Psychiatrist: “Everyone Is Wrong About The Lindsay Clancy Case”
In a Nutshell
A psychiatrist argues that public outrage over the Lindsay Clancy case stems from widespread misunderstanding of postpartum psychosis. Clancy, who killed her three children under command auditory hallucinations, exemplifies how psychosis creates genuine loss of reality-testing and volition, making it distinct from other mental health conditions. The video emphasizes that 2-3 women per 10,000 births experience this severe condition daily in the US, and that support for Clancy reflects women's recognition of the precipice they've faced, not disregard for the victims.
These notes were generated by AI and may contain inaccuracies.
Lindsay Clancy is an obstetric nurse who is married with three children and has a history of psychiatric illness. After her third child, she experienced a psychiatric decline that involved outpatient care, partial hospitalization program, emergency room visits, inpatient hospitalization, and discharge. She had seven psychiatric providers, including psychiatrists and nurse practitioners, who prescribed 13 medications over some period of time.
The case is particularly close to home because the speaker trained at MGH where she went to the emergency room and knows the people who took care of her when she was hospitalized at McLean. She is from Duxbury, where the speaker used to take his wife when she was pregnant.
Lindsay Clancy killed her children and then jumped out of a window. She cut herself first and then jumped out of a window. She is now paralyzed from the sternum down. A few months after this happened, her husband divorced her and the speaker believes he is in a new relationship.
There are two separate legal proceedings. One is the state of Massachusetts trying Lindsay Clancy in a criminal trial for murder of her three children. There is a separate civil lawsuit by Lindsay Clancy and her ex-husband suing various mental health providers for failure to do their duty of care.
Most people don't know much about the case. The speaker has read some of the legal stuff and knows a lot about medicine, the internet, and how people react to it. There is a GoFundMe for about a million dollars that women have raised on her behalf. The speaker heard that her husband started a GoFundMe that raised $1.7 million that is not being used for her legal defense, though this is unverified.
This case is tearing apart couples, with someone calling off a wedding. The speaker is a psychiatrist who has done some postpartum work, went to Massachusetts General Hospital, and trained at Harvard Medical School. The speaker is reading 28-page civil proceedings on this case as well as doing research on postpartum psychosis.
The speaker's wife, who is also his boss, came to him one day and said she was disappointed in how he was handling the Lindsay Clancy case. The speaker was blown away by this reaction because he took paternity leave, changed diapers, supports women through pregnancy, and has seen and helped women through postpartum psychosis. He spent 10 to 15 hours getting into the details of what is going on.
People are upset at women for supporting Lindsay and not considering the kids, and people are upset at them for supporting the woman. The basic issue is a lack of understanding of how hard pregnancy and the postpartum period is. The reason so many women are rallying to her defense and giving her money is because they have looked down from the cliff that she jumped off of. Many women have had terrible postpartum experiences, including struggling with thoughts of suicide or even killing their kids.
Women are fighting against something that is going to kill their kids, and they love their kids, but they are fighting against it day after day and losing. Everything is falling apart around them.
People breaking up over this case reflects a real misunderstanding of what psychosis is. Mental health awareness has increased, but mental health ignorance has also skyrocketed. People are aware of mental health but don't know what mental illness is and don't know what psychosis is.
Two to three women out of 10,000 live births will experience postpartum psychosis. Postpartum depression is experiencing depression within 12 months of having a baby. Not all postpartum depression is necessarily due to the pregnancy. The diagnostic criteria for postpartum depression is the same as a regular depressive episode, it just happens postpartum.
There are approximately 6,000 or 60,000 live births per day in the US. A handful of people experience postpartum psychosis every day in the US. Postpartum psychosis is actually quite common and prevalent.
Psychosis is a break from reality that usually involves hallucinations, where the mind creates things that are chasing you that you think are real. Lindsay Clancy said a man's voice told her to kill her children. A patient once jumped out of a third story window and broke both of his legs because he was being chased by a demon. The demon was real to him.
Psychosis is not something sociopaths do by pretending to be crazy. It is a whole different situation. Psychosis is what caused Lindsay Clancy to jump out of a window, leaving her paralyzed for life.
Psychosis can include delusions. Lindsay Clancy was experiencing acute psychosis. There is severity of psychosis. Persecutory hallucinations are more common and actually less severe. This is a voice actually talking to you, not a voice in your head. It is like having AirPods in your ear with the most toxic person you know commentating on whatever you do.
Command auditory hallucinations are more severe. There is someone in your ear giving you commands. These are not thoughts, but commands that sometimes people feel compelled to obey. The speaker worked with a lot of psychosis at McLean Hospital, where every patient seen for 90 days on the AB2 unit was bipolar disorder and psychosis.
The reason people can be hospitalized against their will is because from a medical perspective, people with psychosis start to believe the hallucinations. It is not that they can't control it, it is that they start to believe it. Psychosis makes you believe something.
A patient at MGH during the speaker's first month of inpatient thought the speaker was her son. She was 10 years older than him. She kept asking if he got the DNA test and forgave him even when he denied being her son, saying she loved him no matter what.
Psychosis involves an element of loss of volition with command auditory hallucinations. People feel like they can't resist, or they resist for so long and then all it takes is one moment to follow the command. There is some preservation of agency in every other diagnosis, but this is why psychosis is the situation for which not guilty by reason of mental defect exists.
The speaker notes they are not a forensic psychiatrist but believes this is the situation for which that exception exists.
Keep Chris Williamson in your library
Save the videos and channels worth coming back to, and find them again in one place.
