Dissociation et passage à l’acte violent : une revue de littérature

Violent Radicalization and Post-traumatic Dissociation: Clinical Case of a Young Adolescent Girl Radicalized

INTRODUCTION

Since 2014, the profiles of radicalized individuals have changed with the appearance of radical groups composed of a large proportion of adolescents. Various individual, relational, and social vulnerabilities have been identified as being involved in the radicalization process of adolescents. Among these factors, it appears that early and repeated history of personal and/or family psychotraumatism may constitute factors of vulnerability to violent radicalization.

MATERIAL AND METHODS

The clinical situation of a 17-year-old woman convicted of "links with a terrorist group (DAECH)" was recruited from the 130 radicalized young people followed by the teams of the Maison des Adolescents and the Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Service of the University Hospitals of Strasbourg since May 2015. Based on the analysis of this clinical case, we present the hypothesis that post-traumatic antecedents can constitute vulnerability factors to violent radicalization, and that post-traumatic symptoms can be "used" by recruiters of radical movements at different moments of the radicalization process by reactivating post-traumatic psychic mechanisms, but also, for a smaller number of subjects, by the induction of the trauma (viewing of propaganda videos).

RESULTS

We show a possible link between violent radicalization and complex psycho-traumatism with an impact of the reactivation of post-traumatic mechanisms such as (i) the activation of the autonomic nervous system and emotional dysregulation on violent acts, (ii) the activation of dissociation mechanisms (psychic sideration and post-traumatic amnesia) on indoctrination and violent acts, (iii) the activation of control mechanisms on the search for a strict framework of life and a radical ideology and (iv) relational avoidance on the processes of relational rupture and radical socialization. Thus, we highlight that the radicalization process can respond to the needs and psychic functioning of psycho-traumatized individuals (channeling tensions, being recognized and active in one's life).

DISCUSSION

We discuss the central role of propaganda videos in the activation of the ANS and dissociation, and the self-perpetuating process between these two posttraumatic mechanisms. We also discuss clinical and therapeutic perspectives (therapies targeting complex psychotrauma).

CONCLUSION

Psychotrauma can promote radicalization due to vulnerability mechanisms. Treatments targeting psychotrauma may be one of the ways to get these young people out of violent radicalization.

[Homicide-suicide: Clinical review and psychological assumptions]

OBJECTIVES

Suicide-homicide could be defined as a "suicidal" behaviour, which also includes the death of at least one other individual and sometimes up to hundreds. This literature review intends to highlight some characteristic features that might be found amongst the various types of suicide-homicide. It is a complex phenomenon which can occur in different situations, from a familial and somehow intimate setting (filicide, uxoricide, marital homicide…) to a public one (workplace shooting, school shooting), including a wide range of victims, from a single victim in marital cases of suicide-homicide to hundreds of victims in certain types, such as suicide by aircraft or warrior-like multi-homicids in terrorist acts. This literature review offers a combination of data emanating from scientific publications and case studies from our practices in an attempt to insulate some common factors. A thorough examination of the offenses unravels complex processes, ideations, M.O and peculiar cognitive impairments in which the familial suicide-homicide could be rooted. Mass murders might be caused also by a psychopathological alloy, made of Grandiose Self and sub-depressive and even paranoid ideations. Concerning the terrorism and multi-homicide-suicide, this is far more complex phenomenon and is defined by a group-process enrolment and ideological conviction. Beyond epidemiological studies, both descriptive and statistical, this paper's objective is to isolate a hypothesis about a psychopathological ground from which a criminological mechanism could emerge. Despite the lack of blatant psychosis, some traits might be identified in suicide-homicide cases - such as paranoid, psychopathic, narcissistic, melancholic - which can intertwine, potentiate one with another forming a distorted view of the world. The offense dynamic is possibly composed of preparatory behaviours, triggers, the use of death as a narcissistic support, identity choices… METHODS: The data were collected from scientific publications, personal cases, and open source.

RESULTS

Despite the variety of behaviours included in this typology, we were able to identify a few mechanisms that could be found in two types of suicide-homicide [Private suicide-homicide (within the family circle) vs. Public space suicide-homicide (suicide by aircraft, school shooting…)].

DISCUSSION

Suicide-homicide phenomenon is the result of the interaction of societal, ideological, psychopathological and criminological elements which burst out in a lethal and paroxystic gesture. Psychiatrists and psychologists may have an important part to play in modelling a pattern to better understand it.

[Restorative Justice: Neither care nor repression? The case study of Louis, a multi-recidivist, neither "dangerous" nor "sick"]

OBJECTIVES

The proposed criminological hypothesis is that the restorative justice approach would allow offenders to recognize the victims with more empathic feelings, assuming a decreasing effect on the needs and risks of recidivism (Griffiths and Murdoch, 2007). Authors of aggravated robbery raise several psychological issues (i.e. incomprehension of the causes of their act, euphemistic labelling and moral disengagement, lack of empathy) that the restorative program proposes to work through scriptwriting of personal histories, better comprehension of the conflict in the past and exchanges focused on the personal and social consequences of the acts (emotional chain). The aim of the process is to encourage persons weakened by their social and delinquent situations to elaborate, plan and realize new personal goals.

METHODOLOGY

With the collaboration of the service de l'application des peines de Tours (service for the execution of sentences), the service pénitentiaire d'insertion et de probation 37 (probation and social reintegration service) and the service d'aide aux victimes d'infractions pénales (association for victims of crime) of the French department 37, centre, the program PARIS attempted an implementation and evaluation of the relational or restorative justice process in the context of non-custodial sentences and in particular in the cases of aggravated theft (art. 311-1 to 311-16 of the French penal code). Its particularity was to touch the three spheres of victimization: (1) financial, (2) physical and (3) psychological prejudices. After the admission of the participants, a preliminary (psycho)criminological diagnosis served to evaluate the suitability for the perpetrator and the victim to be confronted in following settings. In this context we met Louis, a recidivist of aggravated thefts but causing minimal harm and punished with minimal sentences. He presented no mental illness but showed severe existential problems involved in his delinquent behaviour. His delinquent acts presented similarities marked by auto-punitive tendencies. For example, he remained on site until being arrested and joked with the police.

RESULTS

The case Louis revealed what neither the care nor repression succeeded to reach, namely the quality of the relationship which can in itself confine or on the contrary repair. Relational Justice, by seeking neither to "suppress" nor to "care", allows the participants to reconstruct and understand the other with empathy, and strengthened the protective factors. Mediation as a method or purpose held a prominent place in the reconstruction process of the participants as it allowed us to act on both the "frame" (scenario of the problem-situation) and the "drama" ((non)-effectiveness of cognitive strategies and experienced emotions) of the original problem-situation. So the restorative program was an alternative to the socio-judicial measures inducing potential therapeutic effects on the future path of the participant.

CONCLUSION

If the question of the relevance of direct, or perhaps better indirect, confrontations between the author and the victim still remains the (psycho-)criminological diagnosis of the penal couple's - author and victim - relationship investigates the psychosocial and delinquent process in terms of motivation. A satisfaction survey at the end of the program helps to analyse the future prospects of the participants. Based on dynamic and structured methods, the PARIS relational Justice program offers a Third Way between care and punishment: restoration of existential and relational links.