ABSTRACT
What turns an apparently 'normal' individual into a killer?
Many people who commit "rage type" murders have no history of violence. Using psychoanalytic theory and a number of case studies, this book isolates key psychological factors that appear to help explain why such acts of extreme violence occur.
Starting from a psychoanalytic standpoint, Psychoanalysis, Violence and Rage-Type Murder argues for a pluralistic approach to understanding aggression, and claims that the origins of aggression have no single source or cause. Drawing broadly on psychological, criminological and psychoanalytic research the author outlines the clinical features of the act and explores the possible role that psychopathology and personality might play in the build up to murder. These observations raise a number of questions about the so-called 'normality' of the individual alongside the capacity to commit murder, and how we might understand the stability of such offenders. Psychoanalysis, Violence and Rage-Type Murder will be of great interest to psychotherapists, forensic psychotherapists, psychoanalysts, psychologists, criminologists and health care workers.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
chapter |6 pages
Introduction
part I|52 pages
Aggression and violence in psychoanalysis
chapter chapter I|21 pages
Aggression, rage and violence
chapter Chapter 2|29 pages
Seven intrapsychic dimensions of violence
part II|52 pages
Investigating rage-type murder
chapter Chapter 3|17 pages
Defining the parameters of the act: problems and dilemmas
chapter Chapter 4|18 pages
Explosive violence, mental illness and personality
chapter Chapter 5|15 pages
Formulations of rage-type murder: past and recent contributions
part III|74 pages
Intrapsychic dimensions of rage-type murder