Murder & Psychosis: Neuropsychological Profiles of Homicide Offenders with Schizophrenia
BACKGROUND:
Neurocognitive
dysfunction, a core feature of schizophrenia, is thought to contribute to the
impulsive violent aggression manifested by some individuals with schizophrenia,
but not enough is known about how homicidal individuals with schizophrenia
perform on neuropsychological measures.
AIMS:
The
primary aim of our study was to describe the neuropsychological profiles of homicide
offenders with schizophrenia. Supplementary analyses compared the criminal,
psychiatric and neuropsychological features of schizophrenic homicide offenders
with and without God/Satan/demon-themed psychotic symptoms.
METHODS:
Twenty-five
men and women diagnosed with schizophrenia who had killed another person - 21
convicted of first-degree murder and 4 found not guilty by reason of insanity -
completed neuropsychological testing during forensic evaluations.
RESULTS:
The
sample was characterised by extensive neurocognitive impairments, involving
executive dysfunction (60%), memory dysfunction (68%) and attentional
dysfunction (50%), although those with God/Satan/demon-themed psychotic
symptoms performed better than those with nonreligious psychotic content.
CONCLUSIONS:
Our
findings indicate that impaired cognition may play an important role in the
commission of homicide by individuals with schizophrenia. A subgroup with
God/Satan/demon delusions seem sufficiently less impaired that they might be
able to engage in metacognitive treatment approaches, aimed at changing their
relationship to their psychotic symptoms, thus reducing the perception of power
and omnipotence of hallucinated voices and increasing their safety
- 1Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Northwestern University, Feinberg School of Medicine, Chicago, IL, USA.
- 2Neuropsychological Associates of Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA.
- Crim Behav Ment Health. 2016 Feb 10. doi: 10.1002/cbm.1990.
No comments:
Post a Comment