Breivik is not psychotic!

Roman Vodeb, double M. A., is a Slovenian theoretical psychoanalyst and an independent scholar. He has published five books in which he applies psychoanalysis to sport, ideology of sport and gender. He writes for Slovene media, providing psychoanalytic interpretation of current social events and issues dealing with gender issues, politics, sport, culture and art.

As the official diagnosis of Breivik’s mental state has been widely criticized, we start to wonder how much time one is supposed to spend with Breivik in order to establish his true diagnosis. Slovenian theoretical psychoanalyst Roman Vodeb claims that time as such does not play a crucial part.

»Obviously, Anders' mother, his old friends and the court-appointed psychiatrists, Dr. Torgeir Husby and Dr. Synne Sørheim, spent a substantial amount of time with Anders and now believe or diagnose him to be mentally sick, psychotic or schizophrenic. The truth is that you need not spend 36 hours with Breivik in order to diagnose his mental state. What counts is the ‘reading’ or interpretation of his actions on the basis of the symptom as well as (psycho)analysis of crucial past events. Breivik's very actions of 22nd July and the way they were executed are symptomatic of his condition, showing that the Norwegian is not psychotic. He is a ‘normal’ psychopath.«

Many professional psychiatrists, such as Dr. Randi Rosenqvist in her recent report, as well as theoretical psychoanalyst Roman Vodeb have maintained ever since the breaking news of Breivik's murderous spree that the killer cannot be insane. Vodeb admits that Breivik may have had certain disorders in connection with delusions of reference or narcissist delusions of grandeur or an ordinary schizoid disorder, yet these can hardly be regarded as psychosis.

Unlike the overall lay and professional views that Breivik’s actions were primarily motivated by the far-right ideology, Freudian Vodeb, however, claims that Breivik’s xenophobic militant monstrosity, which culminated in the outbursts of rage or aggression, was formed during his failed childhood, or, rather, due to the failed parenting from his mother and the absent father, as the father himself confessed to have failed to support his son during his childhood. According to Vodeb, the official diagnosis, however, was primarily intended at calming down the general public in Norway and worldwide. His thesis is that the Norwegian as well as the world political and lay public are obviously striving to tone down the extent of the Breivik case for the simple reason that both the Norwegians and the leftist-liberals wish to see there is nothing wrong with the multicultural society or the multicultural policy to foreigners. The most elegant – perhaps even politically dictated – way out is to declare Breivik insane, ie. psychotic, since paranoid schizophrenia is indeed a serious mental illness. Nationalism and far-right extremist nationalist ideas jeopardize world (e)migration and nationalist processes:

“It is considerably wiser in terms of tactics, strategy and politics to declare Breivik insane, mentally ill or psychotic than to declare the multicultural policy of Norway or any other liberal or multicultural country as mistaken. It is neither pleasant to hear that the Norwegian tragedy is a result of flawed parenting, which is characterized by broken families or emancipated (single-parent) mothers.”

The question that Vodeb also poses is whether the diagnosis of paranoid schizophrenia might have been forced on the psychiatrists by politicians or ideologists of multicultural government policy, since Breivik, in a way, simply “must” be “insane” (psychotic), rather than quite “normal” or an ordinary psycho- or sociopath. The denouement to the Norwegian tragedy with the diagnosis of paranoid schizophrenia is thus attributed greatest social acceptability, even though, in theoretical or psychoanalytic terms, it is a clearly mistaken. The greatest relief with the diagnosis of paranoid schizophrenia, however, must have been felt by Breivik’s mother, because, in a further interpretational context, Vodeb believes the mother to be the main culprit and the most responsible person for the development of Breivik’s “insanity” and sadist xenophobia.

Vodeb has psychoanalyzed Breivik on the basis of a series of crucial events, adopting the logic of symptom. He points out that it was due to his mother and the absence of his father during the Oedipal phase that Breivik was formed into a xenophobe and a sadist killer. His  interpretation of Breivik differs from other experts in that he stresses that  Breivik’s xenophobia was fundamentally connected with the male figures that his inept mother would import into little Anders’ emotions all the way to his adolescence. According to Vodeb, the origins of his anger were generated in Breivik through repressions during his childhood until he was 6 years of age, or even as late as the age of 10 or 15, since Anders believed his Mom to love her lovers more than him. Breivik had to repress enormous quantities of anger and rage towards both his mother’s lovers and his mother, who, in emotional or libidinal terms, would prefer “strangers” (foreigners), her lovers, over him.

Secondly, Vodeb finds that Breivik’s inability to control his criminal tendencies crucially results from the absence of his father during the Oedipal phase, when the father should have set the scope of  morally appropriate behaviour for his son. As little Anders was not able to develop his Super-Ego, Breivik was incapable of feeling pangs of conscience when plotting and executing his criminal attacks.

Vodeb says that xenophobia has an unconscious and symbolic background and structure. Vodeb’s quintessential idea lies in the symbolic interpretation of Breivik’s terrorist actions:

“The grown-up Breivik regarded Norway as his Symbolic mother. The same way as ‘something’ – either the mother’s night-shifts or her nights with her lover(s) - once deprived him of his mother during his infancy, the foreigners (immigrants) would now steal away his country from Breivik . His repressed anger would burst out as manifest xenophobia in his adult consciousness. The adult Breivik was angry at his Country, at her multicultural (labourist) policy. The state policy to foreigners stands in a symbolic (transferred) libidinal interaction with the mother’s libidinal relation, or, rather, ‘policy’ to her children.”

Anger is released or returns from the unconscious store of repressed memories in the form of anger at all “strangers”, foreigners, Non-Norwegians. Vodeb considers this to be a fairly universal paradigm in xenophobic nationalist sentiment.

The main point of Vodeb's psychoanalytic theories is thus that the entire context of Norway's or Breivik's tragedy holds a latent structure. The idea is not that Breivik is a paranoid schizophrenic, but, rather, that Breivik experienced the return or transference of his childhood, the entire failed libidinal context in which his Mum loved her lovers (or just one lover) more than her son. This is how little Anders experienced it in his mental reality.

Vodeb says, “If an intelligent and mentally sane or non-psychotic person feels like committing a crime, nothing will stop him. A paranoid schizophrenic will be incapable of such detailed planning as observed in Breivik.  Breivik simply felt like killing, since his anger was activated by the unconscious, by his childhood repressions, and these are always libidinally conceptualized. The entire militant xenophobic logic that Breivik constructed in his adulthood, has no direct connection with his crime. Multiculturalism, which he finds so irritating, is nothing but a ‘trigger’ of latent xenophobia, imposed on him during his childhood. The culprit is his mother with her inadequate parenting of him. Breivik, imbued with latent sadism verging on manifest proportions, was in his manifest consciousness thoroughly convinced that it was merely foreigners or immigrant, ie. Muslims,  ‘multiculturalists’, to blame.”

Vodeb concludes that the blame for the Oslo attack and the Utøya massacre should be “directly” or indirectly attributed to Breivik’s childhood, his then (libidinal) frustrations and repressions, his then anger, which in his adulthood assumed the status of unconscious, repressed anger – with libidinal intruders who deprived him of his Mummy, analogous to the stealing of the Norwegian country as a symbolic mother on the part of foreigners or immigrants.

From this (psychoanalytic) point-of-view, Breivik is not (the only one) to blame for his crimes. It is his parents, his mother in her own specific way, as well as his father, since he was as good as gone out of the boy’s life – as Jens Breivik himself new confessed to share the responsibility for the terrorist that his son has become.  Vodeb stresses that Breivik should serve as a lesson to all of us: “Humanity can avoid further tragedies of this kind, (only) if a portion of the punishment is administered to the parents. Just imagine how careful the parents would be in their mutual dealings and in nurturing their children if they had to serve out half the sentence along with their children, having made them (serial) killers and criminals as Breivik and the likes of him! It may be the very spontaneity of such a thought that has driven the Norwegian political community to send Breivik to an asylum rather than prison. The fact is that if his parents had opted for a more ‘child-friendly’ divorce or if there had been no divorce, little Anders would not have turned into a militant xenophobic killing monster.”

 Silvana Orel Kos

Roman Vodeb, double M. A., is a Slovenian theoretical psychoanalyst and an independent scholar. He has published five books in which he applies psychoanalysis to sport, ideology of sport and gender. He writes for Slovene media, providing psychoanalytic interpretation of current social events and issues dealing with gender issues, politics, sport, culture and art.