User:Ld159989/amok

Amok "A dissociative episode characterized by a period of brooding followed by an outburst of violent, aggressive, or homicidal behavior directed at people and objects. The episode tends to be precipitated by a perceived slight or insult and seems to be prevalent only among males. The episode is often accompanied by persecutory ideas, automatism, amnesia, exhaustion, and a return to premorbid state following the episode. Some instances of amok may occur during a brief psychotic episode or constitute the onset or an exacerbation of a chronic psychotic process. The original reports they used this term were from Malaysia. A similar behavior pattern is found in Laos, Philippines, Polynesia (cafard or cathard), Papua New Guinea and Puerto Rico (mal de pelea), and among the Navajo (iich'aa).

Amok can be frenzied as if possessed with the devil. It can cause insane laughter, going wild or without control. People with this will run or rush to someone and attack before the victim have a change to react. This ia very unusual disease.

The cause: Many explanations for amok have been offered by observers, including suggestions that it is a physical consequence of alcoholism, drug addiction, heat or internal parasites. Nineteenth and early twentieth century investigators were unable, however, to find any real evidence to support these speculations. Psychological explanations include the suggestion that amok is a sudden explosion of internal tension created by life in a highly hierarchical society; both Malay and Javanese traditional societies are said to have been extremely hierarchical, with an emphasis on deference to rulers. It is doubtful, however, whether these societies are unusually hierarchical in a global context. Other observers have described amok as a form of spirit possession.