ABSTRACT
This chapter provides crime scene analysis through the lens of imaginal psychology and examines the crime scene analyst at the center of the postmodern conflict. The criminal profiler is a postmodern hero, standing at the frontier of an untenable modern empire with an impossible mandate: to make sense of the utterly senseless. Analysts for crime scenes, although rarely enacting the first definition of literal apprehension of the criminal, cannot accomplish their task without mentally apprehending, that is, comprehending, the criminal. Blood spatter patterns, hair and fluid traces, soil, insect larvae, trace fibers, and footprints are only a few of the many substances a profiler pieces together to form a picture of the crime. Biofeedback technology, the overflow of neo-Cognitive Behavioral Therapy approaches embracing mindfulness, and simple diaphragmatic breathing provide possible technique options for conservative Federal Bureau of Investigation’s crime scene analysts who might balk at practicing yoga or zazen methods.
