Journal of threat assessment and management, Apr 27, 2023
This case study is a detailed assessment of the paranoid schizophrenia and right-wing extremist b... more This case study is a detailed assessment of the paranoid schizophrenia and right-wing extremist beliefs of Tobias Rathjen, who amalgamated three low-base rate events: mass homicide, matricide, and suicide. The offender killed nine individuals during a terrorist attack in Hanau, Germany, on February 19, 2020, before murdering his mother and taking his own life. A comprehensive qualitative analysis of primary and secondary sources was conducted, with raw materials consisting of three written documents and three recorded videos, all authored and disseminated by the perpetrator prior to his attack. Open-source data were predominantly composed of the postmortem forensic psychiatric evaluation of the assailant, as well as minor interpellations between the German government and parliamentary groups, and to a lesser extent printed and online articles. We structured the analysis with the Terrorist Radicalization Assessment Protocol (TRAP-18) and found that Rathjen was positive for 94% of the TRAP-18 indicators. The motivations for his acts of violence were multifaceted, but his major psychiatric illness, paranoid schizophrenia with chronic delusions, was central in his progression to become a lone-actor terrorist. In addition to this internally formed psychotic-driven ideology, the perpetrator was influenced and inspired by external (i.e., online and offline) xenophobic and conspiratorial elements that gradually provided a secondary framework for his violent attack. The complex interplay of his delusions, obsessions, and extreme overvalued beliefs-which drove his fixation-reveal the difficulty of clinically understanding such a case, and also the necessity of doing so, to attempt to risk mitigate these types of subjects by threat assessment teams.
The International Journal Of Psychoanalysis, Jul 4, 2015
Todos los derechos reservados. Traducción autorizada de la edición en idioma inglés publicada por... more Todos los derechos reservados. Traducción autorizada de la edición en idioma inglés publicada por John Wiley & Sons Limited. La responsabilidad por la exactitud de la traducción es responsabilidad exclusiva del Instituto de Psicoanálisis y no responsabilidad de John Wiley & Sons Limited.
Even though the term 'history' [Geschichte] rarely appears in the Three Essays on the Theory of S... more Even though the term 'history' [Geschichte] rarely appears in the Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality (Freud 1905d), a particular conception of history-which Freud evoked here and there through what he called 'culture history' or by referring to 'culture historians'-pervades the book. Who were these 'culture historians'? How and why did their perspective inform the heart of the Freudian theory of neuroses? Such issues are of definite interest for analysts, even more so since in 1905 Freud evoked 'culture history' as an alternative to the situation of psychoanalysis. Moreover 'culture historians' were recognized for their ability to reveal causes that talk within the medical practice could not bring out. This was a crossroad in the evolution of Freudian theory, which opened-in a quite incredible manner-an afterlife for the analytic situation, which was meant to sustain the hypothesis of a sexual origin of neuroses and perversions. After re-enacting, step-by-step, Freud's sustaining his theory thanks to mysterious 'culture historians', I will examine the role and consequences of the introduction of culture history into the Freudian theory of neuroses. This paper has been translated by Bethsabée Zarka.
Makari's work, Revolution in Mind, presents readers with the opportunity to reconside... more Makari's work, Revolution in Mind, presents readers with the opportunity to reconsider and compare the manner in which the history of psychoanalysis has been understood in France and English-speaking countries until now. In demonstrating how the birth of psychoanalysis constituted a legitimate revolution of scientific thought and addressed questions left unanswered by philosophy and human sciences in the middle of the 19th century, G. Makari offers a new historiography of psychoanalysis.
Could Reinach's Cultes, mythes et religions (1908) have served as a model... more Could Reinach's Cultes, mythes et religions (1908) have served as a model for the theory of religion that Freud was later to put forward in Totem and Taboo (1913)? This hypothesis has been tested by examining Freud's marginalia in his personal copy of Cultes, mythes et religions. In this way it is possible to reconstitute the line of thinking that led Freud to declare, in late summer 1911, that he had found an answer to the question of the origins of tragic guilt and religious sentiment.
La reproduction ou représentation de cet article, notamment par photocopie, n'est autorisée que d... more La reproduction ou représentation de cet article, notamment par photocopie, n'est autorisée que dans les limites des conditions générales d'utilisation du site ou, le cas échéant, des conditions générales de la licence souscrite par votre établissement. Toute autre reproduction ou représentation, en tout ou partie, sous quelque forme et de quelque manière que ce soit, est interdite sauf accord préalable et écrit de l'éditeur, en dehors des cas prévus par la législation en vigueur en France. Il est précisé que son stockage dans une base de données est également interdit. Article disponible en ligne à l'adresse Article disponible en ligne à l'adresse https://www.cairn.info/revue-topique-2002-4-page-155.htm Découvrir le sommaire de ce numéro, suivre la revue par email, s'abonner... Flashez ce QR Code pour accéder à la page de ce numéro sur Cairn.info. 1-À LA RECHERCHE DE L'ORIGINE PULSIONNELLE DE LA RELIGION Le 4 août 1911, Freud écrit à Ferenczi : « Je lis l'histoire des religions et j'ai commandé quelques livres qui ne veulent pas arriver » 1. L'intérêt pour la religion, pour son histoire, n'est certes pas nouveau chez Freud. Mais, en cet été 1911, celui-ci conflue avec des ambitions théoriques. En effet, le 20 juillet 1911, quelques quinze jours avant cette lettre de Klobenstein, Freud installé à Karslbad, écrivait déjà à Ferenczi : « Par moments, je pouvais faire concurrence à ce malheureux Lazare. Maintenant je commence à aller mieux. Il m'est même de nouveau venu une idée concernant l'origine pulsionnelle de la religion, que je travaillerai peut-être à fond » 2. Cette idée sur l'origine pulsionnelle de la religion, Freud l'aurait-il trouvée dans cette lecture qu'il nomme « l'histoire des religions » ? Et quelles peuvent donc être, entre juillet et août 1911, les sources de Freud en matière d'histoire des religions ? C'est alors que nous nous tournons vers le supplément au Schreber écrit durant ce même été 1911. Dans ce texte, Freud parle, pour la première fois de « totémisme », il souligne que les forces formatrices de mythes et de religions sont encore vivantes dans la névrose, et il livre le nom d'un auteur et d'un ouvrage : Salomon Reinach, Cultes mythes et religions. Cette première piste qui s'offre à nous se verra bientôt confirmée. En effet, dans le Meurtre et névrose de l'humanité, de quelques circonstances interrogeant les choix freudiens
A close study of Freud's use of the terms Trieb, Impuls, etc., allows an insight into Freud&#... more A close study of Freud's use of the terms Trieb, Impuls, etc., allows an insight into Freud's sources of Inspiration, through which I interrogate the importance he gradually granted the concept of drive before 1905. Freud first tentatively introduced the notion of 'sexual drive forces', then developed the hypothesis of a 'communication drive'. There was much hesitancy in his defining the notion of sexual drive. He eventually adopted a concept widely used by psychiatrists at the time, which played a part in the recurrence of an innate — then hereditary — theory in psychoanalysis.
Between 1908 and 1913, Freud and his disciples debated different theories of the origins of manki... more Between 1908 and 1913, Freud and his disciples debated different theories of the origins of mankind, which Freud analysed in the context of his theory of neuroses. Wittels was the first of this group to present, in 1908, what Freud labelled a ‘fantasy’ on the subject. Wittels contemplated various prehistoric scenarios (such as a murder of the father by his children) which he postulated as potential explanations for the origin of man's conception of religion, law and state. Freud (1913) eventually conceived his own human prehistory which differed significantly from the ideas of Wittels and his other disciples (Jung, Tausk) and allowed him to claim he now held a ‘historical’ point of view that his disciples were missing.
In 1908, in his article '"Civilized" sexual morality and modern nervous illness', Freud presented... more In 1908, in his article '"Civilized" sexual morality and modern nervous illness', Freud presented neuroses as the consequence of a restrictive state of cultural development and its 'civilized morality'. He found the inspiration for this idea by expanding upon previous formulations in this area by his predecessors (notably Christian von Ehrenfels) that focused on a cultural process earlier introduced by Kant, while also integrating in his analysis the principles of Haeckel's evolutionism (history of development, recapitulation) which eventually redefined the psychoanalytic theory of neuroses. These new theoretical elements became the basis of psychoanalytic theory and thereby influenced subsequent thinking in the cultural process itself and in human sciences. This transformation of underlying theory provided a unique historical and analytical framework for psychoanalysis which allowed Freud to claim for it a pre-eminent position among the human sciences.
Entre 1905 et 1911, une nouvelle perspective se fait lentement jour dans les écrits de Sigmund Fr... more Entre 1905 et 1911, une nouvelle perspective se fait lentement jour dans les écrits de Sigmund Freud. Une perspective qu'il considère comme ‘historique’ et nommera finalement ‘histoire du développement de la libido’ (Entwicklungsgeschichte der Libido) en 1911. En relisant L'Homme aux rats, Schreber et L'Homme aux loups nous pouvons comprendre la manière dont Freud, grâce à l'analyse de ces histoires de malades, repère les particularités de son ‘histoire du développement de la libido’ au coeur de la préhistoire infantile. Nous étudierons aussi la manière dont cette ‘histoire du développement de libido’, en fournissant une interprétation stéréotypée du matériel psychique, peut conduire à une réduction du mouvement même de l'analyse. Between 1905 and 1911 a perspective slowly appeared in Freud's works - a perspective which he considered ‘historical’ and which he eventually named ‘history of the libido's development’ (Entwicklungsgeschichte der Libido) in 1911. By reading again ‘The Rat Man’, ‘Schreber’ and ‘The Wolf Man’ we can understand how Freud, thanks to the analysis of his case histories, outlined the particularities of this ‘history of the libido's development’, which lies at the core of infantile prehistory. We will also study how this ‘history of the libido's development’, in providing a stereotyped interpretation of psychic material, could lead to a reduction of the very movement of the analysis.
The International Journal of Psychoanalysis, Aug 1, 2015
On 22 July 2011, a 32 year-old Norwegian launched two planned murderous rampages claiming the liv... more On 22 July 2011, a 32 year-old Norwegian launched two planned murderous rampages claiming the lives of 77 victims. Shortly before his attacks, Anders Behring Breivik uploaded to the internet a self-styled compendium written in English in which he explained the motivation for his attacks. By deconstructing this text and the documentation contained in the first [court-ordered] psychiatric evaluation of Breivik, we can undertake to analyse his sense of persecution. In pursing this analysis, we start with Breivik's description of his personal concept of contemporary European history and politics, and then proceed to the autobiographical and phantasmic aspects of his discourse. The analysis reveals the transformation of love into hate, the original persecutor, the installation of a projection mechanism, notions of betrayal and their subsequent development into an ideology. With Breivik's conceptions thus revealed, we conclude by comparing different psychoanalytic hypotheses which deepen or challenge the Freudian thesis of a defence against a feeling of homosexual love in persecution, and which to the contrary favour the importance of the relationship with the mother, anal sadism or the 'narcissistic rage' behind the genesis of these ideas. We leave open the question of whether there is a constant relationship between feelings of persecution and the tendency to commit criminal acts.
Journal of threat assessment and management, Apr 27, 2023
This case study is a detailed assessment of the paranoid schizophrenia and right-wing extremist b... more This case study is a detailed assessment of the paranoid schizophrenia and right-wing extremist beliefs of Tobias Rathjen, who amalgamated three low-base rate events: mass homicide, matricide, and suicide. The offender killed nine individuals during a terrorist attack in Hanau, Germany, on February 19, 2020, before murdering his mother and taking his own life. A comprehensive qualitative analysis of primary and secondary sources was conducted, with raw materials consisting of three written documents and three recorded videos, all authored and disseminated by the perpetrator prior to his attack. Open-source data were predominantly composed of the postmortem forensic psychiatric evaluation of the assailant, as well as minor interpellations between the German government and parliamentary groups, and to a lesser extent printed and online articles. We structured the analysis with the Terrorist Radicalization Assessment Protocol (TRAP-18) and found that Rathjen was positive for 94% of the TRAP-18 indicators. The motivations for his acts of violence were multifaceted, but his major psychiatric illness, paranoid schizophrenia with chronic delusions, was central in his progression to become a lone-actor terrorist. In addition to this internally formed psychotic-driven ideology, the perpetrator was influenced and inspired by external (i.e., online and offline) xenophobic and conspiratorial elements that gradually provided a secondary framework for his violent attack. The complex interplay of his delusions, obsessions, and extreme overvalued beliefs-which drove his fixation-reveal the difficulty of clinically understanding such a case, and also the necessity of doing so, to attempt to risk mitigate these types of subjects by threat assessment teams.
The International Journal Of Psychoanalysis, Jul 4, 2015
Todos los derechos reservados. Traducción autorizada de la edición en idioma inglés publicada por... more Todos los derechos reservados. Traducción autorizada de la edición en idioma inglés publicada por John Wiley & Sons Limited. La responsabilidad por la exactitud de la traducción es responsabilidad exclusiva del Instituto de Psicoanálisis y no responsabilidad de John Wiley & Sons Limited.
Even though the term 'history' [Geschichte] rarely appears in the Three Essays on the Theory of S... more Even though the term 'history' [Geschichte] rarely appears in the Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality (Freud 1905d), a particular conception of history-which Freud evoked here and there through what he called 'culture history' or by referring to 'culture historians'-pervades the book. Who were these 'culture historians'? How and why did their perspective inform the heart of the Freudian theory of neuroses? Such issues are of definite interest for analysts, even more so since in 1905 Freud evoked 'culture history' as an alternative to the situation of psychoanalysis. Moreover 'culture historians' were recognized for their ability to reveal causes that talk within the medical practice could not bring out. This was a crossroad in the evolution of Freudian theory, which opened-in a quite incredible manner-an afterlife for the analytic situation, which was meant to sustain the hypothesis of a sexual origin of neuroses and perversions. After re-enacting, step-by-step, Freud's sustaining his theory thanks to mysterious 'culture historians', I will examine the role and consequences of the introduction of culture history into the Freudian theory of neuroses. This paper has been translated by Bethsabée Zarka.
Makari's work, Revolution in Mind, presents readers with the opportunity to reconside... more Makari's work, Revolution in Mind, presents readers with the opportunity to reconsider and compare the manner in which the history of psychoanalysis has been understood in France and English-speaking countries until now. In demonstrating how the birth of psychoanalysis constituted a legitimate revolution of scientific thought and addressed questions left unanswered by philosophy and human sciences in the middle of the 19th century, G. Makari offers a new historiography of psychoanalysis.
Could Reinach's Cultes, mythes et religions (1908) have served as a model... more Could Reinach's Cultes, mythes et religions (1908) have served as a model for the theory of religion that Freud was later to put forward in Totem and Taboo (1913)? This hypothesis has been tested by examining Freud's marginalia in his personal copy of Cultes, mythes et religions. In this way it is possible to reconstitute the line of thinking that led Freud to declare, in late summer 1911, that he had found an answer to the question of the origins of tragic guilt and religious sentiment.
La reproduction ou représentation de cet article, notamment par photocopie, n'est autorisée que d... more La reproduction ou représentation de cet article, notamment par photocopie, n'est autorisée que dans les limites des conditions générales d'utilisation du site ou, le cas échéant, des conditions générales de la licence souscrite par votre établissement. Toute autre reproduction ou représentation, en tout ou partie, sous quelque forme et de quelque manière que ce soit, est interdite sauf accord préalable et écrit de l'éditeur, en dehors des cas prévus par la législation en vigueur en France. Il est précisé que son stockage dans une base de données est également interdit. Article disponible en ligne à l'adresse Article disponible en ligne à l'adresse https://www.cairn.info/revue-topique-2002-4-page-155.htm Découvrir le sommaire de ce numéro, suivre la revue par email, s'abonner... Flashez ce QR Code pour accéder à la page de ce numéro sur Cairn.info. 1-À LA RECHERCHE DE L'ORIGINE PULSIONNELLE DE LA RELIGION Le 4 août 1911, Freud écrit à Ferenczi : « Je lis l'histoire des religions et j'ai commandé quelques livres qui ne veulent pas arriver » 1. L'intérêt pour la religion, pour son histoire, n'est certes pas nouveau chez Freud. Mais, en cet été 1911, celui-ci conflue avec des ambitions théoriques. En effet, le 20 juillet 1911, quelques quinze jours avant cette lettre de Klobenstein, Freud installé à Karslbad, écrivait déjà à Ferenczi : « Par moments, je pouvais faire concurrence à ce malheureux Lazare. Maintenant je commence à aller mieux. Il m'est même de nouveau venu une idée concernant l'origine pulsionnelle de la religion, que je travaillerai peut-être à fond » 2. Cette idée sur l'origine pulsionnelle de la religion, Freud l'aurait-il trouvée dans cette lecture qu'il nomme « l'histoire des religions » ? Et quelles peuvent donc être, entre juillet et août 1911, les sources de Freud en matière d'histoire des religions ? C'est alors que nous nous tournons vers le supplément au Schreber écrit durant ce même été 1911. Dans ce texte, Freud parle, pour la première fois de « totémisme », il souligne que les forces formatrices de mythes et de religions sont encore vivantes dans la névrose, et il livre le nom d'un auteur et d'un ouvrage : Salomon Reinach, Cultes mythes et religions. Cette première piste qui s'offre à nous se verra bientôt confirmée. En effet, dans le Meurtre et névrose de l'humanité, de quelques circonstances interrogeant les choix freudiens
A close study of Freud's use of the terms Trieb, Impuls, etc., allows an insight into Freud&#... more A close study of Freud's use of the terms Trieb, Impuls, etc., allows an insight into Freud's sources of Inspiration, through which I interrogate the importance he gradually granted the concept of drive before 1905. Freud first tentatively introduced the notion of 'sexual drive forces', then developed the hypothesis of a 'communication drive'. There was much hesitancy in his defining the notion of sexual drive. He eventually adopted a concept widely used by psychiatrists at the time, which played a part in the recurrence of an innate — then hereditary — theory in psychoanalysis.
Between 1908 and 1913, Freud and his disciples debated different theories of the origins of manki... more Between 1908 and 1913, Freud and his disciples debated different theories of the origins of mankind, which Freud analysed in the context of his theory of neuroses. Wittels was the first of this group to present, in 1908, what Freud labelled a ‘fantasy’ on the subject. Wittels contemplated various prehistoric scenarios (such as a murder of the father by his children) which he postulated as potential explanations for the origin of man's conception of religion, law and state. Freud (1913) eventually conceived his own human prehistory which differed significantly from the ideas of Wittels and his other disciples (Jung, Tausk) and allowed him to claim he now held a ‘historical’ point of view that his disciples were missing.
In 1908, in his article '"Civilized" sexual morality and modern nervous illness', Freud presented... more In 1908, in his article '"Civilized" sexual morality and modern nervous illness', Freud presented neuroses as the consequence of a restrictive state of cultural development and its 'civilized morality'. He found the inspiration for this idea by expanding upon previous formulations in this area by his predecessors (notably Christian von Ehrenfels) that focused on a cultural process earlier introduced by Kant, while also integrating in his analysis the principles of Haeckel's evolutionism (history of development, recapitulation) which eventually redefined the psychoanalytic theory of neuroses. These new theoretical elements became the basis of psychoanalytic theory and thereby influenced subsequent thinking in the cultural process itself and in human sciences. This transformation of underlying theory provided a unique historical and analytical framework for psychoanalysis which allowed Freud to claim for it a pre-eminent position among the human sciences.
Entre 1905 et 1911, une nouvelle perspective se fait lentement jour dans les écrits de Sigmund Fr... more Entre 1905 et 1911, une nouvelle perspective se fait lentement jour dans les écrits de Sigmund Freud. Une perspective qu'il considère comme ‘historique’ et nommera finalement ‘histoire du développement de la libido’ (Entwicklungsgeschichte der Libido) en 1911. En relisant L'Homme aux rats, Schreber et L'Homme aux loups nous pouvons comprendre la manière dont Freud, grâce à l'analyse de ces histoires de malades, repère les particularités de son ‘histoire du développement de la libido’ au coeur de la préhistoire infantile. Nous étudierons aussi la manière dont cette ‘histoire du développement de libido’, en fournissant une interprétation stéréotypée du matériel psychique, peut conduire à une réduction du mouvement même de l'analyse. Between 1905 and 1911 a perspective slowly appeared in Freud's works - a perspective which he considered ‘historical’ and which he eventually named ‘history of the libido's development’ (Entwicklungsgeschichte der Libido) in 1911. By reading again ‘The Rat Man’, ‘Schreber’ and ‘The Wolf Man’ we can understand how Freud, thanks to the analysis of his case histories, outlined the particularities of this ‘history of the libido's development’, which lies at the core of infantile prehistory. We will also study how this ‘history of the libido's development’, in providing a stereotyped interpretation of psychic material, could lead to a reduction of the very movement of the analysis.
The International Journal of Psychoanalysis, Aug 1, 2015
On 22 July 2011, a 32 year-old Norwegian launched two planned murderous rampages claiming the liv... more On 22 July 2011, a 32 year-old Norwegian launched two planned murderous rampages claiming the lives of 77 victims. Shortly before his attacks, Anders Behring Breivik uploaded to the internet a self-styled compendium written in English in which he explained the motivation for his attacks. By deconstructing this text and the documentation contained in the first [court-ordered] psychiatric evaluation of Breivik, we can undertake to analyse his sense of persecution. In pursing this analysis, we start with Breivik's description of his personal concept of contemporary European history and politics, and then proceed to the autobiographical and phantasmic aspects of his discourse. The analysis reveals the transformation of love into hate, the original persecutor, the installation of a projection mechanism, notions of betrayal and their subsequent development into an ideology. With Breivik's conceptions thus revealed, we conclude by comparing different psychoanalytic hypotheses which deepen or challenge the Freudian thesis of a defence against a feeling of homosexual love in persecution, and which to the contrary favour the importance of the relationship with the mother, anal sadism or the 'narcissistic rage' behind the genesis of these ideas. We leave open the question of whether there is a constant relationship between feelings of persecution and the tendency to commit criminal acts.
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