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| A sign hangs near a cemetery where Jessica Rekos, 6, was buried on December 18th in Newtown, Connecticut |
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| Molly & James Garbarino at Annual Statewide Healthy Start Conference, Corvallis, Oregon, 2000 |
I love James Garbarino. I love James Garbarino for first teaching me how we all have "circles of caring", and how those circles of what we care about can grow and expand. I love him for the courage, empathy, and fierce caring he has which moved him to explore war zones firsthand in America and around the world to better know and share the impact of violence on children. I love Jim Garbarino for the treasure of his numerous books, his tireless advocacy on behalf of children everywhere, his clear understanding of the impact of psychological abuse and the impact of much of what is "normal" in American culture and yet toxic for children and, indeed, for us all. I love Jim for taking the time and making the effort to connect with me after I first reached out to him. I feel such deep respect and affection and gratitude to Jim Garbarino for these reasons and more... I was first blessed with connecting with this author, psychologist, professor, expert witness and child advocate and his work in 1999 when I read "Lost Boys: Why Our Sons Turn Violent and How We Can Save Them." What followed was sharing my thanks for his book, plus some of my story, and then connecting personally, for which I continue to feel deeply blessed. James Garbarino is among the many people who have made a real difference in my life and the lives of countless others. Certainly the children. Through illuminating the roots of so much suffering, the path of healing and transformation becomes possible. Blessed are all the peacemakers. And are all who so love the children, all the children. Another world is possible. ♥ Molly
*****
How a Boy Becomes a Killer
By Dr. James Garbarino
Editor's note: James Garbarino is the author of "Lost Boys: Why Our Sons
Turn Violent and How We Can Save Them" and is a professor of psychology at
Loyola University in Chicago. He serves as an expert psychological witness in
murder cases and is working on his next book, "I Listen To Killers."
(CNN) -- Twenty children and six adults killed in a town in Connecticut. Why?
As someone who listens to killers as an expert psychological witness in murder
cases, I have spent much of the last 20 years trying to understand how and why
young men kill, maim and attack others.
Killings like those in Newtown, Connecticut; Aurora, Colorado; and Virginia Tech
are always met with expressions of shock, anger and sadness. These are
understandable first reactions, but in the long run they accomplish nothing.
So
long as the discussion does not move beyond labeling these events
"senseless violence," horrors such as these never move us closer to a
place of deeper understanding. Greater understanding is crucial because
understanding leads to more peace and less violence through preventive action.
All the crime scene investigations in the world will not do this.
Although all our instincts urge
us to dissociate from the killer, achieving better understanding requires us to
put ourselves in his shoes no matter how frightening and distasteful that may
be. I have done this over the past 20 years, and I have learned that it's the
only way we can understand a fundamental truth: Although to the rest of us, the
observers and the victims, extreme acts of violence seem "senseless,"
these murderous acts make sense to the shooters.
This
is true whether it's Adam Lanza in Newtown, Connecticut; James Holmes in
Aurora, Colorado; Seung-Hui at Virginia Tech; Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris in
Columbine, Colorado, and the many thousands of others who wage war against
their society, either in the form of high-profile massacres or the daily grind
of shootings around the country that barely make the local news.
How
do we go about this process of "making sense," not as a way of
excusing but as a path to understanding and preventing violence? We start by
recognizing that many young Americans (and other young people around the world)
develop and carry with them a kind of moral damage, which I have come to call
"the war zone mentality."
However it develops, they grow up
with a damaged sense of reality. They view the world as if they are soldiers
confronting a hostile environment that they perceive to be full of enemies.
Once they get fixated on this damaged world view, they may hatch the delusion
that even teachers and young children are their enemies. For Adam Lanza,
apparently even his mother was an enemy who had to be destroyed.
There
is no one cause. It is as if they are building a tower of blocks, one by one,
that can get so high it falls over, with innocent people dying. These building
blocks can be found in a dangerous neighborhood or a school rife with bullying.
They can be found through the Internet and mass media: the many, many web sites
and videos that promote paranoid views of the world and validate violent action
in retaliation.
They
can be found in pervasive and intense playing of video games, the hands-on
virtual violence that desensitizes young people to proxy killing. These games
become a psychological pathway to real killing by dampening impulses of
compassion and altruism.
They also come from a culture
that supports access to lethal weapons: the crazy availability of guns like the
Bushmaster semi-automatic rifle used by Adam Lanza that are, in effect, weapons
of mass destruction when turned against children at school, or moviegoers in a
theater or shoppers at a mall. These weapons have no place in civilian life.
But
moral damage and a misperception of reality usually are not enough to lead to
murder. The typical killer is emotionally damaged and has developed mental
health problems, perhaps exacerbated by being bullied and rejected by peers, or
abused and neglected at home. He might be suffering from profound sadness,
depression, despair, self aggrandizement and narcissism.
The
mental health problems that result from emotional damage require more, not
less, social support, and not just from parents, who may be overwhelmed and
ashamed of their offspring. The boys and young men can be socially isolated
because their damage makes peers and the community turn away from them, and
that only compounds their problems.
Couple
deluded thinking and rage with the rationale of the war zone mentality, and the
result can be a boy or young man ready to kill, sometimes with horribly
spectacular results. But this is more commonly seen in the "routine"
killings that I work with as a psychological expert witness in murder cases
across the country.
Please read the complete article here: http://www.cnn.com/2012/12/19/opinion/garbarino-violence-boys
**********************
One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light,
but by making the darkness conscious.
~ Carl Jung
We don’t set out to save the world; we set out to wonder
how other people are doing and to reflect on how
our actions affect other people’s hearts.
~ Pema Chödrön
Spiritual practice involves, on the one hand, acting out of
concern for others' well-being. On the other, it entails transforming
ourselves so that we become more readily disposed to do so.
~ Dalai Lama
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