Extended Suicide. Psychoanalytic Reflections On A Disaster

2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 15:43

Extended suicide. Psychoanalytic Reflections on a Disaster.

Andreas Lubitz

What would co-pilot Lyubitz have talked about if he had not been silent?

On the morning of March 24, 2015, the Germanwings Airbus A320 crashed in the French Alps, flying from Barcelona to Dusseldorf. None of the 150 people on board survived.

Later it turned out that the cause of the crash was the suicide of the second pilot of the airliner, German citizen Andreas Lubitz, who, left alone in the cockpit, blocked the door from the inside and sent the plane to the ground.

Journalists dubbed Lubitz's suicide and murder of 144 passengers and 5 crew members as "extended suicide."

Extended suicide is an action aimed at taking one's own life, when a suicide kills not only himself, but other people as well.

In modern psychology, there are many different approaches and theories, sometimes contradicting each other. Perhaps, this article can be perceived by someone as speculation on an extremely complex and painful topic of the recent tragedy with the Germanwings Airbus A320 that crashed on March 24. Oddly enough, none of the largest psychological sites, where hundreds of psychological articles are published a week, have not published a single article dedicated to this event in the seven days since the disaster.

Why? What prevented our psychologists from expressing their opinion?

Still, the purpose of this article is to try to understand what happened in the sky over the Alps on March 24, 2015 from a psychological point of view. What drove co-pilot Andreas Lubitz at that moment?

From a psychoanalytic point of view, our actions and actions are strongly and sometimes decisively influenced by our unconscious, those unconscious fantasies that are present in the head of every living person in one form or another. Who among us has never thought about murder or suicide? Such a thought at least once in a lifetime, maybe in passing, but occurred to every person. The only question is how we react to what is going on in our head. As a rule, a person is afraid of his feelings, thoughts and fantasies, since they are the "motor" for our behavior. It often turns out that it turns out to be much more difficult to experience the whole gamut of feelings than to commit a specific, albeit very destructive action.

According to statistics, in recent years, the manifestation of antisocial and auto-aggression (extended suicide) has been steadily growing, this is shooting in American schools, and suicide bombers, and cases of criminal negligence, where it is impossible to prove the malicious intent of those who committed it. (For example, a bus driver with passengers who drives into the oncoming lane falls off the road into a mountain gorge, where everyone dies). Such events always turn out to be extremely painful for our understanding, and if there are no irrefutable facts, as in the case of the tragedy of March 24, then, as a rule, the possibility of such a development of events is denied. Perhaps, as it turns out later, many people who communicated with the pilot Andreas Lubitz foresaw and anticipated such an outcome of events, but were simply afraid to admit it to themselves.

Indeed, sometimes it is easier for us not to see and turn away from something terrible than to look our fear in the eye. This is well described by George Orwell in his book 1984, where, deep down in his heart, the protagonist Winston Smith knows that in fact the worst thing for him is what is in room 101, who O'Brien is and what his words mean: - “We will meet where there is no darkness,” but he prefers not to realize it and follow his feelings, which often deceive us.

So how did the airliner co-pilot Andreas Lubitz feel when he closed himself in the cockpit and directed the plane towards the ground? Why was he silent? Why did he carry out what he had planned to the end smoothly and cold-bloodedly?

On the one hand, shame makes us silent, but shame alone would not be enough. Reading between the lines, in his silence we can hear a sadistic triumph. The point is that he was really psychologically ill and, due to his antisociality, spread his illness (inability to withstand himself and his emotions) to another one hundred and forty-nine people. And here we are not talking about diagnoses that could easily explain everything - they say, he went crazy and did this. I believe that at the time of his death he was still sane and performed a number of quite deliberate actions.

Did he want to become famous and famous? I guess not. The pursuit of vanity would force him to assert himself by making a "loop" or loudly announcing his intention. Silence suggests that it was still a true suicide. How did he feel about the passengers, his commander and the crew? I think that nothing - at that time they were absolutely indifferent to him (no anger, no hatred, no regret). “I’ll kill you, but there’s nothing personal about it,” -This happened, because for him it was the only chance, dying, to give his fear to others (passengers) and not feel miserable and infrequent at the same time, such as when jumping from bridge - suicide "The Golden Gate" in San Francisco. This often happens due to the antisocial personality structure. By doing such an act, a person always talks a lot about himself, and sometimes actions for such people are the only way to tell something.

Perhaps in childhood, his feelings were also ignored and fenced off with an iron door, behind which, at the time of the tragedy, other people were knocking on it. From an analytical point of view, it becomes clear that Lyubits was guided by the idea of a merger, a merger with his mother. Of course, his psyche lacked a father figure who establishes internal prohibitions (“if it's unbearable, kill yourself, but not others”) and says: “think first and then do”. During the investigation, it was found that a girl had recently left him, he tried to return her by giving her an expensive car, but she was already afraid of him … Again, feelings were replaced here by action, a gift from a car …

And this is the tendency of the modern world (to replace feelings and words with things and actions). Gave a diamond ring - it means that he loves, wears it in branded boutiques - that means he cares … Now it is becoming the norm … Simple human words have almost no value in the global consumer society. Although the Bible says: “First there was the word. And the word was with God. And the word was God. And everything went from him …"

After such situations, we often tear our hair out and wonder what could help? Where is the mistake? How do I fix it? The simplest thing in such a situation would be the thought that the control system is ineffective … But can we control everything? I guess not.

Health care system? I do not think. Although, perhaps, based on the results of a long investigation, a complex psychiatric diagnosis will be made that explains everything. Now it is already said that Andreas Lubitz was treated for depression. But often we do not want to understand what is behind such diagnoses. In ordinary life, almost everyone knows that depression is a state when a person loses the desire to live, loses himself, and it can end in suicide. But the point is that behind depression is still a system of relationships with oneself and with objects of the outside world.

In the psychoanalytic sense, depression occurs when a person's inner self is in the shadow of an object. For example, when most of the inner world (the unconscious world of thoughts, fantasies and experiences is occupied by the mother). * When we say "mom" or "dad", we do not mean real parents. They can be quite normal and good people. We are talking about the image of "mom" and "dad" that is in the head.

I believe that, speaking about the reasons and meanings, it is more correct to pay attention to the structure of our society, to the fact that a person, who seems to live a successful life by social standards, turns out to be deeply unhappy, lonely, without a single truly close person. to whom he could tell about all his suicidal fantasies.

The line between mental and psychological health is very subtly defined from a psychoanalytic point of view. For example, if a baby is screaming in a room and it is impossible to calm him down and it is impossible to leave there, fantasies about throwing the baby out the window will be the absolute norm of health. But if this happens in reality, or if a person denies this annoying factor, talking about what a cute baby, but he starts to have a terrible headache, it means that we are talking about a violation of psychological, and possibly mental health …

The task of psychoanalysis is to help a person master his feelings and fantasies, learn to cope with them within himself, without involving other people in it, and turn impulsive actions and actions back into fantasies.

In addition to understanding the feelings and actions of the pilot, an important aspect is understanding the feelings of other people who have been in contact with him before. What prevented them from seeing, feeling and understanding? Perhaps fear, detachment and distrust of oneself … Perhaps, the attitude of modern society - "Why do I need other people's problems, I have enough of my own", everyone survives for himself. But sometimes, after all, a living person can refuse to live and survive, to interrupt his life and the lives of others … Of course, here you can experience righteous anger, indignation, fear and sting. But if you look frankly, what is the real value of human life? What do we really value our life for?

Small example: March 28, 2015. Saturday. Theater LENKOM, play "Juno and Avos". The hall is overcrowded. The entire aisle of the parterre is lined with chairs; spectators also sit on the folding seats. During the performance, the passage in the stalls is no more than forty centimeters. Live fire is used on the stage, many sparks fly, the smell of smoke eats the eyes. It is clear that in the event of an emergency, evacuation, panic, fire - victims and many injured are inevitable. The second is Lame Horse, but nobody leaves. It is clear that modern actors can no longer evoke the intensity of feelings with their play, and stress is needed, the excitement of feelings with loud music, with live fire on the stage.

I think that, nevertheless, those eight minutes when the plane approached the ground, the pilot could feel alive, experience a triumph, which he could not refuse.

In order to comprehensively consider this situation, it is important to understand the feelings of the passengers who were on board that ill-fated flight … Fear, panic, horror, despair, anger and helplessness. Of course, there was a hopeless situation, the door was locked, it was not possible to open it, the passengers were held hostage … But was there something in their unconscious that gave their consent to death? I think that we cannot know this … Perhaps someone flew in the hope of crashing … but at the last moment he thought: "Damn it, just not now …" Perhaps someone had a presentiment of something …

There is a theory according to which the victims of catastrophes are not chosen by chance, that this is how the collective unconscious, described by K. G. Jung, but still there is wide ground for hoaxes and speculations. Nevertheless, we must accept that everything is much more complicated and confusing. That this is neither accidental, nor a clear pattern …

A short example: A foreign resort, the bus driver loses control, perhaps falls asleep before that, and the bus flies into the abyss … Did none of the tourists see that the driver was drowsy, that he exceeded the speed limit or behaved inappropriately on the road? I think they saw and understood, as did the audience of the Lenkom Theater on March 28, 2015, but no one left when, in principle, it was possible. And you can get off on the bus too … But sometimes finding yourself in an incomprehensible situation of entanglement where you need to make a decision turns out to be more difficult than avoiding this decision and following the inner call of the unconscious, which often leads us to death. It is like sailing on the open sea with or against the current, when there is fog around and there are no landmarks. When no one can point out what is right and what is wrong …

I am in no way trying to justify the pilot Andreas Ljubitz, but nevertheless, in order to help, it is necessary to understand the essence of things, without judging or fearing …

What would be a good benefit from my article? It is possible for someone who dreams of something like this to stop, reflect and allow himself to relinquish weakness to experience a fatal triumph. I would allow myself to look my problems in the eye, find myself a psychologist, psychoanalyst, with whom he will have the opportunity to share intolerable feelings of helplessness, emptiness, despair, misunderstanding and pain …