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Psychoanalysis, Violence and Rage-Type Murder: Murdering Minds
What turns an apparently 'normal' individual into a killer?
Many people who commit "rage type" murders have no history of violence. Using psychoanalytic theory and a number of case studies, this book isolates key psychological factors that appear to help explain why such acts of extreme violence occur.
Starting from a psychoanalytic standpoint, Psychoanalysis, Violence and Rage-Type Murder argues for a pluralistic approach to understanding aggression, and claims that the origins of aggression have no single source or cause. Drawing broadly on psychological, criminological and psychoanalytic research the author outlines the clinical features of the act and explores the possible role that psychopathology and personality might play in the build up to murder. These observations raise a number of questions about the so-called 'normality' of the individual alongside the capacity to commit murder, and how we might understand the stability of such offenders. Psychoanalysis, Violence and Rage-Type Murder will be of great interest to psychotherapists, forensic psychotherapists, psychoanalysts, psychologists, criminologists and health care workers.
Many people who commit "rage type" murders have no history of violence. Using psychoanalytic theory and a number of case studies, this book isolates key psychological factors that appear to help explain why such acts of extreme violence occur.
Starting from a psychoanalytic standpoint, Psychoanalysis, Violence and Rage-Type Murder argues for a pluralistic approach to understanding aggression, and claims that the origins of aggression have no single source or cause. Drawing broadly on psychological, criminological and psychoanalytic research the author outlines the clinical features of the act and explores the possible role that psychopathology and personality might play in the build up to murder. These observations raise a number of questions about the so-called 'normality' of the individual alongside the capacity to commit murder, and how we might understand the stability of such offenders. Psychoanalysis, Violence and Rage-Type Murder will be of great interest to psychotherapists, forensic psychotherapists, psychoanalysts, psychologists, criminologists and health care workers.
- GenresPsychologyNonfiction
216 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2002
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
October 13, 2019
Wow. Oh, wow.
This is one of the best books I have read on how rage can lead to murder. It's really scary. Perhaps, under the right conditions, we all could be murderers. I hardly want to think about that. And perhaps, there're still some underlying conditions to consider???? I'd like to make this personal. After reading this book, I thought back to a time when I went into a rage. It is the only time I can ever remember feeling what I knew to be "uncontrollable rage" and it was directed at a situation in my own family that had been brewing for over a decade, maybe even longer, a sort of series of lilliputian ties that had led to the moment I am writing of. This is about complex family dynamics in a family that was to a certain degree dysfunctional. And my rage was directed at my younger sister. If she had been standing in the room with me at the moment of that rage, I am not sure what would have happened. It scares me to think about it, even now. There was a level of emotional violence, not physical, that existed between us. The event which triggered my rage is personal, but it was just something very simple. It gave new meaning to that phrase you hear, "the straw that broke the camel's back," and that is how I thought about it for years after.
After reading this book, I realize that if a few more ingredients had been added to the soup of my despair, I might have resorted to violence myself. However, I abhor violence and have been fleeing it most of my life. But my rage that day was almost unbearable. Let's consider what the book talks about. I am a pretty normal person. At the time, I was stressed by menopause, one of my children marrying someone he shouldn't have, I had just begun taking Prozac, and I was troubled by the failing health of my parents, who would in a few years die. The family dynamics played into all this and I went into a rage at a circumstances I had no control over, but one that I feared, one that had a history. Up until that moment, I had no history of violence. What would have happened if I had been alone that day, or worse, if my sister had been the one to deliver the unforgiving news to me? I shiver to think about it.
I read this book because I am studying the West Memphis Three Murder Case and the FBI ( and I agree) consider these three murders "rage-type murders." The crime scene denotes a rage murder. The bodies suggest a rage murder. So what were the dynamics that day that led to the murders of three eight year old boys in broad daylight less than fifty yards from where a group of other children were playing??????????? This is totally bizarre. But reading this book, connecting it with my own personal experience, and talking to the people who lived in that neighborhood, has helped me to see how a rage murder of three little boys might have happened. I can tell you this. Someone from the neighborhood that the little boys lived in, lost their heads that day, went into a rage, and killed three children, very quickly, and probably not over much. What this also tells us is that it was personal and by someone who knew at least one of the three children. This much cannot be denied. This is truth. This is a puzzle making sense to me. The next question that needs to be answered is why one or all of these children? Why would a rage-type killing be directed at any of them???? This book has a lot of good information.
For example, "over control" may be a key to looking at these murders. If it is over-control, if it is about narcissism and defense splitting, that's frightening to contemplate because there is no motive or plan. Something just happens. There would be no premature violent fantasy attached. That is really scary to note. The horrible thing is that there would be a total lack of remorse in these deaths because the victims of the murder would assume the blame in the murderer's psyche. In other words, the actions that led to the crime would be so subtle as to not seem important, but only to the person involved. It would be a failure of their narcissistic defenses. Profiling such a person would require more information and attention to very small details. Not impossible but troubling. The crime scene, for me, would need for scrutiny.
I totally find this book fascinating. I truly believe in the thought processes here. It makes sense. Over-control makes so much more sense than anything I have ever heard concerning this murder. Over-control would show, in personality, eventually after study.
What a brilliant book. Totally brilliant and thought provoking. I am smiling a little bit. I see it. This is borderline personality organization. It's all going to be about personality. Now whose?
This is one of the best books I have read on how rage can lead to murder. It's really scary. Perhaps, under the right conditions, we all could be murderers. I hardly want to think about that. And perhaps, there're still some underlying conditions to consider???? I'd like to make this personal. After reading this book, I thought back to a time when I went into a rage. It is the only time I can ever remember feeling what I knew to be "uncontrollable rage" and it was directed at a situation in my own family that had been brewing for over a decade, maybe even longer, a sort of series of lilliputian ties that had led to the moment I am writing of. This is about complex family dynamics in a family that was to a certain degree dysfunctional. And my rage was directed at my younger sister. If she had been standing in the room with me at the moment of that rage, I am not sure what would have happened. It scares me to think about it, even now. There was a level of emotional violence, not physical, that existed between us. The event which triggered my rage is personal, but it was just something very simple. It gave new meaning to that phrase you hear, "the straw that broke the camel's back," and that is how I thought about it for years after.
After reading this book, I realize that if a few more ingredients had been added to the soup of my despair, I might have resorted to violence myself. However, I abhor violence and have been fleeing it most of my life. But my rage that day was almost unbearable. Let's consider what the book talks about. I am a pretty normal person. At the time, I was stressed by menopause, one of my children marrying someone he shouldn't have, I had just begun taking Prozac, and I was troubled by the failing health of my parents, who would in a few years die. The family dynamics played into all this and I went into a rage at a circumstances I had no control over, but one that I feared, one that had a history. Up until that moment, I had no history of violence. What would have happened if I had been alone that day, or worse, if my sister had been the one to deliver the unforgiving news to me? I shiver to think about it.
I read this book because I am studying the West Memphis Three Murder Case and the FBI ( and I agree) consider these three murders "rage-type murders." The crime scene denotes a rage murder. The bodies suggest a rage murder. So what were the dynamics that day that led to the murders of three eight year old boys in broad daylight less than fifty yards from where a group of other children were playing??????????? This is totally bizarre. But reading this book, connecting it with my own personal experience, and talking to the people who lived in that neighborhood, has helped me to see how a rage murder of three little boys might have happened. I can tell you this. Someone from the neighborhood that the little boys lived in, lost their heads that day, went into a rage, and killed three children, very quickly, and probably not over much. What this also tells us is that it was personal and by someone who knew at least one of the three children. This much cannot be denied. This is truth. This is a puzzle making sense to me. The next question that needs to be answered is why one or all of these children? Why would a rage-type killing be directed at any of them???? This book has a lot of good information.
For example, "over control" may be a key to looking at these murders. If it is over-control, if it is about narcissism and defense splitting, that's frightening to contemplate because there is no motive or plan. Something just happens. There would be no premature violent fantasy attached. That is really scary to note. The horrible thing is that there would be a total lack of remorse in these deaths because the victims of the murder would assume the blame in the murderer's psyche. In other words, the actions that led to the crime would be so subtle as to not seem important, but only to the person involved. It would be a failure of their narcissistic defenses. Profiling such a person would require more information and attention to very small details. Not impossible but troubling. The crime scene, for me, would need for scrutiny.
I totally find this book fascinating. I truly believe in the thought processes here. It makes sense. Over-control makes so much more sense than anything I have ever heard concerning this murder. Over-control would show, in personality, eventually after study.
What a brilliant book. Totally brilliant and thought provoking. I am smiling a little bit. I see it. This is borderline personality organization. It's all going to be about personality. Now whose?
November 11, 2017
It is fascinating to enter these criminal minds and to realize that all these people carry within them some secret trauma or unresolved parent-child issues that trigger a lot of rage, aggressiveness and violence later in life.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews