David Kaczynski is the past Executive Director of Karma Triyana Dharmachakra, a Tibetan Buddhist monastery located in Woodstock, New York. An anti–death penalty activist, Kaczynski served as the Executive Director of New Yorkers Against the Death Penalty from 2001 to 2012 and has given hundreds of public talks throughout the United States about mental illness, the death penalty, and healing in the aftermath of tragic violence. He is also the author of the poetry chapbook
James L. Knoll IV, MD is the Director of Forensic Psychiatry and Professor of Psychiatry at State University of New York Upstate Medical University and has served as a consulting forensic expert for the ACLU, as well as for many law enforcement agencies including the FBI and the U.S. Department of Justice.
The afterword discusses the author’s fortuitous meeting and friendship with David Kaczynski, and their common bonds of Buddhism, mental health advocacy, and their subsequent work together assisting trauma survivors. The author, a forensic psychiatrist, discusses the current challenges facing the mental health system in the United States and how it has been largely relegated to jails and prisons. Finally, it is suggested that collective tragedies such as mass murder may be viewed as chances to take a more substantive, meaningful look at how we view psychological suffering and violence as a species.
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