ABSTRACT
Recently psychoanalysts have begun to consider violence from a perspective of mental representation, thereby placing a focus on internal processes which may result in violent acts. This emphasis has allowed a distinction to be made between different types of violence such as self-preservative violence, malicious violence, predatory violence and affective violence. In essence it is the use of and the experience of an object both in phantasy and reality that are crucial in characterising the different types of violence. Contrastingly a suicide attempt or act of self-mutilation may occur if the self or the body becomes identified with a hated other. There is therefore a close relationship between violence and suicide yet little is known about why one should occur rather than the other. This chapter addresses that question and develops Rosenfeld’s ideas of narcissism. Reliance on complex interpretation alone endangers treatment since it bewilders a patient who is already perplexed and precipitates defensive recourse to thick- or thin-skinned responses.
