Citation

Berger M, Bonneville E, Andre P, Rigaud C. Neuropsychiatr. Enfance Adolesc. 2007; 55(7): 353-361.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2007, Elsevier Publishing)

DOI

10.1016/j.neurenf.2006.11.003

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

Some children and pre-adolescents display extreme pathological violence, which can burst out at any time and be directed towards objects as well as towards people without causing the guilt customary felt by aggressive individuals. Such violence, originating in a pathological incorporative identification, has structured itself during the first two years of childhood because of extremely disturbed precocious interactions with caretakers. It has the same quality as an hallucination and is the proof of an undifferenciated and terrifying parental imago. Working with such violence requires well-defined therapeutic procedures, described herein, and need, before being applied, a thorough counter-transferential analysis among institutional caretakers of the various emotional reactions triggered by such violent subjects.