Psychiatric diagnosis has been the subject of public debate after two court-appointed psychiatrists found that confessed Norwegian right-wing terrorist Anders Breivik – who murdered 77 people on 22 July – suffers from “Paranoid Schizophrenia”, and is therefore criminally insane and unfit to stand trial.
The finding sits uncomfortably with copious publicly-available information about Breivik’s actions and stated motivations, in particular his 1500-page Manifesto 2083 and his connections with a growing European far Right.
While obviously one can’t rule out psychosis, there is a jarring lack of diagnostic precision and cultural contextualisation evident in those sections of the report that are publicly available that serve to make its findings highly questionable.
Examples include the use of “bizarre delusions” to...
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