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3 Basic Definitions That Many Lindsay Clancy Pundits Get Wrong

The furor over the Clancy case shows that Americans have little idea what ‘insanity,’ ‘psychosis,’ and other terms mean in the courtroom.

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The public furor over the Lindsay Clancy case concerning the Massachusetts mother who admitted she strangled her three young children shows that Americans have very little idea what “insanity,” “psychosis,” and other terms mean in the courtroom.

There are no reliable polls of the general public that can accurately establish what percentage of the public is sympathetic to Lindsay Clancy. But social media discourse appears to show substantial and widespread sympathy. However, it’s likely that many people who feel that way misunderstand the specific psychiatric and legal claims being made by the defense and the prosecution. They might change their view with a more specific understanding of terminology. 

Clancy’s defense rests on the proposition that she had a mental defect or disease that made her incapable of being criminally responsible for the killings. In lay terms, this is what’s called “not guilty by reason of insanity.”

Bipolar or Borderline?

The same handful of terms and concepts come up in online and media debates over the Clancy case and similar crimes.

Some people claim Clancy was “bipolar” (the newer term for what we called “manic depression”). Bipolar is a mood disorder. Sufferers generally cycle between “manic” states of excitable behavior and longer states of profound depression.

Experts in the Clancy case disagreed on whether she displayed any signs of bipolar disorder. An argument can be made that Clancy’s behavior aligns more closely with a different condition: Borderline Personality Disorder. Borderline is a personality disorder, which is different than a mood disorder like bipolar/manic depression. Borderline Personality Disorder describes individuals with rapidly shifting extreme moods and difficulty controlling their emotions and behavior.

Even professionals confuse these conditions. A 2010 study in the Journal of Psychiatric Research found that of 610 psychiatric patients surveyed, 52 patients met the criteria for Borderline Personality Disorder. Of those 52 patients, 40 percent reported having previously been misdiagnosed with bipolar/manic depression.

Neither mood disorders like bipolar nor personality disorders like Borderline qualify as “insanity” under the legal system’s definition.

Psychotic or Psychopathic?

“Psychotic” and........

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