Pop-psyching Germanwings

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Clarissa

March 27, 2015

It sounds like the Germanwings tragedy is about to be buried in a barrage of meaningless pop psych terminology :

Prosecutors investigating the Germanwings crash have said there were indications the co-pilot hid his illness from his employers.

If it’s a mental illness, you can’t conceal it. A person who is so crazy that he flies off his handle in the middle of a flight would manifest some symptoms before getting on a plane.

But the pop psych verbiage has entered the common usage and colonized minds. As a result, the employer did treat this malignant fellow as someone with an equivalent of a chronic common cold or persistent acne, and here is the result.

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12 responses to “Pop-psyching Germanwings”

Vic Crain

March 27, 2015

One could argue that the medical profession is partly at fault. “Depression” is so amorphously defined that virtually anyone could be categorized as having it. According to one source, 18% of Americans have anxiety/depression disorder. http://www.adaa.org/about-adaa/press-room/facts-statistics

Of course, on some days, it seems like 50% of the people around us are basket cases, but saying that 1-in-5 is unable to hold any responsible job is somewhat problematic. A complicating factor is that symptoms aren’t constant. Some people can be perfectly “normal” most of the time and then have episodes.

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1. Clarissa
  
  March 27, 2015
  ““Depression” is so amorphously defined that virtually anyone could be categorized as having it.”
  
  Exactly.
  
  “Of course, on some days, it seems like 50% of the people around us are basket cases, but saying that 1-in-5 is unable to hold any responsible job is somewhat problematic.”
  
  Again, exactly! This is just a way to sell pills to who want to delegate self-management to pharmaceutical companies.
  
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  1. Vic Crain
    
    March 27, 2015
    
    Having been on those pills, they can have a useful role to play for some people. Unfortunately, there are no metrics for assessment of when they are valuable and when they aren’t. The subjectivity of psychiatry has bedeviled the field since inception.
    
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cliff arroyo

March 27, 2015

An hour or two ago I saw on the news that his therapist had put on (unspecified) medical leave and wasn’t supposed to be working but that he concealed that (the document was found in his house).

So I guess he wasn’t fooling everybody.

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1. Tim
  
  March 31, 2015
  
  That’s the same thing they said on the news tonight.
  
  Germanwings knew about his Depression and that he was being treated for it. What he did try to hide was trying to hide apparently was that he was going through a particulary bad episode. He actually went to two different doctors, both declared him unfit for work. But instead of handing in either of his medical reports, he tore them up and threw them into the trash.
  
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  1. cliff arroyo
    
    March 31, 2015
    
    I’m back to the schizophrenia idea, I don’t think depression can make a person kill a bunch of people. Schizophrenia actually fits most of the symptoms he displayed better AFAICT.
    
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    1. Clarissa
      
      March 31, 2015
      
      Had he survived, would you find a mental disease defense credible in his case?
      
      Of course, it is within the realm of possibility that he was perfectly functioning and then just had a psychotic episode all of a sudden at that particular moment. But I find the probability to be very limited.
      
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      1. Vic Crain
        
        March 31, 2015
        
        Hypothesis 3: He had a seizure while trying to reset controls. That’s plausible depending on what psychotherapy medications he was using.
        
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        Clarissa
        
        March 31, 2015
        
        I just can’t get past him not having any seizures, psychotic breaks and depressive episodes while carrying a spoon to his mouth at breakfast that morning and at dinner the night before.
        
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        Vic Crain
        
        March 31, 2015
        
        Taking that thought further: If I am under treatment and taking meds, why would I consult a couple of new doctors? Maybe I ran out of meds and need a script while traveling. The first doc refused to issue a script and instead says he doesn’t want me flying. So I try another doc, with same result. I get on the plane, pilot leaves the cabin, and absence of meds triggers seizure. I fall to floor losing consciousness, and arm hits controls on way down.
        
        That scenario fits all the data we have about what happened and moots the debate about whether he was suicidal.
        
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      2. cliff arroyo
        
        April 1, 2015
        
        “Had he survived, would you find a mental disease defense credible in his case?”
        
        No. I don’t find mental disease/insanity defenses to be credible.
        
        In this case had he somehow survived after killing many/most of the passengers and crew I would still want him to fry (I have no ethical problem with capital punishment, only practical ones).
        
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        Clarissa
        
        April 1, 2015
        
        That’s exactly what I mean. I’ve seen crazy people, and they hurt themselves, mostly. Carrying out a meticulous plan like this is beyond their reach.
        
        And as for depression – real depression, not this on-demand Western kind – he wouldn’t be able to get on that plane at all because real depression makes it physically impossible to get through the routine that precedes boarding a plane.
        
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