Extreme Overvalued Beliefs: Clinical and Forensic Psychiatric Dimensions

This foundational work demystifies the motives behind targeted attacks.

In October of 2018, Cesar Sayoc mailed pipe bombs to sixteen supposed critics of former president Donald Trump. After his arrest by the FBI, Sayoc eventually pled guilty to multiple felony charges including using weapons of mass destruction in an attempted domestic terror attack. At the time of his sentencing, Sayoc's defense attorneys used the terms "delusion" and "obsession" to describe the beliefs that led to his actions, arguing that he acquired these beliefs from right-wing media and Facebook interactions.

Riveting and surprising in its persuasive simplicity, Extreme Overvalued Beliefs makes a profound argument that most violent targeted attacks are incorrectly classified as motivated by delusions or obsessions. Drawing on exceptionally clear and vivid details of crimes such as the JFK assassination, Oklahoma City bombing, and the January 6th US Capitol attack, as well as the Sandy Hook and Uvalde school shootings, the monograph illuminates three easily understood cognitive drivers of targeted attacks, arguing that we must embrace these in order to thwart future incendiary acts. Reprising the work of neuroscientist Carl Wernicke, Dr. Rahman elegantly separates culturally shared, relished, and extreme ideologies from delusional thinking. Extreme Overvalued Beliefs belongs in the libraries of mental health and legal professionals but will also appeal to those yearning to learn more about the epidemic of mass violence we have become accustomed to living with.