A psychoanalytic contribution to the understanding of criminal tendencies

Abstract

The present work provides a novel contribution to the psychoanalytic literature on criminal tendencies and is based on an experience of group supervision with the staff of professionals in an Italian Secure Psychiatric Unit. With the support of a single case from that institution, the case of Mary, and two more clinical illustrations, new insights on the criminal act will be presented and discussed according to three main themes: a) the failure of containment; b) the antisocial act as a concrete attempt to represent internal conflicts; c) the violent internal aspect as the place where the patient’s psychic vitality resides. The work concludes by showing how the care team, within this kind of institution, can promote the patients’ psychic development on each of the following three themes: a) acting as a transformative container; b) being capable of restoring a symbolic and representational dimension to violent and antisocial acts; c) being capable of restoring the aspect of the psychic vitality of violent and antisocial acts to promote the passage towards the differentiation between +psychic vitality and -psychic vitality.

Keywords:

• psychic vitality
• criminal tendencies
• psychoanalytic psychotherapy
• Secure Psychiatric Units

Acknowledgements

We would like to warmly thank all the people pertaining to this institution, with a specific mention to the remarkable group of colleagues. Without their collaboration, the reflections contained within this paper would have been completely unthinkable.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.