ACTIONABLE INFORMATION FOR BETTER DECISIONS

What Were They Thinking?

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During my law enforcement years, I had several interesting encounters with individuals who suffered from mental disorders. One involved an older woman who was wandering into a busy roadway mumbling about “looking for [her] lost quarters” while vehicles swerved into each other to avoid hitting her. It was only after braving the busy traffic to “find” her [imaginary] “lost quarters” that she finally calmed down. (Before that experience, I’d never returned someone’s invisible property to them.) 

 

And I’ll never forget the young man who was paranoid schizophrenic who had a seemingly normal conversation with our police canine as we detained him to ask why he was trying to randomly run other motorists off the roadway. (He gave dog whisperer a whole new meaning.) He later told us he was trying to “take out” the other drivers (one who had his wife and two young children in the vehicle with him at the time) who, he claimed, were trying to kill him.     

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Probably the most memorable encounter was with a suicidal individual who was diagnosed bipolar, a mother and wife, who drove off a cliff with her minivan (and survived) in one of many attempts to “kill [herself] and get it over with.” It was the side of a large hill that had trees staggered all down its side which she somehow (against all odds) managed to avoid hitting. She did, however, end up parked in the back bedroom of housing unit at the bottom of the hill.

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What these people had in common was they were not part of the same reality I was at that time even though we all shared the same physical space. But their reality, no matter how unreal to me, was very real to them. Had I understood them better on their level, I would have undoubtedly gotten further in my investigative work with them. Results are everything in investigative work.   

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When You Don’t Understand Something, Educate Yourself

   

At the time, like many in law enforcement, I didn’t fully understand the complex psychological mechanics of this “strange” behavior. How could I? I was looking at it through my own limited perspective, which didn’t yet include a comprehensive understanding of the abnormal nature of psychopathology. Like most in police work, I never received a formal education in psychology let alone psychological disorders. This is no fault of police departments as psychology is its own field.

  

Nevertheless, I was curious about this strange behavior; a curiosity that motivated me to eventually go on to pursue a Master’s degree in psychology. During this time, I worked one-on-one with individuals who experienced PTSD, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, dissociative identity disorder, borderline personality disorder, autism spectrum disorders, clinical depression, and other delusional disorders. The clinical focus of my psychology education combined with years of working with mental disorders gave me a healthy appreciation for the complex language of mental illness. But it also helped me make sense of the strange behaviors I’d experienced in my previous police investigations work, and, more importantly, how I could have investigated more effectively.

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Encounters with “Crazy” People in the Field

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Every investigator—whether government, public, or private—will, at some point in their career, encounter someone with a mental disorder. It’s inevitable because mental disorders are part of the human condition, inextricable from it. Abnormal people are as normal as “normal” people and will be encountered frequently, especially by an investigator in the field (whether the investigator is aware of it or not). Thus, it’s important that investigators learn how to “communicate with the crazies,” if even on a superficial level. This will greatly enhance their investigation. So, here’s a quick crash course on encounters with crazy people as an investigator.      

 

Crash Course on Encounters with Crazy People

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People who are “crazy” aren’t actually non-human no matter how much they may come off as this. They just perceive things differently than others not like them, and they process things through different filters. This fact is further frustrated by the current psychiatric diagnostic criteria that classify humans into neatly organized categories whereby they can be more easily understood (or so the popular belief goes). As a result of this “efficiency over effectiveness” tendency of the psychiatric medical model, real understanding is sacrificed on the altar of convenience. The contemporary push to quantify everything ignores its quality. Classifications per se aren’t bad but it’s important not reduce the dynamic complexity of people to rigid categories because that’s how we miss things. And doing this takes a person and makes them a diagnosis.

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Crazy people, no matter how “weird” they may act, can be understood if the investigator takes the time to learn their language. As quixotic as this may sound, in the context of investigating, this is critical, especially when that person may have information that is crucial to closing an important case or breaking one open. There is meaning in the labyrinth of the disorganized communication of a mentally disordered person if the “neurotypical” investigator is patient and aware enough to tease it out. A helpful approach is to look for patterns in the fragmented information the person does give out. With enough patience and diligent attention, these fragments can often be patched together into intelligible chunks of meaningful information. This is particularly relevant when taking statements or interviewing. This information can be clarified through follow-up questions.  

  

Most importantly, the investigator should understand that people who experience mental disorders are easily overwhelmed by the external world around them. Mental disorders distort the processing of information and events, and this is a major cause of the disconnect that commonly occurs between mentally disordered people and people without these mental disorders. The investigator should approach mentally disordered people with this in mind so as not to miss an opportunity to get valuable information. And remember that the anxiety a mentally disordered person experiences is amplified to a much higher degree than someone who is not mentally disordered.   

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Ultimately, a gentle, patient approach to questioning someone who is mentally disordered (no matter how confusing or frustrating it is) will go a long way for the investigator. Learning how to “click” into this mode with this kind of person will produce better results than interacting with them like one would with a “normal” person. No two people are the same, particularly people with mental disorders. But they are still people and they still feel, think, and act like people, just in a strange idiosyncratic way. The trick is learning to understand their idiosyncratic language.    

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It’s What You Know

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Applying this knowledge years later as a private detective helped me understand a client who requested an investigation into his brother for “trying to kill [him] with poisonous gas.” Being able to stay with this client during the interview without writing him off as “crazy” or inadvertently signaling to him that I believed he was stark raving mad enabled me to understand that he lived with his brother in a house that had several air vents that frequently blew dust into his room—and he was diagnosed paranoid schizophrenic. I deduced as much in the initial interview; his subsequent disclosure merely confirmed my initial assessment and allowed me to politely refuse to take the case, which I knew would be wrongfully taking advantage of his mental illness.

   

This knowledge made it possible for me to read between the lines with another client who hired me to prove her innocence in a workplace theft case. I discovered fairly quickly through open-ended questions during the initial interview that this client had a mental health history (one which she actively tried to hide from me). I picked up on various indicators of possible mental illness during the interview based on my psychological experience. This knowledge was especially critical because she intended to litigate her case once it was concluded. Getting a sense of her credibility early on through this assessment enabled a more informed legal strategy later. Probing, albeit indirectly and non-judgmentally, into her possible mental illness also provided valuable details that otherwise would have been undisclosed or non-accessible. Most importantly, disclosing this personal information gave her a sense of relief that only improved our professional relationship and generated actionable information by increasing the level of trust between us.    

  

The ultimate goal of investigating is to get information. Every investigation involves people to some degree. People are constitutionally distinct from one another. Investigators must interact with other people and communicate with them to achieve the purpose of acquiring information from them. As an investigator, you don’t need years of formal education in the nuances of psychology nor do you need years of experience working with pathological populations to be effective at your job. But you should have at least a working understanding of what mental disorders look like and how to address them in the field. This understanding will help produce more successful outcomes.