The ongoing trial of Lindsay Clancy, the Massachusetts mother accused of killing her three young children, has sparked an emotional public debate over postpartum mental illness, criminal responsibility, and how society should respond to a defendant who claims psychosis.
Appearing on Chicago’s Morning Answer with Chris Krok, who was filling in for Dan Proft, psychotherapist and author Jonathan Alpert discussed the case and warned that growing public identification with Clancy could unintentionally blur the important distinction between postpartum depression and postpartum psychosis.
Alpert, a psychotherapist who practices in New York and Washington, D.C., and writes for publications including the New York Post, Wall Street Journal and The Hill, said he has been concerned by social media videos from women saying they could have been Clancy or that they stand with her. While he acknowledged that the case is horrific and that people may be attempting to show empathy toward someone experiencing a mental health crisis, he said that identifying with Clancy can go far beyond recognizing the struggles associated with postpartum depression.
Postpartum depression and postpartum psychosis are clinically different conditions, Alpert explained. Depression can involve sadness, exhaustion, feeling overwhelmed and isolation, while psychosis involves symptoms such as hallucinations, delusions and disorganized thinking. Alpert said the distinction is especially important because postpartum depression is relatively common, while postpartum psychosis is far less common, and even experiencing psychosis does not mean a person will become violent.
Alpert warned that excessive identification with Clancy could actually contribute to the stigma surrounding postpartum depression. Women who experience ordinary postpartum depression may become reluctant to discuss their symptoms if they fear that doing so will cause others to associate them with someone accused of murdering her children.
“When I see myself in Lindsay,” Alpert said, describing the potential mindset behind the identification, questioning Clancy can begin to feel like questioning the women who see themselves in her.
The discussion also addressed another Illinois case involving a mother who allegedly killed her 2-year-old child and was found self-harming when police arrived. Krok asked whether Alpert was concerned about potential copycat crimes. Alpert said his greater concern was the public reaction and the possibility of continued over-identification with perpetrators, which could shift attention away from victims.
That concern was central to Alpert’s comments about the Clancy case. He said the focus should remain on the three children who were killed while recognizing that Clancy’s mental state is an important question for the court to consider.
Alpert declined to diagnose Clancy remotely, noting that he has never treated her and that a clinician cannot reliably determine the mental state of someone they have not personally evaluated. He also emphasized that the precise circumstances surrounding Clancy’s mental state at the time of the killings may never be completely known.
The timing and duration of the alleged psychosis also raised questions for Alpert. Krok asked whether psychosis could occur only during the approximately 18-minute period in which the homicides allegedly took place and then appear again later when Clancy spoke with a priest.
Alpert said the apparent selectivity concerned him and did not fit neatly with what he has observed while working with patients experiencing similar conditions. He cautioned, however, that the case has been developing for nearly two years, giving Clancy, her attorneys and her mental-health team considerable time to process and reinterpret events. He suggested that the passage of time and possible coaching make it difficult to examine the case as a simple snapshot of symptoms and circumstances.
The conversation eventually shifted from the Clancy trial to the psychology behind political grievance and the appeal of socialism. Krok characterized envy and external blame as significant forces among people attracted to far-left politics, while Alpert described the phenomenon as “grievance culture.”
Alpert said grievance culture can involve a psychological need to identify a villain, whether wealthy people, government institutions or political figures. He connected that behavior to what psychologists call an internal or external locus of control.
Someone with an internal locus of control tends to believe their own choices and actions can influence the outcome of their life, while someone with an external locus of control is more likely to attribute outcomes to outside forces. Alpert argued that the promise of socialism can appeal to people who feel their circumstances are primarily determined by external factors.
The discussion highlighted Alpert’s broader argument that personal responsibility and perceptions of control can play a significant role in how people interpret both their individual circumstances and the larger society around them.
For Alpert, however, the Clancy case presents a much more serious question about the limits of empathy. While mental illness deserves to be understood and treated, he argued that sympathy for a defendant should not come at the expense of remembering the victims or collapsing important distinctions between common postpartum struggles and rare psychiatric disorders.
The conversation underscored the difficulty of separating compassion for mental illness from questions of accountability, particularly in a case involving the deaths of three children and a defendant whose mental state remains a central issue in court.