Kaczynski’s Psychiatry Appeals Reported

Federal prosecutors on Friday unveiled one more apparent contradiction in the personality of Unabomber suspect Theodore Kaczynski: The Harvard-trained mathematician who says he has a phobia about psychiatrists previously appealed to mental health experts for help in battling insomnia.

Citing letters filed Friday as evidence in the case, prosecutors said that in 1988 and 1991, Kaczynski consulted with psychologists in Montana, and in 1993 wrote two Montana clinics seeking “a suitable psychiatrist.”

The filing is part of their effort to refute Kaczynski’s contention that he has a “psychological dread of examination by psychiatrists.”

Kaczynski’s lawyers have indicated that he suffers from paranoid schizophrenia and might use a “mental defects” defense to suggest that he is not mentally competent. But he has balked at submitting to a court-ordered mental examination.

In one letter, Kaczynski proposed “an unusual arrangement” of sending a therapist typed statements about his sleeplessness and paying the counselor $5 to reply with advice through the mail.

In another letter, to someone at a Missoula, Mont., medical complex, he said: “I don’t want to pick a psychiatrist at random out of the Yellow Pages, because I might pay a hundred dollars or more for a visit to him only to find that he is, for example, a freudian who tries to tell me that I have insomnia because I am unconsciously punishing myself for oedipal feelings or some such nonsense.”

Kaczynski went on to say that he would prefer a psychiatrist who is oriented toward physiology and neurology instead of “talk therapy.” A “talk therapist,” he said, “might tend to overlook possible physical causes of insomnia.”

In that letter, Kaczynski speculated on the cause of his problem, but his speculation is among several parts of the letter deleted by prosecutors.

Kaczynski, 55, is believed by federal authorities to be the elusive Unabomber responsible for a nationwide string of bombings that killed three people and injured 29 others between 1978 and 1995. He has pleaded not guilty.

Kaczynski’s attorneys declined to discuss the latest filing.

A hearing set for Friday will consider the government’s request that Kaczynski be barred from using any testimony from mental health experts during the trial.

Jury selection in his trial got underway Wednesday and will resume Monday.