PMC:2813721 / 9490-15155 JSONTXT

{"project":"MyTest","denotations":[{"id":"20126638-4991343-31298289","span":{"begin":5124,"end":5128},"obj":"4991343"},{"id":"20126638-3099697-31298290","span":{"begin":5651,"end":5655},"obj":"3099697"}],"namespaces":[{"prefix":"_base","uri":"https://www.uniprot.org/uniprot/testbase"},{"prefix":"UniProtKB","uri":"https://www.uniprot.org/uniprot/"},{"prefix":"uniprot","uri":"https://www.uniprot.org/uniprotkb/"}],"text":"Psychopathic Paranoia\nTo fully understand extreme violence, it is necessary now to delve into the recesses of the mind, where anxieties originate, and see how psychopathic aggressors organise their internal reality.\nTwo types of anxieties allow us to adapt to our social environment. Paranoid anxieties protect our own integrity. Depressive anxieties (remorse) deter us from behaviours potentially detrimental to others, thus ensuring we receive support from them in times of adversity (Klein, 1992). This dual, emotional, set of anxieties presents the psychopathic aggressor with a complex problem when he commits acts of violence: every time he uses extreme force on his victims he risks being overwhelmed by paranoid and depressive anxieties. To avoid this, he has to develop denial systems that will eliminate any uncertainty.\nThe psychopathic aggressor uses justification, the first authoritarian denial mechanism, to proclaim the benefits of his violence. Justification inhibits any feelings of remorse by destroying depressive anxieties. This first level of cognitive distortion is particularly apparent in sexual aggressors, who justify their acts despite the obvious flaws in their reasoning (Marshall, 1999). If justification is the first psychological strategy used by the psychopathic aggressor, it is not, however, the end of the process. In order to organise his internal reality, the psychopathic aggressor resorts to a second cognitive distortion: victim blame, whereby his victims are blamed for bringing upon themselves the violence they suffer (Cleckley, 1988). Victim blame is balanced by role reversal: the psychopathic aggressor poses himself as the victim of the individual or the group he is attacking. Victim blame and role reversal are clever strategies as they shift the burden of responsibility onto the victims of violence; continuing in this line of reasoning, the victims’ own behaviour is the cause of their suffering (Cotter, 2007).\nHistorian Omer Bartov underlined the crucial part played by victim blame and role reversal during the massacres conducted by German soldiers in the Soviet Union during the Second World War (Bartov, 1991). “The Jew is not the victim, he is the aggressor,” wrote Hitler in Mein Kampf, almost twenty years before the Holocaust (Hitler, 1933, p. 355). In a striking parallel, psychologist Howard Barbaree highlighted the importance of victim blame and role reversal in the most serious sexual crimes (Barbaree, 1993). Thus the rapist, when arrested, will believe he is being unfairly accused because in his view the victim was purposely provoking him and the suffering she endured was only what she deserved.\nIn view of the identical thought patterns found in all types of extreme violence criminologist Stanton Samenow concluded: “Despite a multitude of differences in their backgrounds and crime patterns, criminals are alike in one way: how they think.” (Samenow, 1984, p. 20).\nHaving highlighted the purpose of justification, victim blame and role reversal in the authoritarian rationalisation systems, there is still one question to be answered – a deceptively easy question that, in fact, necessitates complex developments: who is right, the psychopathic aggressor, defending his guilt-inhibiting theories, or his victims who refute them? To answer this question it is necessary to highlight the dynamics associated with the different cognitive processes outlined above. Their relevance or otherwise will then become clear.\nFor all their complexity, the mechanisms of justification, victim blame and role reversal are flawed. Victim blame and role reversal are patently counterproductive. Not only does the role shift from aggressor to victim fail to appease the psychopathic aggressor's anxieties, it actually increases his paranoia since he feels permanently under threat. Furthermore, his depressive anxieties only appear to be eliminated. Guilt and remorse cannot be destroyed, as they are fundamental to the functioning of the mind. They are simply stripped of their symbolic, altruistic content, i.e. transformed into paranoid anxieties which are asymbolic by nature (Cotter, 2007).\nThe psychopathic aggressor cannot escape the downward spiral when the depressive anxieties he is trying to rid himself of are transformed into asymbolic anxieties, which in turn reinforce his paranoid symptoms. There is a further development: the authoritarian syndrome presents a dynamic process of self-destruction. The psychopathic aggressor's artificial increase in paranoid anxieties triggers an even greater need to resort to justification, victim blame and role reversal during his repeated aggressions, causing irreversible cognitive distortions. Once the cycle has begun, paranoid anxieties and denial strategies interact in an increasingly radical manner, imprisoning the individual in a simplistic and egocentric view of the world which gradually loses any power of adaptability. This mental deterioration has been observed in contact criminals (serial killer Ted Bundy) (Keppel and Birnes, 1995) as well as in political criminals (Hitler, Stalin) (Speer, 1969; Suny, 1997).\nReverting to the question asked above (who is right, the psychopathic aggressor or his victim?) there can be no doubt as to how to answer it: the powerful dynamics of cognitive and paranoid degeneration the psychopathic aggressor is caught up in is proof that the denial mechanisms he resorts to are inadequate. However defiant his attitude, he is, in the end, always defeated by the forces he himself has unleashed. Martin Luther King once wrote that “evil contains the seed of its own destruction.” (King, 1986, p. 506)."}

{"project":"2_test","denotations":[{"id":"20126638-4991343-31298289","span":{"begin":5124,"end":5128},"obj":"4991343"},{"id":"20126638-3099697-31298290","span":{"begin":5651,"end":5655},"obj":"3099697"}],"text":"Psychopathic Paranoia\nTo fully understand extreme violence, it is necessary now to delve into the recesses of the mind, where anxieties originate, and see how psychopathic aggressors organise their internal reality.\nTwo types of anxieties allow us to adapt to our social environment. Paranoid anxieties protect our own integrity. Depressive anxieties (remorse) deter us from behaviours potentially detrimental to others, thus ensuring we receive support from them in times of adversity (Klein, 1992). This dual, emotional, set of anxieties presents the psychopathic aggressor with a complex problem when he commits acts of violence: every time he uses extreme force on his victims he risks being overwhelmed by paranoid and depressive anxieties. To avoid this, he has to develop denial systems that will eliminate any uncertainty.\nThe psychopathic aggressor uses justification, the first authoritarian denial mechanism, to proclaim the benefits of his violence. Justification inhibits any feelings of remorse by destroying depressive anxieties. This first level of cognitive distortion is particularly apparent in sexual aggressors, who justify their acts despite the obvious flaws in their reasoning (Marshall, 1999). If justification is the first psychological strategy used by the psychopathic aggressor, it is not, however, the end of the process. In order to organise his internal reality, the psychopathic aggressor resorts to a second cognitive distortion: victim blame, whereby his victims are blamed for bringing upon themselves the violence they suffer (Cleckley, 1988). Victim blame is balanced by role reversal: the psychopathic aggressor poses himself as the victim of the individual or the group he is attacking. Victim blame and role reversal are clever strategies as they shift the burden of responsibility onto the victims of violence; continuing in this line of reasoning, the victims’ own behaviour is the cause of their suffering (Cotter, 2007).\nHistorian Omer Bartov underlined the crucial part played by victim blame and role reversal during the massacres conducted by German soldiers in the Soviet Union during the Second World War (Bartov, 1991). “The Jew is not the victim, he is the aggressor,” wrote Hitler in Mein Kampf, almost twenty years before the Holocaust (Hitler, 1933, p. 355). In a striking parallel, psychologist Howard Barbaree highlighted the importance of victim blame and role reversal in the most serious sexual crimes (Barbaree, 1993). Thus the rapist, when arrested, will believe he is being unfairly accused because in his view the victim was purposely provoking him and the suffering she endured was only what she deserved.\nIn view of the identical thought patterns found in all types of extreme violence criminologist Stanton Samenow concluded: “Despite a multitude of differences in their backgrounds and crime patterns, criminals are alike in one way: how they think.” (Samenow, 1984, p. 20).\nHaving highlighted the purpose of justification, victim blame and role reversal in the authoritarian rationalisation systems, there is still one question to be answered – a deceptively easy question that, in fact, necessitates complex developments: who is right, the psychopathic aggressor, defending his guilt-inhibiting theories, or his victims who refute them? To answer this question it is necessary to highlight the dynamics associated with the different cognitive processes outlined above. Their relevance or otherwise will then become clear.\nFor all their complexity, the mechanisms of justification, victim blame and role reversal are flawed. Victim blame and role reversal are patently counterproductive. Not only does the role shift from aggressor to victim fail to appease the psychopathic aggressor's anxieties, it actually increases his paranoia since he feels permanently under threat. Furthermore, his depressive anxieties only appear to be eliminated. Guilt and remorse cannot be destroyed, as they are fundamental to the functioning of the mind. They are simply stripped of their symbolic, altruistic content, i.e. transformed into paranoid anxieties which are asymbolic by nature (Cotter, 2007).\nThe psychopathic aggressor cannot escape the downward spiral when the depressive anxieties he is trying to rid himself of are transformed into asymbolic anxieties, which in turn reinforce his paranoid symptoms. There is a further development: the authoritarian syndrome presents a dynamic process of self-destruction. The psychopathic aggressor's artificial increase in paranoid anxieties triggers an even greater need to resort to justification, victim blame and role reversal during his repeated aggressions, causing irreversible cognitive distortions. Once the cycle has begun, paranoid anxieties and denial strategies interact in an increasingly radical manner, imprisoning the individual in a simplistic and egocentric view of the world which gradually loses any power of adaptability. This mental deterioration has been observed in contact criminals (serial killer Ted Bundy) (Keppel and Birnes, 1995) as well as in political criminals (Hitler, Stalin) (Speer, 1969; Suny, 1997).\nReverting to the question asked above (who is right, the psychopathic aggressor or his victim?) there can be no doubt as to how to answer it: the powerful dynamics of cognitive and paranoid degeneration the psychopathic aggressor is caught up in is proof that the denial mechanisms he resorts to are inadequate. However defiant his attitude, he is, in the end, always defeated by the forces he himself has unleashed. Martin Luther King once wrote that “evil contains the seed of its own destruction.” (King, 1986, p. 506)."}