Psychology: Analyzing Andrea Yates’ Murder of her Children

Psychology: Analyzing Andrea Yates’ Murder of her Children A.

Chapter 1

1. What do you believe to be the causes of Andrea Yates’ murder of her children?

According to my understanding, the killing of children by Andrea Yates made her psychotic mind became the battlefield between what is good and evil. Yates thought that killing her five children was not only good to her but also to them, that would a final blow to Satan (Tanay, 2011). When the mind is fixated and convinced about something, it becomes inevitable to stop it from happening.

2. Do we find the cause in her private mental functioning (cognitive perspective)?

We find the cause of her actions to have some degree of links to the cognitive perspective of Yate. The mental malfunctioning created delusions about the life of her children and what they would turn into, creating a state of mental instability that conceived and fattened the murderous thought to their fullest.

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It is at this point that possession with evil spirits comes in. The idea about Satan is just as a result of delusions she suffered ("Andrea Yates case: Yates found not guilty because of insanity CNN.com"). Consequently, when the cognitive perspective is negatively affected by the biological, social-cultural, or circumstantial factors, it can lead to mental disorders that are tragic if not treated in time.

The private thoughts can be misleading, especially if they are taken over or affected by delusions as was the case of Andreas Yates. However, these thoughts came about as a result of some other factors that impacted negatively on her mental wellbeing. The delusions about the growth of her children are all as a result of postpartum psychosis and depression (Tanay, 2011).

In this respect, it can be argued that her cognitive perspective contributed to her action of drowning the five children, but this was at the very beginning triggered by postpartum depression.

3. Do we find the cause in her mental disorder or illness that may have a biological basis (neuroscience and behavior genetics perspectives)?

The mental disorder that Andrea Yate suffered before drowning her five children also points out to biological causes. The mood disorder that ran through her family is caused by chemical imbalances in the body, which affects the stability of the mind. Tanay (2011) asserts that Andreas’s brother used antidepressants, which points out to the possibility that she suffered the same challenge. Having attempted suicide several and with a history of mood problem, Andreas psychotic challenges are input on biological causes.

Moreover, studies on psychological disorders point out that brain chemical distribution and balance plays a role in mental wellbeing. When there are imbalances, psychological disorders are inevitable. When the neurotransmitter serotonin is scarce, depression is more likely

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to set in and cause mental instability. Andreas Yates was diagnosed to be suffering from postpartum depression with psychosis, which points out to a biological cause of her mental illness ("Doctor: I Warned Andrea Yates Not to Have Any More Children," 2018). She had been put on antipsychotic medication after being discovered to be suffering from postpartum depression. However, she discontinued the medication about a month to the killing of her children.

The research also reveals that Andrea's husband, Russell, had pleaded with the doctors to have Andreas put on prescribe Haldol, a rug that is used in treating persons suffer from delusional thoughts. This points out to the fact that she had biological challenges that precipitated her mental disorder ("Doctor: I Warned Andrea Yates Not to Have Any More Children," 2018). The medics would have done much to alleviate her situation and save her from much suffering.

4. Do we find the cause in her social environment (behavioral and social-cultural perspectives)?

Andrea's doctors prescribed antipsychotic medications for her because she was diagnosed to be suffering from delusions and hallucinations thoughts. Her situation would have been made worse by the social-cultural environment she lived in, which saw her do a lot of domestic work, especially raising the young ones. With too much pressure on her side, which was partly to social and cultural perspectives that place much responsibility of childcare in the hands of the woman, the risks of suffering mental disorder increased ("Doctor: I Warned Andrea Yates Not to Have Any More Children," 2018). A mentally challenged person is better off when they are not left to work under pressure.

The doctors had recommended that she should not have more children after the fourth born because of the postpartum psychosis she had suffered. The disorder causes the mother to

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experience delusions and hallucination, which cause her to lose touch with the actual world, and can also lead to depression. The doctors made this decision as a means of protecting her from severe mental challenges in the future (Hails, 2012). However, her husband went ahead to make her pregnant again. Social-culturally, a woman has less say on the number of children a family should have, which brings in the social and cultural aspects in the cause of her mental disorder.

Had Russell heeded the doctor's advice that she stops giving birth to more children; the killing of children would have been avoided?

Russell also shows negligence and lack of care to leave five children of such tender age to Andreas alone, when in an actual sense he knew that she had challenges with self-care and suffered mental health instability. Her extended family did not also help, pointing to the problem of the American individualistic society ("Doctor: I Warned Andrea Yates Not to Have Any More Children," 2018). Had she been supported by the large family, perhaps this tragedy would have not happened or its magnitude would have not been that high.

5. What important principles does this case reveal? Do agree or disagree many factors shape human behavior?

Human psychological well-being is shaped by many factors, which include biological, social, and cultural. The environment in which a person lives can contribute to the creation or worsening of a mental disorder. The case reveals the principles of mental stability and their connection to a person behavior. I agree that many factor influence human behavior, all of which have an impact on the functioning of the mind.

B. Chapter 2 1. What function does the hippocampus play in human memory?

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The hippocampus is part of the human brain that plays a role of transferring memories from short-term to long-term memory, hence important in enabling one to have a long-term memory of a given event of happening (Eichenbaum, 2012). Consequently, without it, the longterm memory cannot function, especially about storing information of what is happening in one environment.

2. What function does the cerebellum play in human memory?

The cerebellum plays the vital role in receiving information from all body and regulating motor movements, hence its role in passing information to the brain for storage (Eichenbaum, 2012). The short-term memory is linked to the cerebellum, without the latter, the former cannot function.

3. Describe the deficits Clive experienced after he became ill in his memory. Also, describe some of the interactions pointing to the loss of hippocampus function he had in conversations with his wife.

Clive experiences some deficits in his memories, all who were mainly linked to the damage of his hippocampus. Consequently, information would not be transferred from the shortterm memory to the long-term, which led to him not being able to remember things after 30 seconds.

Clive loss of his hippocampus, he always greets her every time they encounter one another, ostensibly because he thinks he has not seen for many years or they have never interacted before. This happens even though they stay together, and sometimes when she has just left him a few minutes like even three to fetch something and back to the room (Mason, 2017).

Clive can remember names of the food but cannot them to their tastes because he often forgets them of food he eats by the time it arrives at the mouth. Consequently, this points out to the

PSYCHOLOGY effects of a damaged hippocampus, which leaves his long-term memory severely compromised regarding proper functioning.

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7 References

Andrea Yates case: Yates found not guilty by reason of insanity - CNN.com. (2018). Retrieved from http://edition.cnn.com/2007/US/law/12/11/court.archive.yates8/index.html.

Doctor: I Warned Andrea Yates not to have any more children. (2018). Retrieved from http://www.foxnews.com/story/2006/07/07/doctor-warned-andrea-yates-not-to-have-anymore-children.html Eichenbaum, H. (2012). The cognitive neuroscience of memory: An introduction. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.

Hails, J. (2012). Criminal evidence. Boston, MA. Cengage Learning.

Mason, P. (2017). Medical neurobiology. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.

Tanay, E. (2011). American legal injustice: Behind the scenes with an expert witness. Northvale, NJ: Jason Aronson.