ABSTRACT
The terrorist's mind fascinates people because it poses two serious problems. The first is a sort of Occam's razor issue: can people delineate the necessary factors that make a person capable of committing the kind of heinous acts that took place on September 11? The second is an issue of identity: can people be certain that we will never be that person? However, the mind of youths in general, and of these youths in particular, works differently. The anarchism associated with the students revolt of the late 1960s and the spate of terrorist activities that followed in the 1970s gave rise to several psychoanalytic papers. "Terrorism" refers to the obliteration of and disregard for the real needs and existence of the other. The traumatogenic childhood of this sadomasochistic parent is clearly implied by Ferenczi as the root cause for thus terrorizing his or her child, suggesting an endless chain of "exogenous" environmental mistreatment.
