We want to express our deep appreciation to the editors of Contemporary Psychoanalysis for accepting our proposal to guest edit this timely issue on psychopathy and human evil.
In the pages that follow, our readers will find thought-provoking articles exploring our theme from a variety of perspectives. We hope to spark your interest in this important topic and hope it generates further interest.
In “Outsiders to Love: The Psychopathic Character and Dilemma”, Elizabeth Howell describes key characteristics of psychopaths, including the power of deceit in a world that generally runs on trust, and the psychopath's ability to tap into and intermesh with peoples' dissociated need, greed, fears, and sadism. Psychopathic character is understood in terms of a dissociative structure of interlocking self-states in which ruthless instrumentality is dominant. The evil in psychopathy originates in a feeling of being an outsider to love, outside and envious of the fabric of the social order and emotional world shared by others. It is argued that although it is human to have some characteristics of evil, sadism, and psychopathy, psychopaths themselves fit into a taxon, a category of their own.
Sheldon Itzkowitz examines our topic from a broad psychoanalytic perspective in “Psychopathy and Human Evil: An Overview”. The article explores the personality characteristics, organization, and cognitive style of the psychopath, as well as the role of superego pathology, contributions from the field of attachment, and the manner in which dissociation plays a role in psychopathy and the potential for conflating this with the dissociative structuring of the mind. The article closes with a brief discussion about “corporate” or “successful psychopaths” and how they have a negative impact on culture and society.
The relationship among sexual desire, violent death, and fundamentalist beliefs that lead to acts of terrorism is explored by J. Reid Meloy in “Sexual Desire, Violent Death, and the True Believer.” He uses information from contemporary jihadist, ethnic nationalist, and single-issue terrorist violence to discuss his ideas about psychopathy using concepts from psychoanalytic structural theory and object relations theory.
In “The Other Within: White Shame, Native-American Genocide,” Sue Grand explores the manner in which white American psychoanalysis has failed to fully acknowledge and reconcile African American slavery and the extermination of indigenous peoples. Using these atrocities as backdrop she discusses how these victimized groups are likely to encounter the opportunity to engage in repair and recognition in confronting white racial shame and guilt.
Robert Prince examines evil using the incomprehensible war crimes of Adolph Eichmann in his contemplative article, “Sympathy for the Devil: Evil, Social Process, and Intelligibility.” Prince locates Eichmann by drawing a map of evil with crisscrossing routes named ideology, deception, banality, thoughtlessness, and malevolence. He concludes that evil is, “reciprocally located in individual and social processes” helping to make the world both understandable and adding meaning to it; evil, he explains, assaults reality while simultaneously forging it as well.
In “Dissociation and Counterdissociation: Nuanced and Binary Perceptions of Good and Evil,” Richard Gartner extends his ideas on the relational field between analyst and patient. Using material from two of his own cases, Gartner demonstrates how when working with severely traumatized individuals, the “emotional flow” can induce dissociative reactions in the analyst, i.e., counterdissociation. These reactions stem from evil acts that were perpetrated on these patients as children. Gartner clarifies the potential positive and negative aspects of counterdissociation and how he works with these experiences.
Emily Kuriloff, in her article, “Die Hitler in uns (The Hitler in Us): Evil and The Psychoanalytic Situation,” discusses how early psychoanalysts identified with the ideal of psychoanalysis being separate and apart from the influence of culture and society. She argues that rigid adherence to theory contributed to destructive ideas and treatment and also at times to inadvertent—and in some cases planned—cooperation with the evils of National Socialism. With the view of the self as a construction, contemporary psychoanalysis is challenged to confront evil as it exists in both analysts and analysands, in culture and society and the influences they have on individuals.
Neville Symington's fascinating article, “The Murder of Laius,” reexamines the Oedipus myth, interpreting Laius as representing an inner psychic reality. For Symington, Oedipus' worst crime wasn't external (patricide and incest), which is the popular understanding of the myth. By acquiescing to the voice of fate and not actively creating his own independent life, the real evil in the myth is both internal and existential. This inner potential of creating one's freedom from fate as decreed, is what is murdered.
In his article, “The Place of Psychopathy along the Spectrum of Negative Personality Types,” Michael Stone considers psychopathy to be one of a number of negative personality organizations, albeit at the extreme end of the continuum. He discusses narcissistic, paranoid, antisocial, and psychopathic personality types, their characteristics, dynamics, and amenability to treatment. Examples of these disorders are provided to enable the clinician to better understand how these types differ.
Mary Gail Frawley O'Dea's moving personal account, “Dancing with the Devil: A Personal Essay on My Encounters with Sexual Abuse in the Catholic Church,” captivates us with her first-person account of a clinician working with survivors of sexual abuse. Through her other roles as speaker, author, advocate, and expert witness she describes her experience when engaging evil face to face in the form of members of the clergy and disciples, both unwilling to believe in the fallibility of ungodly, and all too human, priest pedophiles.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Elizabeth F. Howell
Elizabeth F. Howell, Ph.D., is a psychoanalyst and traumatologist who specializes in the treatment of dissociative disorders. She is on the editorial board of the Journal of Trauma and Dissociation, an adjunct clinical associate professor in psy chology for the NYU Postdoctoral Program in Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis, and faculty and supervisor for the Trauma Treatment Center of the Manhattan Institute for Psychoanalysis. She has written extensively and lectured nationally and internationally on various aspects of trauma and dissociation, as well as on gender and trauma/dissociation. Her award-winning books include Understanding and Treating Dissociative Identity Disorder: A Relational Approach; The Dissociative Mind,Women and Mental Health; and The Dissociative Mind in Psychoanalysis, coedited with Sheldon Itzkowitz, Ph.D. (This last book is not only the winner of the Media Award-Written by the International Society for the Study of Trauma & Dissociation [ISSTD] and the Author Recognition Award from NIP, but has also 430 been nominated for the 2017 Gradiva Award). Dr. Howell is the recipient, from ISSTD, of the Cornelia Wilber Award for outstanding clinical contributions in the field of dissociative disorders and the Lifetime Achievement Award. She runs study and consultation groups, and is in private practice in New York City.
Sheldon Itzkowitz
Sheldon Itzkowitz, Ph.D., ABPP, is an adjunct clinical associate professor of psychology and clinical consultant, the NYU Postdoctoral Program in Psychotherapy & Psychoanalysis; Guest Faculty, Eating Disorders, Compulsions, and Addictions Program, The William Alanson White Institute; on the teaching and supervisory faculty, the National Institute for the Psychotherapies program in Psychoanalysis; and the Trauma Studies Program, The Manhattan Institute for Psychoanalysis. He is an Associate Editor of Psychoanalytic Perspectives and former President of the Division of Psychoanalysis of the New York State Psychological Association. Dr. Itzkowitz has presented his work with extremely dissociated individuals both nationally and internationally. His most recent publications include The Dissociative Mind In Psychoanalysis: Understanding and Working With Trauma, co-edited with Elizabeth F. Howell. The book received the 2016 Media Award-Written by the International Society for the Study of Trauma & Dissociation and the Author Recognition Award from NIP and nominated for the 2017 Gradiva Award. “A Dream As An Internal Enactment of Trauma: The Impact On the Analyst's Self” appears in J. Petrucelli & S. Schoen (Eds.), Unknowable, Unspeakable, and Unsprung: Psychoanalytic Perspectives on Truth, Scandal, Secrets, and Lies, and “The Interpersonal-Relational Field, Countertrauma, and Counterresilience: The Impact of Treating Trauma and Dissociation” appears in R. B. Gartner (Ed.), Trauma and Countertrauma, Resilience and Counterresilience: Insights from Psychoanalysts and Trauma Experts, published by Routledge. He is in full time private practice in New York City.