The VA Tech Shooter: What Was He Thinking?

Cho Seung-Hui seemed determined to kill as many people as possible before his time ran out. We may never understand why he committed such an atrocity, but he did provide us with some insights into his thinking with his very disturbing videos, photos, and writings. We may not be able to make an accurate psychiatric diagnosis based on the available information, but it certainly is possible to describe aspects of his mental state.
I suspect that millions of people shared the shock and horror that I felt on viewing his images and hearing his words. These eerie messages from the now-dead killer were a surprising revelation that compounded the revulsion of the initial killing spree. Although it may not matter in the end for the victims, it seems even more despicable that his shootings were not spontaneous, but rather premeditated, elaborately planned, and, apparently part of his fantasy world.
The reports of his earlier warped and violent school projects and the material he mailed on the day of the massacre show his intense anger, arrogance, threatening paramilitary persona, and his extraordinary sense of paranoia. In his mind it was not so much him against the world, but, rather, the world against him. He believed he was a martyr and he wanted the world to know it.
The essence of paranoia is the persistent expectation of being slighted. Paranoid individuals tend to be vigilant in analyzing situations with the assumption that they will be wronged in some way. They filter their perceptions of interactions with others to fit their distorted view of the world. Paranoid thinking as a personality style certainly does not predict that the person will become threatening or violent, although it may influence the intensity and direction of their anger. More worrisome is the paranoia present in the form of paranoid delusions, which may occur as a type of psychotic symptom due to a psychiatric disorder or with certain types of substance abuse. By definition, delusions are false beliefs. People with paranoid delusion often have thoughts of being persecuted.
Considering his illogical and somewhat disorganized thinking, and his extreme paranoid thoughts, it is difficult to resist the conclusion that he suffered from a psychotic disorder. There is no defense for his actions. But we can seek understanding in the attempt to come to terms with what cannot be undone and with the hope that in some way it might help prevent future violence.