Amok Psychology.pptx

AMOK  Syndrome

indigenous to the Malayo-Indonesian cultural region.

 Men

of Malay extraction.

Muslim religion, low education, and rural origin. Between the ages of 20 and 45  Precipitants

- include arguments with coworkers, nonspecific family tensions, feelings of social humiliation, bouts of possessive jealousy, gambling debts, and job loss. Kaplan and Sadock's Comprehensive Textbook of Psychiatry, 9E

History 

derived from the Malay word mengamok, which means to make a furious and desperate charge.



According to Malay mythology, running amok was an involuntary behavior caused by the “hantu belian,” or evil tiger spirit entering a person's body and compelling him or her to behave violently without conscious awareness.



 Captain Cook is credited with making the first outside observations and recordings of amok in the Malay tribesmen in 1770 during his around-the-world voyage. He described the affected individuals as behaving violently without apparent cause and indiscriminately killing or maiming villagers and animals in a frenzied attack. 



Today, amok should be viewed as one possible outcome of an individual's undiagnosed and/or untreated psychiatric condition with psychosis or severe personality pathology. 

1.

Exposure to a stressful stimulus or subacute conflict ( recent loss / depression )

2.

Feelings of anger, loss, shame, and lowered self-esteem

3.

A period of social withdrawal

4.

Transition

5.

Indiscriminate selection of victims

6.

Cessation

7.

Subsequent partial or total amnesia

8.

Perceptual disturbances or affective decompensations Kaplan and Sadock's Comprehensive Textbook of Psychiatry, 9E

 Treatment

–

•

Afflicted individuals in 20th-century Malaysia have been exempted from legal or moral responsibility for acts committed while in a state of amok by means of a kind of “insanity defense,” which characterizes the attack as “unconscious” and beyond the subject’s control.

•

amok represents an extreme form of violent behavior occurring as a result of a mental disorder, personality pathology, and psychosocial stressors. Early recognition of the risk factors for amok and prompt treatment of the underlying psychiatric condition or personality disorder offer the best chance of preventing it.

•

Subsequently hospitalized, frequently received diagnoses of schizophrenia and were treated with antipsychotic medication. Kaplan and Sadock's Comprehensive Textbook of Psychiatry, 9E

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