ABSTRACT
S. Freud, in "Formulations on the Two Principles of Mental Functioning", differentiated between those who rushed to action to unburden themselves of accretions of stimuli and those who could tolerate frustration. Many straightforward career criminals choose not to work at deep, personal psychotherapy, but do respond to a changed loyalty away from the delinquent leader to a nondelinquent, caring person who clarifies their reality sense and grows to be trusted. Detachment from the criminal group is necessary, as is reattachment to a noncriminal one. Anyone who has become brutalized in the course of "service" in a criminal group requires rehabilitation, that is, debrutalization. This process necessarily takes time. Some moral but nonmoralizing religious groups can, and do, perform crucially important work in the process of debrutalization and reattachment, for which they provide the alternative group. The theme is the passage from fantasy to impulse to action. At a fantasy level we all have criminal tendencies.
