Providentia

Release Denied for Dying Manson Family Member

In a unanimous decision by the California Board of Parole, terminally ill Susan Atkins will not be allowed a compassionate release. Atkins, now 60, is serving a life sentence for her role in eight murders stemming from role in the 1969 Manson Family rampage. Charles Manson and his followers committed nine murders at four California locations over a five week period. Atkins, who was known to the other family members as Sadie Mae Glutz, was initially sentenced to death but this was later commuted to life imprisonment. She has been serving her sentence since October 1, 1969 and has been denied parole twelve times.

Despite her diagnosis of terminal brain cancer and having only months to live, the board reported that she did not show significant remorse for her crimes, including the murder of actress Sharon Tate who was 8 1/2 months pregnant at the time. Supporters of Atkins' release argued unsuccessfully that the financial costs of her medical care in prison for the remainder of her life would likely cost the state $1.4 million. Family and friends argued that her good behaviour while incarcerated indicated that she was reformed.

"She has without a doubt paid her debt to society," said her niece, Sharisse Atkins, 17. "You see her as part of the Manson family. I see her as part of our family. I hope you can find it in your heart to do the right thing."

Family members of the Manson victims also attended the hearing and the graphic testimony concerning their pain and loss carried the day.

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The Cenci Case

Nobody ever really believed that Francesco Cenci's death was an accident.

On September 10, 1598, his body was found with a smashed skull outside the family castle in Petrella Del Santo (near Rome) and authorities were immediately suspicious. It was well known that Francesco Cenci had numerous enemies, not the least of which were his own children. His notorious reputation had gotten him in trouble with the Church on various occasions but his position as a wealthy aristocrat had always kept him safe. Francesco's cruelty towards his five children and his second wife, Lucrezia Petroni, was well known and he had often vowed that he would outlive them all (he may have had a hand in the death of at least one of his sons). Other rumours of dark deeds surrounded him, especially concerning his relationship with his daughter Beatrice.

Born in 1577, any hope that Beatrice might have had of marrying out of the family the way that her older sister did was crushed by Francesco's determination to keep her under his control. It's hard to separate truth from lurid fiction at this point but at least some sources claim that he abused Beatrice sexually. Francesco was furious when she tried to lay a complaint against him and he sent Beatrice and her stepmother into exile away from Rome.

We'll never know exactly when Beatrice, Lucrezia and the surviving Cenci sons, Giacomo and Bernardo, first decided to kill Francesco. The testimony in the case is probably unreliable since most of it was gained through torture (even though it was enough for conviction) but there is little else available. The murder was apparently carried out with the help of Abbe Guerra (a clergyman who was in love with Beatrice). After a poisoning attempt failed, the family eventually smashed Francesco's skull and threw him off a balcony to make it look like an accident. Beatrice and Lucrezia played their parts perfectly and an elaborate funeral was later held.

Pope Clement VIII remained suspicious and arranged for the body to be exhumed so that a medical examination could be made. The disappearance of Abbe Guerra (he had escaped before he could be arrested) and the death of an assassin who had assisted in the murder helped build the case against the family members. I'll spare you the details of the various torture methods that were available at the time but they have been well documented elsewhere. Although Giacomo and Lucrezia eventually confessed, Beatrice was able to resist until she was confronted with the testimony of the others. All of the family members involved in the murder, including 12-year old Bernardo Cenci, were sentenced to death. Pope Clement rejected any plea for mercy and ordered the sentences to be carried out.

On September 10, 1599, the entire family received their final sacraments before being taken to Piazza Castel Sant'Angela in Rome for the execution. Despite a last-minute pardon for Bernardo, he was forced to watch as all the others were executed (he collapsed as Beatrice was led to the scaffold but was revived). Beatrice and Lucrezia were beheaded while Giacomo (whose body bore clear marks of torture) was beheaded, drawn and quartered (the pieces were hung from butcher's blocks). The bodies were kept on display in the Piazza until evening and then released for burial. Beatrice's body was carried in a procession down to the the church of San Pietro in Montorio where she had asked to be buried. It was a day-long spectacle and several of those attending died from heat stroke.

To nobody's surprise, the bulk of the Cenci fortune vanished into the coffers of the Pope's supporters (Bernardo was forced to pay a substantial fine as a condition of his pardon). Aside from Bernardo and Giacomo's children, the Cenci family was largely wiped out but the legends surrounding Beatrice Cenci lived on. According to at least one account, the two executioners who had carried out the death sentences died within a month of her death (one by suicide, the other by murder). She became a figure of legend with stories of her haunting the piazza where she died on each anniversary of her death.

The story of Beatrice Cenci has been appeared in numerous books, plays, an opera and a movie. Percey Bysshe Shelley, Alexander Dumas (pere), Nathaniel Hawthorne and Stendhal wrote extensively about the lurid crime associated with her name. The tragedy has a sadly modern ring to it since domestic violence and parental abuse continue even today. All too often, victims still resort to violence to protect themselves from their abusers, especially when they are given no other options. While some progress has been made, it's still not nearly enough to prevent other domestic tragedies from happening.

Visitors to Rome can still see the haunting portrait of Beatrice (reportedly painted shortly after her death) hanging in Rome's Barberini gallery in addition to her tomb and the Palazzo Cenci where she lived. The executioner's blade that beheaded her is on display in Rome's Criminology Museum. They are fitting reminders about a tragic story and it's brutal ending.

Treatment Compliance in Adolescents Who Attempt Suicide

The June 2008 issue of the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry presents the results of a two-year follow-up study looking at the benefits of treatment in adolescents who have attempted suicide. A sample of eighty-five adolescents (ages 13-18) who had attempted suicide were recruited along with their families from four psychiatric hospitals and were evaluated for symptoms of emotional problems. Later assessments were conducted every 6 months over the course of a two-year period to determine whether the adolescents had participated in treatment and how well they had complied with the treatment recommendations (whether they had taken prescribed medication or attended treatment sessions), their attitudes toward treatment, and further suicide attempts and ideation. The results showed that adolescents with a disruptive behavior disorder diagnosis were less compliant with individual psychotherapy, as were those with a substance dependence other than alcohol or marijuana. Adolescents who were diagnosed with a mood or anxiety disorder were less compliant with prescribed medication (6 months post-attempt). While parents` perception of treatment as being helpful was predictive of greater treatment compliance, adolescents' attitudes toward treatment did not appear to play a role. Finally, compliance with treatment was not generally found to be a predictor of later suicide attempts. The authors concluded that attempts at increasing treatment compliance in adolescent suicide attempters should vary according to the adolescent`s symptoms as well as parental attitudes toward treatment.

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Hard Work Really Can Kill You

A Japanese labour office has ruled that a 45-year old automotive engineer died from working too many hours. The engineer (the name has been withheld at the request of the family) was Toyota's leading designers and was reportedly under severe pressure to meet a deadline in developing a hybrid version of the Toyota Camry. He was found dead in January, 2006 at his home in central Japan and an autopsy determined that he died of ischemia (restricted blood flow to the heart). In the months leading up to his death, the engineer was required to work more than 80 hours overtime a month (including weekends and evenings) and was also required to make frequent business trips overseas. The labour office's ruling clears the way for his family to collect death benefits from his work insurance.

Although the first case of death from overwork was identified in 1969, the phenomenon known as karoshi (literally "death from overwork" in Japanese) was formally recognized in 1987 when the Japanese Ministry of Labour began collecting statistics. In addition to medical problems caused by overwork, induced stress and depression has often led to mental illness and suicide. Karoshi lawsuits are on the rise as the risks associated with excessive overtime (often unpaid) become better known. In April, 2008, a company was ordered to pay a large settlement after an employee was left in a coma as a result of overwork.

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After The Prophecy

It was in 1954 when Dorothy Martin predicted the end of the world as we know it (and became part of psychological history in the process).

Born in 1900 in Mount Shasta, California, she was a housewife living in the Chicago area when she first came to national attention. Having a longstanding interest in psychic phenomena and theosophy (and was also "cleared" by a dianetics group), she first came in contact with advanced beings from the planet Clarion through her experiments in automatic writing. Through these beings (the most important of whom was her personal mentor, Sananda), she was informed that they had been visiting Earth and monitoring fault lines in the planet's crust. They warned her that a great flood would strike the Chicago area just before dawn on December 24, 1954. The flood would then form an inland sea stretching from the Arctic Ocean to the Gulf of Mexico and a subsequent cataclysm would destroy much of the West Coast from Seattle, Washington down to South America. A flying saucer would come to rescue those who were true believers.

Martin had already become involved with a local flying saucer cult known as "The Seekers" and they responded eagerly to the messages from Sananda and the other Clarions. Their efforts to warn the public of the coming disaster were published in a local newspaper story under the headline: PROPHECY FROM PLANET. CLARION CALL TO CITY: FLEE THAT FLOOD. IT'LL SWAMP US ON DEC. 21, OUTER SPACE TELLS SUBURBANITE (it didn't make the front page for some reason). The two-column story was accompanied by a photograph of Martin with a pencil and pad in her hand and described her experiences in communicating with the "superior beings" who had relayed the warning. It was this newspaper article that first attracted the attention of social psychologist, Leon Festinger.

As later written in the seminal classic When Prophecy Fails (published in 1956), Festinger and his colleagues, Stanley Schacter and Henry W. Riecken, first interviewed Martin in October, 1954 . Given that she was making a prediction about a specific future event which had already become the focus of media attention, the researchers decided to carry out a field study examining apocalytic belief. They also viewed it as an ideal test of Festinger's fledgeling theory of cognitive dissonance.

Mrs Martin and her fellow Seekers (in the book, her name was changed to Marian Keech) strongly believed in her prediction and had already started making arrangements for their departure for Clarion. The three researchers and their fellow cohorts were able to infiltrate the group and provide a fascinating look at what happened before and after December 21. When the Seekers' attempts at "telling the world" were largely ignored, their efforts at proselytizing ended in September when Dorothy Martin was reportedly told by two strange visitors to end all warning efforts and "await further orders". The exact number of Seekers involved in the movement was never made clear but their mailing list ran to hundreds of names.

There was a surprising lack of effort on the part of the Seekers to recruit new members and the researchers had difficulty in infiltrating the movement. Their meetings mainly involved readings of Dorothy Martin's teachings, sharing of mystical experiences, and writing letters urging President Eisenhower to reveal the "secret information" that the U.S. Air Force had collected on flying saucers. Plans to relocate to the mountains were scrapped in favour of waiting for Sananda and the other "Guardians" to transport them from the Seekers' headquarters in Dorothy Martin's house in Chicago.

Then came December 20 when the final group of fifteen to twenty Seekers met in the Martin home to await their salvation. Based on Dorothy Martin's messages from Sananda, the aliens would come at midnight to take them to their new home. To prevent being burned by contact with the alien spacecraft, the Seekers were instructed to remove all metal from their bodies (including zippers and bra straps). The book describes with some detail the suspense as midnight approached and passed and the group became increasingly disappointed. Finally, at 4:45 am, Dorothy Martin received another message stating that the cataclysm had been called off by the "God of Earth". Apparently their group had impressed God with their faith and the human race was spared as a result.

Now came the hard part of telling the world. Dorothy Martin and her supporters were dismayed at the negative reaction that they received from the newspapers and wire services that they contacted. Martin took news of earthquakes in Italy and California as confirmation of her predictions of disaster but there was little else in the weeks that followed. As media interest trickled off, the group slowly dwindled. Dorothy Martin received other messages but they tended to be even more incomprehensible with time.

Responding to complaints from her neighbours, police warned Dorothy Martin that would be arrested and possibly committed to a psychiatric hospital if she persisted with her activities. She went into hiding and eventually joined a dianetics centre in Arizona. The book ends with the group being entirely dispersed although that was not quite the case as we shall see.

Discussing the social psychology surrounding persistence of belief in failed prophecies, Festinger and his colleagues proposed the following five necessary conditions: 1. There must be conviction. 2. There must be commitment to this conviction. i.e, believers have to have taken an important action that is hard to undo (such as quitting a job or selling a house). 3. The conviction must be amenable to unequivocal disconfirmation, i.e, there must be a way of testing the conviction 4. Such unequivocal disconfirmation must occur. 5. Social support must be available subsequent to the disconfirmation (Groups of believers can support one another better than isolated believers).

Despite failures to replicate these findings with other apocalytic groups (and there are more of those around than you might think), When Prophecy Fails represents a fascinating inside look at the mechanics of belief and how it interacts with human behaviour.

Dorothy Martin lived in Peru for several years before returning to Arizona. In 1965, she founded the Association of Sananda and Samat Kumara. Under her new name of "Sister Thedra", she continued to act as a channel for Sananda and was prominent in the UFO contact community until her death in 1992. The association that she founded is still active.

Measuring Pain

An article published in the May 2008 issue of The Lancet features the results of a nationwide survey examining chronic pain in a representative sample of individuals across the USA. Using random-digit dialling, a stratified sample of 10,700 individuals were contacted and recruited for the study involving the collection of pain diary information for one 24-h period. Subjects were asked to rate pain on a 0-6 anchored scale for three randomly selected 15-min intervals. Activities of those individuals who reported substantial pain were also examined. Of the 3982 individuals who were interviewed (response rate 37%), 28.8% of men and 26.6% of women reported feeling some pain at the sampled times. Subjects with lower income or less education were found to spend a higher proportion of time in pain and reported higher average pain than did those with higher income or more education.  The average pain rating increased with age, although a plateau was found between the ages of about 45 years and 75 years, with little difference between men and women. Life and health satisfaction varied inversely with reported pain. The authors report that the telephone diary technique represents a promising method for assessing the prevalence of chronic pain and the factors that can interfere with successful coping.

Click here for the abstract.

Are You A Good Wife?

The online version of the American Psychological Association's Monitor presents an interesting look back at a rating scale developed in the 1930s by George W. Crane of Northwestern University. The Marital Rating Scale-Wife's Chart has a straightforward enough purpose: rating wives in terms of their positive and negative characteristics. The test could be completed by either the husband or wife and measured wives in terms of merits or demerits.

Items for which wives could receive demerits included: slow in coming to bed, doesn't like children, wears red nail polish, uses profanity, going to bed with curlers in hair or too much face cream.  Merits for wives included: has meals on time, can play a musical instrument, dresses for breakfast, and neat housekeeper. Adding up the merits and demerits on the test yielded a score that ranged from "very poor" to "very superior".

Crane, who also had his own counseling practice as well as a nationally syndicated newspaper column, developed the test by interviewing 600 husbands to determine the most important positive and negative traits in wives.  No wives were interviewed and it doesn't seem to have occurred to Crane to develop an equivalent test for husbands (the man had his priorities). 

In addition to his syndicated articles on marriage (which were very well received at the time), George Crane also launched the Scientific Marriage Foundation in 1957. As one of the first computer dating services, he was definitely at the forefront for his time although changing attitudes seem to have left him behind otherwise.

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The Emperor's Funeral

The funeral for Joshua Abraham Norton held on January 10, 1880 was a grandiose spectacle.  As many as 30,000 mourners made up of people from every level of San Francisco society took part in a funeral cortege that was two miles long.  They all turned out to witness the passing of the one of the cities most memorable characters.

Born in London, England in 1819, Joshua Norton emigrated to San Francisco in 1849 with a tidy sum that he had inherited from his father. He flourished for a time as a wholesale grocer before losing everything in a risky attempt to corner the Peruvian rice market. He made several attempts to recoup his losses before dropping out of sight in 1857. Where he went is still a mystery but his return to San Francisco two years later was certainly memorable.

It quickly became clear that Norton had become mentally unbalanced. Wearing a strange blue uniform with gold epaulets and a beaver hat, Norton proclaimed himself "Emperor of the United States and Defender of Mexico". For the rest of his life, he would be a familiar sight to San Franciscans as he issued numerous proclamations as well as his own currency (which local restaurants and stores honoured). Wherever the Emperor Norton went, he was accompanied by his two dogs, Lazarus and Bummer. When Lazarus died in 1863 (after being run over by a fire truck), the city paid for the funeral and hundreds of mourners attended. Mark Twain himself wrote an epitaph for Bummer when he died two years later.

His proclamations, despite his having no actual authority, made for good reading in the newspapers and editors frequently published them. Among other things, Norton ordered the governor of Virginia removed from office, barred Congress from meeting in Washington, D.C., and even ordered the United States government dissolved. Newspaper editors were not above inventing their own proclamations (usually reflecting their political biases) and attributing them to the Emperor.

In 1867, an overeager police officer arrested Norton and attempted to have him involuntarily treated. The outraged San Franciscans nearly rioted and newspaper editorials savaged the police force. Police Chief Patrick Crowley apologized to the Emperor and ordered his release. Norton, in turn, issued a formal pardon to the officer who had arrested him. Afterwards, police officers made it a habit to salute Norton whenever he went about his regular inspections of the city.

The Emperor Norton became extremely well-known due to the writings of Mark Twain and Robert Louis Stevenson (who both created characters based on Norton in their books). His letters to world leaders such as President Lincoln and Queen Victoria were taken seriously. In the 1870 census, Norton was formally listed with the occupation of "Emperor". There were numerous rumours surrounding Joseph Norton. For all that he appeared penniless, it was suggested that he was secretly wealthy despite his known history.

On January 8, 1880, the Emperor collapsed while on his way to give a lecture at the California Academy of Natural Sciences. The police officer on the scene tried to get him to a hospital but he died before help could arrive. The cause of death was later given as apoplexy (hemorrhagic stroke). The San Ferancisco Chronicle ran a front page obituary titled "Le Roi Est Mort" (The King Is Dead). A rival newspaper announced that ""Norton the First, by the grace of God Emperor of these United States and Protector of Mexico, departed this life".

It was only after his death that the full extent of his poverty became known. His small boarding-house room was found to contain nothing more than a collection of walking sticks, copies of his letters to various notables, newspaper clippings, and shares in a worthless gold mine.Initial plans for a pauper's burial were quickly scrapped and he received a grand funeral at the city's expense. The strange story of Joshua Norton didn't end with his death and funeral. In 1934, he was reburied in Woodlawn Cemetery, again at the city's expense. On the hundredth anniversary of his death, formeral ceremonies were held in different parts of the city to mark the memory of San Francisco's only monarch.

So why was Joshua Norton unofficially adopted as a mascot for San Franciscan society while so many other mentally ill transients were locked away in insane asylums? To begin with, there was a definite method in his madness. Norton knew enough not to push the limits more than necessary. The currency that he issued never exceeded small amounts and his proclamations were often quite sensible. He was also extremely likeable (not to mention a tourist attraction) and, in many ways, lived better as a mad Emperor than he did as a prosperous businessman. 

Joshua Norton's legacy seems to live on. Archives of his various proclamations and writings are available online and the currency that he issued continues to be prized by collectors. While grandiose delusions seem to be a common enough feature in some forms of mental illness (I once dealt with a self-proclaimed King of Canada during my time as a prison psychologist), there was only one Emperor Norton.

Disaster Mental Health Workers and the Anniversary Effect

A study published in the April 2008 issue of Journal of Traumatic Stress examined anniversary reactions in mental health disaster relief workers following traumatic exposure at the site of the World Trade Center terrorist attacks. Despite relatively low levels of symptom reporting, workers endorsed an increase in both negative mood symptoms and functional impairment at the one-year anniversary of their traumatic exposure (compared to 6 months postexposure). For individuals who met at least some of the criteria for posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) immediately following exposure, overall self-reported PTSD symptoms tended to increase from 6 to 12 months. This tendency resulted specifically from an increase in hyperarousal symptoms. Although only a few of the participants had severe PTSD, the results demonstrated that disaster relief workers may experience an increase in symptomatology at the anniversary of their traumatic exposure.

Click here for the abstract.

Stories I've Been Following

Just catching up a bit.  I'm still in Italy enjoying la dolce vita. Things should be back to normal by next week.

Just some stories I've been following:

Letter Causes Woman to Kill Herself

A Worcestshire woman with a history of depression drowned herself after receiving a letter from a mental health institute telling her to go for a psychiatric assessment. She had apparently been afraid that she would be held involuntarily due to her suicide history.

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Convicted Pedophile Could Seek Chemical Castration

One of my pet peeves.  The term "chemical castration" is misleading since it involves using chemical to suppress serum testosterone levels in the offender's system. It is not analogous to physical castration (also known as a bilateral orchidectomy) which is irreversible.Chemical suppression is only effective while the offender remains on the medication. It is a controversial practice in many countries (more on that later).

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After Escape, Oregon Closes Psychiatric Facility

The state has closed a Washington County center for mentally ill patients after one resident alone in the backyard for a nighttime smoke climbed a chair, cleared a fence and fled.
Alex Volobuev, 53, told police he didn’t want to go back to the Connell House in Cornelius last week because “the staff is crazier than the residents.”

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