Latent murderousness: an exploration of the nature and quality of object relations in rage-type murderers
- Authors: Cartwright, Duncan James
- Date: 2000
- Subjects: Murder Murder -- Case studies Murderers -- Psychology Criminal psychology Violence Narcissism Aggressiveness Anger
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: vital:2946 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1002455
- Description: In this dissertation I investigate the intrapsychic make-up of rage-type offenders and explore the psychodynamics of the act of murder itself The dissertation begins with a discussion on the defining features of the act of rage-type murder. I then consider the role of personality characteristics and psychopathology in individuals who have committed such offences. With the basic features of the offender and act itself outlined, the following section reviews key areas of debate regarding the psychodynamics of violence and the intrapsychic make-up of the rage-type murderer. I first explore the nature of aggression as debated in psychoanalysis and conclude that the views expressed are often unn,ecessarily polarized regarding the origins of aggression and suggest that the specifics of particular types of aggression require consideration in order to assess their intrapsychic nature. The specifics of rage and violence are discussed with this in mind. In the second chapter of this section I develop a number of intrapsychic dimensions to be used in understanding how different types of violence are constituted. Psychodynamic contributions towards understanding rage-type murder, as a specific form of violence, are then discussed. Following this review, a number of directive ~uestions are formulated regarding (1) the intrapsychic dimension of rage-type murder; (2) the pJ;esence of the borderline personality in such offender~ and its intrapsychic nature; and (3) the_ specific psychodynamics that lie behind what is argued to be a defensive act of murder. A multiple case study approach, using nine imprisoned rage-type offenders, is used to further explore the above issues. Court summary reports, the Thematic Apperception Test and the Psychoanalytic Research Interview comprised the research material, with particular emphasis placed on the interview material. The interview is approached from a psychoanalytic perspective and I develop some theoretical, technical and analytical guidelines to try to broaden Jhe use of psychoanalysis in the research domain. Findings of the research reveal a specific kind of defensive organization that is characterized by a constellation of object relations that I term the 'narcissistic exoskeleton'. I suggest that these findings best fit the description of a particular kind of borderline personality organization typified by apparent 'normality'. Other prominent aspects of the dimensions of violence observed in these cases include: (1) a poor representational capacity; (2) an interactional style characterized by uncontainable projective exchanges between victim and offender; (3) a collusive primary object relationship combined with the absence of an internalized 'third object'; (4) a 'two-faced' superego structure; (5) the internalization of traumatic experience that has become associated with a bad object system; (6) phantasies of restoring ideal good in external objects alongside conscious fantasies of annihilation. Within the context of these factors the intrapsychic events that lead to the act itself are discussed. It is found that a collapse of the 'narcissistic exoskeleton', the intrusion of the bad object system and the unbearable shame that this evokes in the offender are prominent features of what culminates in an act of explosive rage and projective identification. Some of the implications of my research are briefly discussed in the concluding chapter.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2000
- Authors: Cartwright, Duncan James
- Date: 2000
- Subjects: Murder Murder -- Case studies Murderers -- Psychology Criminal psychology Violence Narcissism Aggressiveness Anger
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: vital:2946 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1002455
- Description: In this dissertation I investigate the intrapsychic make-up of rage-type offenders and explore the psychodynamics of the act of murder itself The dissertation begins with a discussion on the defining features of the act of rage-type murder. I then consider the role of personality characteristics and psychopathology in individuals who have committed such offences. With the basic features of the offender and act itself outlined, the following section reviews key areas of debate regarding the psychodynamics of violence and the intrapsychic make-up of the rage-type murderer. I first explore the nature of aggression as debated in psychoanalysis and conclude that the views expressed are often unn,ecessarily polarized regarding the origins of aggression and suggest that the specifics of particular types of aggression require consideration in order to assess their intrapsychic nature. The specifics of rage and violence are discussed with this in mind. In the second chapter of this section I develop a number of intrapsychic dimensions to be used in understanding how different types of violence are constituted. Psychodynamic contributions towards understanding rage-type murder, as a specific form of violence, are then discussed. Following this review, a number of directive ~uestions are formulated regarding (1) the intrapsychic dimension of rage-type murder; (2) the pJ;esence of the borderline personality in such offender~ and its intrapsychic nature; and (3) the_ specific psychodynamics that lie behind what is argued to be a defensive act of murder. A multiple case study approach, using nine imprisoned rage-type offenders, is used to further explore the above issues. Court summary reports, the Thematic Apperception Test and the Psychoanalytic Research Interview comprised the research material, with particular emphasis placed on the interview material. The interview is approached from a psychoanalytic perspective and I develop some theoretical, technical and analytical guidelines to try to broaden Jhe use of psychoanalysis in the research domain. Findings of the research reveal a specific kind of defensive organization that is characterized by a constellation of object relations that I term the 'narcissistic exoskeleton'. I suggest that these findings best fit the description of a particular kind of borderline personality organization typified by apparent 'normality'. Other prominent aspects of the dimensions of violence observed in these cases include: (1) a poor representational capacity; (2) an interactional style characterized by uncontainable projective exchanges between victim and offender; (3) a collusive primary object relationship combined with the absence of an internalized 'third object'; (4) a 'two-faced' superego structure; (5) the internalization of traumatic experience that has become associated with a bad object system; (6) phantasies of restoring ideal good in external objects alongside conscious fantasies of annihilation. Within the context of these factors the intrapsychic events that lead to the act itself are discussed. It is found that a collapse of the 'narcissistic exoskeleton', the intrusion of the bad object system and the unbearable shame that this evokes in the offender are prominent features of what culminates in an act of explosive rage and projective identification. Some of the implications of my research are briefly discussed in the concluding chapter.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2000
Peer group supervision as an adjunct to individual supervision: an investigation of models of learning
- Akhurst, Jacqueline Elizabeth
- Authors: Akhurst, Jacqueline Elizabeth
- Date: 2000
- Subjects: Peer-group tutoring of students Psychotherapy -- Study and teaching -- Supervision Psychology -- Supervision of
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: vital:2922 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1002431
- Description: Supervision of practice makes an important contribution to the development of psychotherapeutic skills in the training of psychologists (Bernard and Goodyear, 1998). Much research has, until recently, focussed on dyadic, hierarchical models of supervision, even though other forms of supervision have been developed. Peer group supervision has had little attention in the literature, although it is a common form of supervision utilised by psychologists in practice (Lewis, Greenburg and Hatch, 1988). A review of the literature considers the purposes of supervision; elements of dyadic supervision; various forms of group, peer and peer group supervision; and the leaming process in supervision. The development and implementation of a peer supervision group (pSG) of intern psychologists within the training setting of a University is described in this study. The PSG model was developed from the model proposed by Wilbur, Roberts-Wilbur, Morris, Betz and Hart (1991). Transcripts from nine audio-taped PSG sessions were analysed, and a comparison with four audio-taped dyadic supervision sessions was then undertaken. Grounded Theory methodology was employed in the design of the study and analysis of the data. The form and content of the two models of supervision were examined, with particular attention to the perspective of the trainees' learning experiences. The relative merits of both forms of supervision were assessed, and this analysis clearly demonstrates that peer group supervision has the potential to complement dyadic supervision by contributing differing learning experiences. A model of key influences upon, and effects of, participation in the two forms of supervision has been developed. Suggestions are made of ways in which dyadic supervision may be optimised, and recommendations for further development of the PSG emerge. The results were then considered from a neo-Vygotskian perspective. This enabled the findings to be linked to a comprehensive theory of learning, pointing to the key role of speech in thinking, and the contributions of the various forms of dialogue to deepened understandings. The discussion includes: consideration of techniques which enable trainees to obtain assistance from both more experienced practitioners as well as from their peers; an exploration of aspects of subjectivity and intersubjectivity; and contextual influences which have bearing on the study. This study identifies the need for further consideration of the supervision process in South Africa, and makes recommendations for the training of supervisors. The neo-Vygotskian model offers great promise both as a framework for understanding the leaming process in. supervision, and for developing guidelines for enhancing supervisory practice.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2000
- Authors: Akhurst, Jacqueline Elizabeth
- Date: 2000
- Subjects: Peer-group tutoring of students Psychotherapy -- Study and teaching -- Supervision Psychology -- Supervision of
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: vital:2922 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1002431
- Description: Supervision of practice makes an important contribution to the development of psychotherapeutic skills in the training of psychologists (Bernard and Goodyear, 1998). Much research has, until recently, focussed on dyadic, hierarchical models of supervision, even though other forms of supervision have been developed. Peer group supervision has had little attention in the literature, although it is a common form of supervision utilised by psychologists in practice (Lewis, Greenburg and Hatch, 1988). A review of the literature considers the purposes of supervision; elements of dyadic supervision; various forms of group, peer and peer group supervision; and the leaming process in supervision. The development and implementation of a peer supervision group (pSG) of intern psychologists within the training setting of a University is described in this study. The PSG model was developed from the model proposed by Wilbur, Roberts-Wilbur, Morris, Betz and Hart (1991). Transcripts from nine audio-taped PSG sessions were analysed, and a comparison with four audio-taped dyadic supervision sessions was then undertaken. Grounded Theory methodology was employed in the design of the study and analysis of the data. The form and content of the two models of supervision were examined, with particular attention to the perspective of the trainees' learning experiences. The relative merits of both forms of supervision were assessed, and this analysis clearly demonstrates that peer group supervision has the potential to complement dyadic supervision by contributing differing learning experiences. A model of key influences upon, and effects of, participation in the two forms of supervision has been developed. Suggestions are made of ways in which dyadic supervision may be optimised, and recommendations for further development of the PSG emerge. The results were then considered from a neo-Vygotskian perspective. This enabled the findings to be linked to a comprehensive theory of learning, pointing to the key role of speech in thinking, and the contributions of the various forms of dialogue to deepened understandings. The discussion includes: consideration of techniques which enable trainees to obtain assistance from both more experienced practitioners as well as from their peers; an exploration of aspects of subjectivity and intersubjectivity; and contextual influences which have bearing on the study. This study identifies the need for further consideration of the supervision process in South Africa, and makes recommendations for the training of supervisors. The neo-Vygotskian model offers great promise both as a framework for understanding the leaming process in. supervision, and for developing guidelines for enhancing supervisory practice.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2000
The phenomenology of the anorexic body
- Authors: Shapiro, Joel
- Date: 2000
- Subjects: Anorexia nervosa Eating disorders Anorexia nervosa -- Psychological aspects
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: vital:3053 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1002562
- Description: The purpose of the study is to articulate the phenomenology of the anorexic body. In order to describe the complex meaning of the anorexic body, the present research adopts the qualitative and exploratory approach of Seidman's (1991) in-depth phenomenologically based interviewing method. This involves a series of three separate interviews, with three research participants who have had personal experience of anorexia. The method of data analysis used is essentially on editing style of analysis (Miller and Crabtree, 1992) and is based on a hybrid of the grounded theory approach of Glaser and Strauss (1967) and Heidegger's (1927) ontological hermeneutics to form what Addison (1992) calls grounded interpretive research. Anorexic embodiment is conceptualised as precipitating a fundamental disturbance between the interactions of embodied consciousness and the world. The body is no longer taken-for-granted, and becomes an object for scrutiny. As an object, the body is experienced as a thing exterior to the self, and this awareness contributes to the sense of qisorder which permeates anorexic embodiment. Bodily intentionality is frustrated when the sphere of bodily actions and habitual acts become circumscribed. The character of lived temporality and lived spatiality are also effected with the anorexic's focus on the now, ushering in a spatiality of the here. These findings indicate that anorexic embodiment is experienced primarily as a disruption of the 'lived body' rather than that of the biological body. The prevailing discourses of anorexic embodiment are shown to be split between the naturalized discourses that provide a model of the body that is biologically determined and ahistorical, and the denaturalized discourses that provide a model of the body that is culturally constructed and lacks embodied givenness. It is argued that Merleau-Ponty's phenomenology of the body offers a renaturalization of the body that overcomes the nature/culture dichotomy of the naturalized and denaturalized discourses, thereby providing a solid foundation that more directly addresses the phenomenology of the anorexic body. The theoretical and treatment implications of Merleau-Ponty's renaturalization of the anorexic body are highlighted, and suggestions for further research are presented.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2000
- Authors: Shapiro, Joel
- Date: 2000
- Subjects: Anorexia nervosa Eating disorders Anorexia nervosa -- Psychological aspects
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: vital:3053 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1002562
- Description: The purpose of the study is to articulate the phenomenology of the anorexic body. In order to describe the complex meaning of the anorexic body, the present research adopts the qualitative and exploratory approach of Seidman's (1991) in-depth phenomenologically based interviewing method. This involves a series of three separate interviews, with three research participants who have had personal experience of anorexia. The method of data analysis used is essentially on editing style of analysis (Miller and Crabtree, 1992) and is based on a hybrid of the grounded theory approach of Glaser and Strauss (1967) and Heidegger's (1927) ontological hermeneutics to form what Addison (1992) calls grounded interpretive research. Anorexic embodiment is conceptualised as precipitating a fundamental disturbance between the interactions of embodied consciousness and the world. The body is no longer taken-for-granted, and becomes an object for scrutiny. As an object, the body is experienced as a thing exterior to the self, and this awareness contributes to the sense of qisorder which permeates anorexic embodiment. Bodily intentionality is frustrated when the sphere of bodily actions and habitual acts become circumscribed. The character of lived temporality and lived spatiality are also effected with the anorexic's focus on the now, ushering in a spatiality of the here. These findings indicate that anorexic embodiment is experienced primarily as a disruption of the 'lived body' rather than that of the biological body. The prevailing discourses of anorexic embodiment are shown to be split between the naturalized discourses that provide a model of the body that is biologically determined and ahistorical, and the denaturalized discourses that provide a model of the body that is culturally constructed and lacks embodied givenness. It is argued that Merleau-Ponty's phenomenology of the body offers a renaturalization of the body that overcomes the nature/culture dichotomy of the naturalized and denaturalized discourses, thereby providing a solid foundation that more directly addresses the phenomenology of the anorexic body. The theoretical and treatment implications of Merleau-Ponty's renaturalization of the anorexic body are highlighted, and suggestions for further research are presented.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2000
The psychological role of homoeroticism in the spiritual growth of priests: a study of individuation processes and homoerotic sexualities
- Authors: Taute, Harold Graeme
- Date: 2000
- Subjects: Homosexuality -- Psychological aspects Homosexuality -- Religious aspects -- Christianity
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: vital:3069 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1002578
- Description: The study explored the psychological role of homoeroticism in the spiritual growth of priests, using Grounded Theory and James Fowler’s stages of faith development as the basis for the research methodology. Three Anglican priests were interviewed using a semi-structured interview format. The research interview combined Fowler’s Faith Development Interview Guide and a semi-structured interview in order to ascertain the priests’ level of spiritual development, as well as to explore their experience of the homoerotic component to their sexuality, and its influence on their spiritual growth. The interviews and iterative analysis focussed on four major questions: (1) Are priests who experience and actively work at integrating the homoerotic aspect to themselves assisted thereby in their spiritual growth, and if so, how might this be accounted for?; (2) Following Fowler’s model of spiritual development, what processes characterise each priest’s approach to meaning-creation in their lives?; (3) Following Fowler’s model, can the psychological work of engaging with and accepting homoeroticism be conceived of as serving an initiatory function in the emergence of new processes of meaning-creation?; (4) What role does homoeroticism serve in the spiritual growth of priests? The interpretative phase consisted of three stages. A grounded theory analysis of each interview was undertaken, developing a model for understanding the role of homoeroticism in spiritual growth. In the second stage, the priest’s level of spiritual development was ascertained, using Fowler’s Faith Development Guide. The third stage linked each participant’s level of spiritual development (in Fowler’s terms) with their core stories regarding experiences, meanings, and roles of homoeroticism. Finally, an integrative theory of the role of homoeroticism in spiritual growth was developed, using Jungian and post-Jungian theory as a basis for the discussion. The results suggested that homoeroticism did not play any role in spiritual growth and individuation separate to the manner in which it was experienced as having been constructed by society and the Church, and separate to the manner in which each priest in the study expressed, experienced, or engaged with it. In this context the experience of homoeroticism appeared to play a diversity of roles, including representing the collective and personal shadow, the archetypal anima/animus, the archetypal puer/senex constellation, the transcendent function, and thereby, as an expression of these roles, contribute to the emergence of new processes of meaning-creation in the spiritual growth and individuation of priests.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2000
- Authors: Taute, Harold Graeme
- Date: 2000
- Subjects: Homosexuality -- Psychological aspects Homosexuality -- Religious aspects -- Christianity
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: vital:3069 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1002578
- Description: The study explored the psychological role of homoeroticism in the spiritual growth of priests, using Grounded Theory and James Fowler’s stages of faith development as the basis for the research methodology. Three Anglican priests were interviewed using a semi-structured interview format. The research interview combined Fowler’s Faith Development Interview Guide and a semi-structured interview in order to ascertain the priests’ level of spiritual development, as well as to explore their experience of the homoerotic component to their sexuality, and its influence on their spiritual growth. The interviews and iterative analysis focussed on four major questions: (1) Are priests who experience and actively work at integrating the homoerotic aspect to themselves assisted thereby in their spiritual growth, and if so, how might this be accounted for?; (2) Following Fowler’s model of spiritual development, what processes characterise each priest’s approach to meaning-creation in their lives?; (3) Following Fowler’s model, can the psychological work of engaging with and accepting homoeroticism be conceived of as serving an initiatory function in the emergence of new processes of meaning-creation?; (4) What role does homoeroticism serve in the spiritual growth of priests? The interpretative phase consisted of three stages. A grounded theory analysis of each interview was undertaken, developing a model for understanding the role of homoeroticism in spiritual growth. In the second stage, the priest’s level of spiritual development was ascertained, using Fowler’s Faith Development Guide. The third stage linked each participant’s level of spiritual development (in Fowler’s terms) with their core stories regarding experiences, meanings, and roles of homoeroticism. Finally, an integrative theory of the role of homoeroticism in spiritual growth was developed, using Jungian and post-Jungian theory as a basis for the discussion. The results suggested that homoeroticism did not play any role in spiritual growth and individuation separate to the manner in which it was experienced as having been constructed by society and the Church, and separate to the manner in which each priest in the study expressed, experienced, or engaged with it. In this context the experience of homoeroticism appeared to play a diversity of roles, including representing the collective and personal shadow, the archetypal anima/animus, the archetypal puer/senex constellation, the transcendent function, and thereby, as an expression of these roles, contribute to the emergence of new processes of meaning-creation in the spiritual growth and individuation of priests.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2000
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