Pathologies of Perpetration

Abstract

Many may think it strange to be concerned about the psychodynamics and suffering of perpetrators of violence. There is often a fear that if we try to “understand” and “explain” violent behavior, we somehow excuse the perpetrator from moral responsibility, and diminish the emotional horror of the crimes. That is not our aim. The perpetrator of violence is ultimately responsible for his or her actions. At the same time, the historical, cultural, and political context may press powerful ideologies upon the potential perpetrator that instigate, sustain, and justify violence. As Lifton (1983) has stressed, a “critical examination of ideologies and institutions in their interaction with styles of self-process” in perpetrators is necessary as a “prophylaxis against genocidal directions of the self” (p. 500). To focus on the individual alone will mislead us and weaken our grasp of how perpetration of violence unfolds within particular communities and cultures. There are three crucial tasks for psychologies of liberation regarding perpetration: (1) to understand the intrapsychic dynamics of the perpetrator in societal context; (2) to study and facilitate processes of sharing remembrance and acknowledgment, at times apology and forgiveness, or reconciliation and restoration in post-conflict situations (Chapter 15); and (3) to help communities promote the kinds of critical thinking, empathic bonds, and dialogical relations that mitigate against violence (Chapters 10 and 11).

As Gandhi was to so clearly formulate through his own life, freedom is indivisible, not only in the popular sense that the oppressed of the world are one, but also in the unpopular sense that the oppressor too is caught in the culture of oppression.

(Nandy, 1983, p. 6)