Lone wolf terrorists: Howling in the eye of the wind – The case of Adam Lanza

Abstract

The number of school shootings has continued to rise exponentially since the 1990s. This article considers the phenomenon through a close look at the case of Adam Lanza, making a case for more clinically astute treatment for psychotic children.

Key Words:

• school shooting
• Newtown
• Sandy Hook
• mass shooting
• Adam Lanza
• Lone Wolf terrorist
• psychosis
• Lacan
• clinical work with children
• psychoanalytic technique
• mirror stage

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Manya Steinkoler

Manya Steinkoler is a practicing psychoanalyst in New York and a member of Espace Analytique and Das Unbehagen. She has co-authored and edited, with Patricia Gherovici, Lacan on madness (Routledge, 2015) and Lacan, comedy and psychoanalysis (Cambridge University Press, 2016). Her publications have appeared in Division Review, La Clinique Lacanienne and the Journal of Lacanian Studies among others. She is currently working on a book on cinema of the Holocaust and on the films of Yiorgos Lanthimos.