Louis Theroux - By Reason of Insanity Part 2 (2015)

[stMarkus]

Louis immerses himself in the world of Ohio's state psychiatric hospitals, meeting patients who have committed crimes - at times horrifically violent - while in the grip of severe mental illness. They have been found not guilty by reason of insanity and ordered by the courts to secure psychiatric facilities to receive the treatment that it is hoped will, one day, lead to their reintegration back into society.

 

In the second episode of this two-part series, Louis spends time with patients whose personalities are so intertwined with their illness that it makes them more difficult to treat. In doing so, he examines the grey area between criminal actions and medical symptoms, and investigates how we define insanity.

 

 

Part 1 [BBC]

Part 2 [BBC] [FDR topic on part 1]

 

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[PatrickC]

At least with this episode Louis attempts to understand the family history a bit better. But again he seems only to be drawn in when the offender feels remorse. It seems that Deans mother has no explanation for the sexual assault he committed on her. Other than he was diagnosed with ADD/ODD and narcissism at an early age. No mention of being hit with a rock, which might explain his actions better for those close enough to him to not to be so seemingy baffled by them.

 

How did he become that way in the first place? These instituitions, the parents and Louis seem to assume they are acting on impulses that just happened with no explanation at all. Other than just a mechanical deficiency of the mind.

[stMarkus]

There's an interesting exchange between a convicted rapist and Louie in his 2014 documentary Among the Sex Offenders. As Louie is bringing up the topic of the rapist's offense, Louie asks him: "Your parents beat you didn't they?". That visibly triggers a lot of emotions in he rapist and he starts talking about how his father was a devil and constantly beat him on one side of his cheek and how his mother was an angel and constantly caressed him on the other side; how he cannot tell the difference between the two anymore and thus how desperately he wants to kill himself because he doesn't know how to make those decisions. As he tells these things he's crying.

 

Would be nice to see those kind of narratives taken further in these documentaries.

 

As far as Dean goes, I would say that once he hit puberty, little happy Dean discovered that his happiness had been solely based on some narcissistic fantasy of his parents and once he found unable to escape from that and develop a genuine self, he turned to destructive behavior. A similar thing happened to me, only I turned to more of an inwardly destructive behavior.

 

As to why those kinds of issues aren't looked into more deeply..... Perhaps the biggest reason is that Louie lacks the necessary self-knowledge.