On November 5, 2009, news reports stated that a member of the U.S. Army had gunned down a large number of people at the Fort Hood military base in Texas. The suspect was identified as Nidal Malik Hasan, a 39-year-old army psychiatrist. Speculation regarding his motives and state of mind focused first on reports that he may have had strong religious objections to his imminent deployment to Afghanistan, but since then it has widened to include accusations of blatant Islamic militancy and intimations of terrorism.
It has now been little more than a week since the violence was unleashed and in that time much has been written and spoken to promote a variety of perspectives on the crime, its real meaning, and the lessons we should learn from it. This posting comes from the perspective of a clinical psychologist who specializes in psychological trauma and other reactions to crises. Unlike many of those who have espoused strong opinions on this subject, I do not pretend to be in possession of the facts and claim no specialized knowledge or insight. Moreover, I have no interest in stampeding the public toward rash conclusions, nor of stimulating feelings of hatred and suspicion. Instead, I encourage readers to deliberate dispassionately upon what they have been told and to delicately extract the most valuable and reliable grains of truth from the blinding blizzard of chaff blown on the fevered winds of the political media. Towards that objective, I will focus on some of the psychological aspects of what I've witnessed since first learning of this terrible and senseless bloodshed.
On November 5th I was in Atlanta attending the annual meeting of the International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies (ISTSS). Word of the violence at Fort Hood spread quickly as cell phones sounded and PDAs vibrated in pockets throughout the convention hotel. The largest contingent of attendees at that conference represented the Department of Defense and the Department of Veterans Affairs. The entire leadership of the National Center for Posttraumatic Stress Disorder and the National Child Traumatic Stress Network were present, and along with many of the other attendees they are personally involved in providing trauma-related services to our military personnel, their families, their communities, and to the millions of military service veterans. More than most, they were instantly aware of the complex issue that were certain to arise regardless of the precise details that would eventually be revealed. Events of this kind inevitably send shockwaves of varying amplitude through all sectors of society, with special relevance and intensity among those who are closest to the victims and their loved ones. No one should need reminding that those who are most profoundly and durably affected are those who were killed or injured, along with all of those who emotions and fortunes are intimately tied to theirs. The communities affected are often numerous, including not just those living in and around the base, but those with bonds of affiliation through the government and the military, and others too numerous to list. All of this was on the minds of the hundreds of trauma specialists in Atlanta as we briefed each other on what we had heard, pondered what was to come, and supported each other in the face of our own shock, horror, and compassion.
Among those in attendance at the ISTSS convention were journalists affiliated with the Dart Center for Journalism and Trauma, which is located in the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. On the evening of the 5th I was fortunate to attend a reception of the Dart Center affiliates and friends, where I spoke with some of the journalists present. My impression was that they were touched and concerned, but that they had also been exposed to a great deal of tragedy in their careers and had developed ways of temporarily distancing themselves when necessary so that they could function effectively in their immediate surroundings and context. Bruce Shapiro, Director of the Dart Center, was present that night and has since published an insightful article addressing the "Myths of Fort Hood"(available at http://dartcenter.org/content/myths-fort-hood). In his article, Bruce avoids the clichés and provocative rhetoric employed by those who choose to skew coverage of such stories so as to maximize and prolong the hype-value while neglecting any obligation to provide a careful description of the facts and thoughtful deliberation on their implications. Thus, I encourage those who have come to expect that the news media will always choose to sensationalize such events to read this article as an example of what is possible in terms of balance, maturity, and rationality. But then again, this is perhaps the exception, and much of what has been influencing public opinion is of a less admirable breed.
Psychologists have studied the processes whereby salient characteristics are used to support attributions that are more effective at justifying biases and previously held beliefs than they are at explaining how or why things happened as they did. In this case the salient features include the alleged killer's religion, his past attendance at a particular place of worship, his profession, his performance during his training and subsequent service, and his reported exclamation of a religious phrase upon commencing his assault. All of these are in play as the communal public explanation is being shaped. And among the most salient characteristics of the accused is that he is a mental health professional obligated to do no harm and charged with the mission of healing mental wounds. Whenever a person violates the public's trust to care for those who are vulnerable to exploitation, be they a physician, therapist, clergyman, teacher, coach, police officer, or parent, it is normal that we recoil from such a betrayal and ponder the implications of such a breach of trust to avoid further harm. When events deviate so sharply from normal expectations, we are apt to search our minds and environments for information that allows us to reconcile the facts with our pet theories and reduce the cognitive and emotional dissonance that such aberrations stimulate. In this case the violence against innocent people by a trusted person is but one part of a complex set of issues that cross into politics and inter-group conflicts of international proportions. And so while we grieve the losses and examine the explanations, the calm and rational voices that proceed with careful deliberation are drowned out by the shrill screams of those who would panic and stampede us toward their favorite traps. Hopefully, most of us will resist the urges and urgencies that are fed to us by those who would lead us to ever more dreadful outcomes and compound miseries.
