With all due respect I understand you specialize in the mental health field and completely understand your argument in regard to a person attempting to hide a body etc. However, can you please explain why you feel the video shows a psychotic break in progress?
I'm not a mental health expert, perhaps that is why I just don't see it.
I apologize if this comes across as rude in any way, not my intention at all. In a rush at the moment and typing on a tablet. Just wanted to get all my ideas out there, ask a few questions and give an alternative.
Snipped for space.
I don't think that was rude at all.
To answer your questions:
1) I do not think it is possible (or professional) to attempt to diagnose someone based on a 2-minute video. What I said was that EL
appeared to be suffering from paranoid psychosis. Perhaps it is one of those things that people in the mental health field come to recognize after witnessing similar behavior so many times over. From what I gather, all other verified mental health professionals on this thread immediately recognized the same thing. So, I do think it comes mostly from experience, having seen this behavior many times over.
2) To be more specific, if you watch the video I attached at the bottom of this response, one has to wonder why EL pushed so many elevator buttons at once to begin with. She appears to do so very deliberately, as if it was part of some plan or something she was instructed to do (i.e. by a command hallucination). When the elevator doors do not immediately close, she appears to get suspicious and lunges out of the doors, sweeping her head quickly from right to left, as if scared. These exaggerated movements of lunging and rapid pace are often seen in those experiencing a psychotic break of some kind. You are right, that a lot of people would probably peek out of the elevator doors if they did not close properly to see if someone was in the hallway. But, they wouldn't do it in that manner. They would walk up to the threshold and look either way in a less exaggerated fashion.
3) At 0:32, EL then backs up against the side of the elevator wall and further backs up into the corner (IMO, addressing Peter Brandt's quote above, she does not appear to be playful or smiling or happy or anything of the sort. She looks scared and paranoid). At this point, she again goes to the threshold of the elevator and looks around the hallway. One must ask themselves, what would I be doing at this point in the scenario? Most people would be perplexed at this point, trying to decide if they should press more buttons inside or outside the elevator, look for the stairs, press the call button, etc. They would be preoccupied with why the elevator was not working and what to do about it. On the contrary, EL appears preoccupied with something else entirely (I think this is what most of the mental health professionals are picking up on -- that preoccupation, and possible responding to what is called internal stimuli -- voices, hallucinations, etc).
4) At 0:53, EL makes a shuffle-hop move with her feet that I have seen time and again. I don't know how to describe it, but this is the population I work most frequently with and the jumpy, jerky, sudden movement of her feet at this point in the video is tell-tale to me. She also does a ritualized movement with her feet at this point (step apart, come together, step apart, come together) that I have also seen many times before.
5) At 1:15, you see EL outside the elevator, gesturing and waiving her hands and arms above her head. She appears distressed, placing her hands on her head twice, as if overwhelmed with what is going on inside her mind. I realize some people believe she is talking to someone else in the hallway but I don't see that at all. She comes back into the elevator (why wouldn't the other person follow her at this point and why wouldn't she continue talking to them from inside the elevator?)
6) She punches all of the elevator buttons again multiple, multiple times. Again, what would you be doing to get an elevator to work? You'd probably press one button, wait. Press it again. Maybe a few times. We never see EL do this. She goes straight for disorganized behavior.
7) At 2:00, we see her splayed fingers as she repeatedly gestures and appears to be talking to herself. Again, I don't know how to describe it, but I've seen this behavior multiple times in others. The hands are unsteady and exaggerated, as if she is touching/petting something that is not there -- not as if she is gesturing while talking to someone. Her hands go up to her head again, as if overwhelmed, and she walks off screen.
Unfortunately, the best I can say is that you become familiar with how a psychotic episode looks the more often you see one in action and I interact with clients who are suffering from paranoia and psychosis on a daily basis. I know that doesn't directly answer your questions but I hope it at least helps clarify a little.
ETA: Just to be clear, a psychotic episode does not necessarily mean that the person is running around like a maniac, screaming and gesticulating and being a generally scary, out of control menace (of course, it can present this way as well). Perhaps that is why it is less clear to people who have not seen someone experiencing paranoid psychosis, since the behaviors are not, I suppose, what we see in movies when we think of someone being psychotic. HTH.
I would also like to respond to Peter Brandt's quote above by saying that, respectfully, the only people who should be commenting on what constitutes a psychotic state and the symptomatology of that state are websleuths verified experts. I recognize that you say you have experience in other things but what you posted about the symptomatology of behavior in psychotic states is simply wrong. People are perfectly capable of exhibiting what appears to the outside world to be "organized, functional" behaviors during a psychotic state. It is incorrect to say that if EL was exhibiting "organized, functional" behaviors like hiding her clothes that she couldn't have been experiencing psychosis. She most certainly could have.
Elevator video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=3TjVBpyTeZM#!