In 1956, the psychoanalyst Donald Winnicott, in an essay on unconscious guilt, pointed out in passing that a melancholic patient may irrationally confess to starting some major disaster, one to which he has no connection whatsoever. ‘The illness’, he writes, ‘is an attempt to do the impossible. The patient absurdly claims responsibility for general disaster, but in so doing avoids reaching his or her personal destructiveness.’ In other words, sometimes we might try to assume responsibility for a major disaster in order to avoid responsibility for our own destructive behaviour.
