Citation

Koritar E. Am. J. Psychoanal. 2022; ePub(ePub): ePub.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2022, Association for the Advancement of Psychoanalysis, Publisher Holtzbrinck Springer Nature Publishing Group)

DOI

10.1057/s11231-022-09356-9

PMID

35729362

Abstract

Psychoanalytic discourse on the dynamics of the terrorist mindset has been challenged by the absence of clinical work with terrorists in the literature. This paper proposes Ferenczi's concept of the unwelcome child as a dynamic construct of the terrorist mind. Unwelcome children have weak life instincts and correspondingly high death instincts. Clinical material from the analysis of an unwelcome child is presented which suggests that a sense of anomie and alienation from social ties may lead to a fundamentalist mind set which may potentially lead to a search for meaning in terrorist acts. The struggle between life and death instincts is demonstrated in the clinical material, with life instinct tipping the scales in this instance. Self-preservative survival instinct is proposed as the theoretical construct for life instinct in contrast to Freud's libido theory. The unwelcome child represents an object relations theory of the death instinct. Unwelcome children are likely a widespread phenomenon with significant social consequences.

Language: en

Keywords

deadness and aliveness in the counter-transference; self-preservative instinct; the fundamentalist mind; the unwelcome child