Living with terror

Abstract

In this paper I explore the nature of anxieties and defences underlying terror and terrorism. I suggest that the terrorists who terrorise us enact our depressive anxieties associated with an inconsolable despair about our destructiveness. This destructiveness is epitomised in the development and proliferation of nuclear weapons which threaten mass destruction of the marvellous civilisation we have created, and destruction of our personal universe. I suggest too that our terror reflects paranoid schizoid anxieties of helplessness, annihilation and fragmentation linked with the nuclear threat, but also linked with post-traumatic stress, particularly transmitted through the generations from two global conflicts in the last century. Omnipotent defences which are erected against such fears can be seen nationally in attacks on dependency cultures in institutions like the national health service or education; and internationally in the creation of a bully superpower spreading fear and disintegration. Finally, I suggest these omnipotent defences contribute to the prevalence of a cruel dictator-in-the-mind and consequently an enslavement to idealised or cruel leaders.

Keywords:

• Terror
• trauma
• despair
• enact
• helplessness and fragmentation

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Notes on contributors

Paul Terry

Paul Terry 4 Nelsons Yard, Beatty Street, London NW1 7RN