ABSTRACT
This chapter considers an initial investigation into an area that is still largely uncharted by psychoanalytic examination. It also considers Islamic fundamentalism a religious-political ideology, the irrational core of which fuses the solution to private-individual and public-collective problems. The chapter highlights a few areas of Islamic fundamentalism and terrorism, a world still largely unexplored by psychoanalysis. In considering the nature of the attack, many terrorism experts have either ignored or underestimated the central role played by fanatical ideological convictions as a motive in the destructive, phantasmatic world of the perpetrators and their acts. Within religious terrorism, attacks and groups associated with Islamic fundamentalism play a significant role, as their share of involvement in violent acts has drastically increased and once again entered the spotlight following the attacks on September 11. In treating youth who adhere to radical political ideologies, people have come to learn something about their inner development and the function of world-view in the process of adolescence.
