this is attached to the parent. 

If I had been a parent, I would have been a disaster after being on the receiving end of 3 generations (at least)  of disorganized attachment in great-grandparents, grand-parents, parents and now watching it unfold in siblings.

Last edited by Former Member
Leigh Kimberg posted:

There are many structural factors that need to be addressed to prevent childhood adversity as well as gun violence--including very practical factors like access to guns and, specifically assault weapons.  I am quite struck that *racism* is not being discussed as an important structural factor in any of these posts--since in our white supremacist society--it is a driver of many forms of structural violence that traumatize children--and appears to be a very powerful factor in the dehumanization process that drove this particular person who committed mass murder in El Paso.  We cannot discuss ACEs and their impact on children without discussing how racism, misogyny, other forms of oppression are sources of childhood trauma and drivers of how violence is perpetuated individually and structurally.  ACEs conversations that do not explore and discuss how trauma is rooted in oppression are not going to result in significant, societal, worldwide social justice changes that need to happen to prevent further adversity for children, families and communities.  

How about the very real oppression (and dehumanization) of parent over child?  

Last edited by Former Member

Biology .....

Teleological Significance of the Child's Response to Threat

Why do different individuals use distinct response patterns in the face of threat ? Age seems to play a role. Our clinical experience suggests that the younger an individual is, the more likely they are to use dissociative adaptations over hyperarousal responses. The nature of the trauma seems to be important to the pattern of adaptation; the more immobile, helpless, and powerless the individual feels, the more likely they are to utilize dissociative responses. When physical injury, pain or torture (hence, opioid activation) is involved in the traumatic experience, an individual will be more likely to use dissociative responses. Finally there is a clear sex difference in response patterns; females utilize dissociative adaptations more than males. Some insight into these clinical observations can be found in examining the relationship between these responses and the underlying purpose of all brain related functions -- survival. In order to persist over thousands of generations, each response pattern must have some adaptive advantages.

It is easy to see the adaptive advantage conferred by the aggressively defensive hyperarousal/fight or flight response in adult males. One can only imagine what would have happened to the human species in the face of threat if adult males always dissociated in the face of threat. A group of numb, passive and immobile humans would be easy prey for natural predators.

Humans evolved over the last 250,000 years in the presence of two major predators: large cats (e.g., tigers, panthers) and, the most dangerous predators, other hominids, including humans (see Leakey, 1994). To the cats, all humans (males, females and children) -- were roughly equivalent prey, with some preferences for the small, slow and weak. To other hominids, however, there was a dramatic difference between males, females and young children. As described extensively in anthropological literature, it was likely a common practice for clans of hominids to raid a competing clan's camp, drive away or kill the males and take the females and young children as property (not unlike the recent history of Western 'Civilization').

It promoted survival of the species if young children and females survived these raids. It was more adaptive for children to dissociate and surrender than to be hyperaroused and try a fight or flight response. In the face of threat, it was self-protective to become numb, nonhysterical, compliant, obedient and not combative. Running would result in isolation and sure death. Fighting would be futile.

The same is likely true for adult females. One need not imagine long the response of a violent human male when faced with one female who will willingly comply with the commands to move to his camp and with another who is screaming, yelling, hitting, fighting and trying to run away. Hyperarousal (fighting or fleeing) would clearly reduce the 'property' value of a female, reducing the probability that her genes would be passed to another generation. Both the hyperarousal and the dissociative continuum were selected as adaptive advantages through thousands of generations of clan/tribal intra-species warfare.

As the human animal matures and grows more capable of fleeing and fighting, the predominance of the dissociative adaptation appears to diminish. It continues to be an extremely important adaptive response in the face of threat, however. In large part because dissociation allows one to maintain or even diminish the internal state of physiological hyperarousal, thereby allowing cognition and problem-solving at a higher level of capability than would be possible in a state of absolute terror.

While there are undoubtedly many other possible reasons for the evolution of dissociation and hyperarousal response, there are clear sex and age differences in predominant adaptive style. This is obvious when examining epidemiological data related to the incidence of neuropsychiatric disorders in male compared to female children. The three to one (male to female) ratio of childhood neuropsychiatric problems disappears in adolescence and, suddenly, in early adulthood shifts to become two to one (female to male). In childhood more boys meet diagnostic criteria for externalizing disorders such as ADHD, conduct disorder, and oppositional defiant disorder while more girls have a higher incidence of internalizing disorders such as depressive, anxiety or dissociative disorders.

The vast majority of young children from backgrounds of abuse and neglectand other trauma who present to the mental health system with symptoms of aggression, inattentiveness and noncompliance are male. They typically are diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). One wonders what happens to all the young girls who have been similarly traumatized. Children present to the mental health system because some adults in their world have been upset by their symptoms (which have almost always been caused by other adults). A compliant, dissociative, depressed young girl will generally nobe brought to the attention of the mental health system, while her combative, verbally abusive and behaviorally-impulsive hyperaroused sibling (coming from the exact same abusive setting) will be. The potential homicide threatens, the potential suicide inconveniences.

 

From Dr. Perry (Excuse me if the last paragraph was edited in the journal publication. I don’t have access to that but this is the gist). 

 

Last edited by Former Member
Tina Marie Hahn, MD posted:

"While there are undoubtedly many other possible reasons for the evolution of dissociation and hyperarousal response, there are clear sex and age differences in predominant adaptive style. This is obvious when examining epidemiological data related to the incidence of neuropsychiatric disorders in male compared to female children. The three to one (male to female) ratio of childhood neuropsychiatric problems disappears in adolescence and, suddenly, in early adulthood shifts to become two to one (female to male). In childhood more boys meet diagnostic criteria for externalizing disorders such as ADHD, conduct disorder, and oppositional defiant disorder while more girls have a higher incidence of internalizing disorders such as depressive, anxiety or dissociative disorders.

.A compliant, dissociative, depressed young girl will generally not be brought to the attention of the mental health system, while her combative, verbally abusive and behaviorally-impulsive hyperaroused sibling (coming from the exact same abusive setting) will be. The potential homicide threatens, the potential suicide inconveniences."

 Thanks again Tina.

Bruce Perry's work has been very helpful. In the men I treated toxic shame was often out of awareness and rage was easily triggered,  simmering rage fueled a narrative where his rejection and alienation had to be revenged. I remember well when a man brought me his gun and asked me to keep it until he felt more in control of his shame and rage. He told me that without mindfulness training and therapy he would not have been able to identify and back out of his impulse to punish his wife for leaving him.

 

Tina Marie Hahn, MD posted:
Leigh Kimberg posted:

There are many structural factors that need to be addressed to prevent childhood adversity as well as gun violence--including very practical factors like access to guns and, specifically assault weapons.  I am quite struck that *racism* is not being discussed as an important structural factor in any of these posts--since in our white supremacist society--it is a driver of many forms of structural violence that traumatize children--and appears to be a very powerful factor in the dehumanization process that drove this particular person who committed mass murder in El Paso.  We cannot discuss ACEs and their impact on children without discussing how racism, misogyny, other forms of oppression are sources of childhood trauma and drivers of how violence is perpetuated individually and structurally.  ACEs conversations that do not explore and discuss how trauma is rooted in oppression are not going to result in significant, societal, worldwide social justice changes that need to happen to prevent further adversity for children, families and communities.  

How about the very real oppression (and dehumanization) of parent over child?  

OF COURSE parent-child relationship affects ACES....we already know that. Some/Most are more than willing to fluently speak about family dysfunction and parent-child relationships.  Some do so at the expense (silencing) of other factors. 

@LeighKimberg is absolutely correct about the dyconsciousness that leaves racism and white supremacist socialization absent in these discussions.  The reality is most mass shooters of strangers are white and male, by far.  They report feeling ostracized. They have reportedly been bullied. They feel a sense of rejection.  Other historically oppressed groups--and our children--experience that type of isolation and degradation routinely.  It is not acceptable.  Yet, many white male shooters espouse racism and a sense of their own racial superiority as motive and fuel for their acting out.  In fact, the Columbine mass shooters--like that larger school population--were racist to their Black shooting victim...calling him a nigger regularly and before the two white shooters murdered him. Why wasn't that fact addressed in the media...because white people do not want to hear it nor talk about it. So, white feelings prevail again over truth telling and the opportunity to address root cause of much pain. White feelings thwart healing and repair, again.

These mass killings of strangers are not crimes of poverty. They are not family violence...though mass shooters also target their family members.  They are not urban turf wars (see poverty). They have been taught to externalize their pain. Social teaching/learning has convinced them that violence is a tool. Both population violence and gun violence are tools used by people the larger society lauds in one capacity or another...without REAL critique of the morality of cause for which those white men were using population violence or gun violence.

Gun violence is an efficient and effective way to let people know that they should not have messed with the shooter. The right to demand comfort undergirds the externalization of white violence....emotional violence (make me feel 'bad' and I will undermine/coalesce a social network against you)...economic violence (inconvenience me or get out of your socially designated place and I will take your resources)...physical violence (I will kill or attack you if you make me 'feel' smaller than I have been taught I am).  The right to use physical violence is an identity staple for white American men. The worship of 'warriors' and war mongering being one example.

White privilege makes some white people lack resilience. White privilege can encourage one to resort to population-level emotional and physical violence when one feels denied/hurt.  Population-level violence exacted by white people keeps with the history of this country and the planet. Genocide...taking the resources of non-white people rather than asking for trade relationship and engaging in fair trade and so on...

It is intellectually dishonest and perhaps self-serving (rooted in denial/shame?) to divorce white racial socialization and white history from the means these men/boys use. 

While 'oppressive parenting'  and household dysfunction (keeping with the original ACES) may contribute to adversity and the need for resilience.... it is white society, white racial identity socialization, and racialized gender socialization (white masculinity) that creates mass shooters who externalize their emotional pain on a population. 

Last edited by Pamela Denise Long

Appreciate your perspective Pamela...... 

This work is congruent with my own perspective.  

https://pdfs.semanticscholar.o...87bf001c86117ccf.pdfBB0C5126-57A7-4C76-BB4C-BC913A30EDA4

“The Future: Impediments to Problem-Solving and Prevention


There are many important and effective treatment approaches to the child traumatized by violence. Yet even with optimal clinical ‘techniques’, treatment of maltreated children would overwhelm the entire mental health and child welfare community in this country. Today the number of children that would benefit from intervention far outstrips the meager resources our society has dedicated to children exposed to violence. Even as we develop more effective and accessible intervention models, we must focus on prevention.


A society functions as a reflection of its childrearing practices. If children are ignored, poorly educated and not protected from violence they will grow into adults that create a reactive, non- creative and violent society. In a brilliant analysis of this very process, Hellie (1996) describes a dark age in Russia (1600 to 1700) characterized by excessive brutality, violence and pervasive fear that for generations inhibited creativity, abstraction, literacy and the other elements of humanity. All societies reap what they have sown.


Today, in the United States, despite the well-documented adverse effects of domestic, community, school and media violence, we continue to seek short-term and simplistic answers. In order to minimize the many destructive pathways that come from violence in childhood, we need to dedicate resources of time, energy and money to these complex problems. And we need to help provide the resource-predictable, safe and resource rich environments our problem-solvers require. Too often the academic, public and non-for-profit systems asked to address these problems are resource-depleted yet have a mandate to “do something.” Unfortunately, the solutions that arise from this reactive approach to complex problems are very limited and, typically, short-sighted (see Table 2).

Our problem-solvers must understand the indelible relationship between early life experiences and cognitive, social, emotional, and physical health. Providing enriching cognitive, emotional, social and physical experiences in childhood could transform our culture. But before our society can choose to provide these experiences, it must be educated about what we now know about child development. Education of the public must be coupled with the continuing research into the impact of positive and negative experiences on the development of children. All of this must be paired with the implementation and testing of programs that can enrich the lives of children and families and programs to provide early identification of, and proactive intervention for, at-risk children and families.


The problems related to violence are complex and they have complex impact on our society. Yet there are solutions to these problems. The choice to find solutions is up to us. If we choose, we have some control of our future. If we, as a society, continue to ignore the laws of biology, and the inevitable neurodevelopmental consequences of chronic exposure to violence in childhood, our potential as a humane society will remain unrealized. The future will hold sociocultural devolution - the inevitable consequence of the competition for limited resources and the implementation of reactive, one-dimensional and short-term solutions. This need not be. Parents, caregivers, professionals, public officials and policy makers do have the capacity to make decisions that will increase or decrease violence in our children’s lives. Hopefully, an appreciation of the devastating impact of violence on the developing child will help all of us make the good decisions and difficult choices that will create a safer, more predictable and enriching world for children.” 

 

Attachments

Images (1)
  • BB0C5126-57A7-4C76-BB4C-BC913A30EDA4


Public Policy Implications: 


Ultimate solution to the problems of violence -- whether from the remorseless predator or the reactive, impulsive youth -- is primary prevention.

Our society is creating violent children and youth at a rate far faster than we could ever treat, rehabilitate or even lock away (Groves et al., 1993; Garbarino, 1993; Sturrock et al., 1983; Richters, 1993). No single intervention strategy will solve these heterogeneous problems. No set of intervention strategies will solve these transgenerational problems. In order to solve the problems of violence, we need to transform our culture.


We need to change our childrearing practices,

 

 

We Need To Change The Malignant and Destructive View that Children Are the Property of their Biological Parents.

 

 

Human beings evolved not as individuals, but as communities. Despite Western conceptualizations, the smallest functional biological unit of humankind is not the individual. It is the clan. No individual, no single parent-child dyad, no nuclear family could survive alone. We survived and evolved as clans -- interdependent -- socially, emotionally and biologically. Children belong to the community, they are entrusted to parents. American society, and its communities, have let down parents and children. We have not provided parents with the information and resources to optimize their children's potential and, when parents fail, we act too late and with impotence to protect and care for maltreated children.


The true potential of the human brain is rarely, if ever, realized. The major expressor of that potential is experience. The most critical and formative experiences are those provided to the developing child in the incubator of the family and, optimally, by a vital, invested community. Past and present, our society dramatically undervalues children, despite the claims that 'we love children'.


It is in the nature of humankind to be violent, but it may not be the nature of humankind. Without major transformation of our culture, without putting action behind our 'love' of children, we may never find out.

Last edited by Former Member
Tina Marie Hahn, MD posted:


Public Policy Implications: 


Ultimate solution to the problems of violence -- whether from the remorseless predator or the reactive, impulsive youth -- is primary prevention.

Our society is creating violent children and youth at a rate far faster than we could ever treat, rehabilitate or even lock away (Groves et al., 1993; Garbarino, 1993; Sturrock et al., 1983; Richters, 1993). No single intervention strategy will solve these heterogeneous problems. No set of intervention strategies will solve these transgenerational problems. In order to solve the problems of violence, we need to transform our culture.


We need to change our childrearing practices,

 

 

We Need To Change The Malignant and Destructive View that Children Are the Property of their Biological Parents.

 

 

Human beings evolved not as individuals, but as communities. Despite Western conceptualizations, the smallest functional biological unit of humankind is not the individual. It is the clan. No individual, no single parent-child dyad, no nuclear family could survive alone. We survived and evolved as clans -- interdependent -- socially, emotionally and biologically. Children belong to the community, they are entrusted to parents. American society, and its communities, have let down parents and children. We have not provided parents with the information and resources to optimize their children's potential and, when parents fail, we act too late and with impotence to protect and care for maltreated children.


The true potential of the human brain is rarely, if ever, realized. The major expressor of that potential is experience. The most critical and formative experiences are those provided to the developing child in the incubator of the family and, optimally, by a vital, invested community. Past and present, our society dramatically undervalues children, despite the claims that 'we love children'.


It is in the nature of humankind to be violent, but it may not be the nature of humankind. Without major transformation of our culture, without putting action behind our 'love' of children, we may never find out.

 Many generations agree that the West and the United States needs to change its culture.  There is far less agreement on what the current culture is, what fruit it bears, and whose voice to listen to about how to change that culture. The current culture hides the mic from skilled observers and those most impacted by current culture. It (they) would rather co opt the snippets observers share so that it can maintain itself and look a little prettier/speak a little more cleverly (lipstick on a pig and appropriation on top of it). All while substantively changing little...just shifting form.

Thanks for sharing the chart about child rearing. From my perspective this chart  requires expansion to address the various and multi layered elements we've discussed here. Do the backgrounds of the mass shooters align with the  "resource limited" approach?  Are mass shooters predominately poor or "resource limited?" OR is there a particular scarcity and competitive mindset (taught and racialized) that crosses "resource" levels?  Based on social observation, I am inclined to conclude the latter.  The scarcity mindset breeds many problems...particularly social problems. Including othering, hoarding, scorched earth acting out, perceived need for 'preemptive' aggression and protectionism.  

 

Last edited by Pamela Denise Long
Post
Copyright © 2023, PACEsConnection. All rights reserved.
×
×
×
×
Link copied to your clipboard.
×