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I realize this isn’t a top quality post, so I accept the judgement of the mods, but a mistrial has been declared in the case of Lindsay Clancy. Shes the woman in Massachusetts who admitted to killing her kids, but claims she was suffering from postpartum psychosis.
The jury deliberated for seven days. Apparently, it came down to one male juror holding out against the other (nine female, two male) jurors. The belief is that he wanted to vote guilty. The jury reported to the judge that the holdout refused to follow the law regarding reasonable doubt, and the defense tried to have him removed. The judge refused. This morning, the judge declared a mistrial but gave defense one hour to get a stay from the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts.
Predictably, the online discourse is off the walls. X lifts the holdout up as a hero, while Reddit believes he (we know it’s a male because the defense said so) is an MRA/red piller and needs to have his phone searched.
Personally, I think she’s guilty of premeditated, cold blooded murder. That said, I get the postpartum argument, but am horrified by the defense of her and holding her up as some kind of hero.
Some thoughts as I've been forced to learn much more about this case than I've wanted to know:
-A common response to the media conversation around this case is to criticize women for brainless takes that do not engage with the information about the case or expert commentary. This includes me, I've been frustrated.
-It seems like actual experts in this field are landing on a psychotic process (most likely postpartum psychosis) as the explanation of events. That is to say she is legitimately not guilty by reason of insanity. This moved the needle for me. How can I criticize women for being retarded and not listening to actual information if I don't listen to experts and people with specific knowledge of the case.
-As a legal matter, it sounds like the expectation from knowledgable parties has been a hung jury or not guilty by reason of insanity because of structural, jurisdiction specific aspects of this type of defense in MA.
-I don't know how easy it will be to parse this without a medical background, but for a relevant podcast by a forensic psychiatrist you can search on YouTube " Lindsay Clancy Trial: Forensic Psychiatrist Explains Psychosis, Malingering, & Insanity Defense."
-Incidentally I strongly suspect one or both of the hosts of that podcast are Rationalist/Scott diaspora types, so if you are reading this: loved the metal gear reference.
Given what we know about the state of psychology (ie a lot of bunk science) I don’t really give two shits what it’s “experts” think.
This a psychiatric (medical) matter not a psychological one.
Even if it was just psychology.....plenty of parts of the field have evidence base and predict the world. Some parts don't.
Do you feel qualified to assess if this specific thing is something that has well validated data or not?
One can look at the sweep of psychiatric theories over the last 100 years and find the field wanting. And bad science. Tons of bad science.
Can you point to something in the last 40 years that is clear and obvious bad science or a bad psychiatric theory?
These are probably more mixed examples than you'd think. To my understanding repressed memory theory was a longstanding vestigium from the old days of psychiatry, once the field became more scientific, medicine got more tools, and we learned how memory worked it did get deprecated. This is science working as we'd hope with people making adjustment when more data is available. As you note it did take awhile.
This specific issue (especially on the satantic panic end) and the transgenderism issue that someone else posted are also examples of medical authority being coopted for politics, which is a problem, a known fail state, probably most famously known in COVID but also famously a problem in authoritarian states (ex: Sluggish Schizophrenia). This is absolutely a fair criticism but isn't a reason to toss out the whole thing.
The SSRI studies are part of a wider conversation which is complicated and confusing and hard to summarize here.
There are fads despite whatever the current 'evidence-based' approach is. The Trans thing is a recent one to have gone political.
The homosexuals protested until they were removed from the DSM, but that was outside the 40 year window you set.
How secure are all the diagnosis of ADD / ADHD in active boys?
Michelle Remembers by psychiatrist Lawrence Pazder was published in 1980. How far back are the longstanding vestigium from the old days of psychiatry?
Do you remember all the dissociative identity disorder diagnoses, DID in the '90's? Previously rare suddenly tens of thousands.
Throw out the whole thing, maybe not. It's not like we've better solutions. But increased circumspection and less deference. Especially in medico-legal areas. This is how Constance Fisher murdered 3 children in 1954 and then 3 more in 1967.
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Transgenderism. See the cass report on the outcomes.
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