Evil, terrorism, and psychiatry

Terrorism and forensic psychiatry.

Media and news agencies often call psychiatrists and psychologists and pose questions about mental illness (a worthy topic) or some inane but catchy topic (such as the one I received from a reporter asking, with a straight face, “How do you diagnose people who talk to themselves?”). Big news about crimes, and especially terrorism, may push psychiatrist interviews from the local feature to the c...

Military Psychiatry and Terrorism

Terrorism : The Banality of a Global Evil #

The ubiquity of contemporary terrorism defines the evilness of banality. A typical terrorist profile does not exist; it’s atypical character of this vile phenomenon that chills human rationality. This article briefly unravels the dynamics of terror and its implications. Un-separated terrorism and counter-terrorism destroy the climate for civil transformation. Our counterproductive interventions...

See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil.

INTRODUCTION “[D]eath is different.” When used to punish, death taps society’s most primal urges. It is meant to be a deterrent for potential offenders, triggering in them the innate reflex for self-preservation. For society, it is meant to feed the primal desire for retribution. For these very reasons, it is often claimed that death is only reserved for the worst of the worst. However, in tryi...

The recurrence of an illusion: the concept of "evil" in forensic psychiatry.

The author notes an increased interest in the concept of "evil" in the fields of psychiatry and psychology. In particular, there is some interest in defining and testifying about evil. It is argued that evil can never be scientifically defined because it is an illusory moral concept, it does not exist in nature, and its origins and connotations are inextricably linked to religion and mythology....