ABSTRACT
Chapter 9 is the first of two chapters in Part 4 (Toward a Global Understanding). It commences by asking awkward questions, for example, “Why do specific people with dementia or their caregivers kill and the overwhelming majority of others in seemingly similar predicaments not kill?” Noting how difficult it is with our current knowledge to answer questions such as these, the chapter proceeds to examine what the narratives might reveal about the killings perpetrated by those with dementing illness and by caregivers. It examines a range of theoretical works that cast light on the relationship between dementing illness, violence, and homicide. These include insights from biology, Jungian psychology, Freudian psychology, and the sociology and history of violence. The profound gendering of killings raises difficulties for all of these disciplinary approaches. The chapter concludes by questioning often taken for granted assumptions. One such assumption is that a disturbed mind independent of a degenerating brain and nervous system, somehow engineers the impulsive-expressive killings by those with dementing illness. The author argues that mind and body are one and that the mind is some of what the brain and neurons do. It may be more than that, indeed much more, but our minds cannot fathom what might comprise any extras.
