A Neurotic Criminal: “I've learned my lesson …”

In 1916, Freud speculated that the majority of criminals might be motivated by a sense of guilt and a need to rationalize it by behaving criminally. Nietzsche (1883/1969) called this neurotic fellow the “pale criminal” (p. 65). Freud left it “to future research to decide how many criminals are to be reckoned among these ‘pale’ ones” (1916/1957, p. 333; see also Alexander, 1930a, 1930b, 1935). We sadly report, nearly 80 years later, that there seem to be very few.