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This paper traces a parallel between the intrapsychic phenomena provoked in witnesses of terrorist acts and the psychodynamics present in authors of such acts. Thus, the idea that terrorists seem to unconsciously wish to draw witnesses into a psychic realm similar to their own is proposed. Through complex processes of identification, the fact of witnessing terrorist acts is understood as triggering a regressive pull towards the use of splitting and projective identification in order to defend oneself against despair. The intrapsychic differences between witnesses and terrorists are also outlined, and a clinical case study is presented to illustrate the propositions presented.
Les auteurs tracent un parallèle entre les phénomènes intrapsychiques provoqués chez les témoins d'actes terroristes et le fonctionnement psychodynamique présent chez les auteurs d'actes terroristes. Vidée que le terroriste cherche inconsciemment à entraîner le témoin sur un terrain psychique semblable au sein est ainsi proposée. En raison de processus complexes d'identification, le fait d'être témoin de terrorisme est compris comme provoquant une poussée régressive vers l'utilisation du clivage et de l'identification projective afin de protéger le sujet contre le désespoir. Les auteurs discutent, de plus, des différences intrapsychiques entre témoins et terroristes. Enfin, une présentation clinique sert à illustrer ces propos.
One has, I think, to reckon with the fact that there are present in all men destructive, and therefore anti-social and anti-cultural, trends and that in a great number of people these are strong enough to determine their behaviour in human society.
-Freud
On Tuesday September 11, 2001, commercial planes were hijacked and set on course to cause the most devastating terrorist attacks of modern history. The world watched in real time the television images of the no-story twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York implode while people were jumping from windows and bystanders were screaming in horror. No one was left indifferent. These images of the massacre are tragic reminders of the many acts of terrorism that have occurred all over the world throughout recorded history.
Although it is beyond the scope and the aim of this paper to address any of the very real and determining political and social factors that give rise to and foster terrorism, we hope, nonetheless, to shed some light on the...