Citation

Hirsch D. Cahiers de Psychologie Clinique 2017; 49(2): 105-123.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2017)

DOI

10.3917/cpc.049.0105

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

The author (D. Hirsch) tackles the intrapsychic and interpsychic mechanisms that alienate the unconscious ego in the phenomenon of radical religious terrorism. Individual and collective psychology necessarily interweave, as is the case in any murderous process of a totalitarian nature. Three complementary levels of alienation and "hijacking" of the unconscious ego are outlined: 1. A regression of the alienated ego towards an ideal-ego vampirised by a religious idol 2. A melancholic identification to the fallen father and a cruel "terrorist" superego leading to "suicide attack" 3. A community of denial and splitting that sanctions that murderous pact and accounts for the contagion of radicali-sation among adolescents and young adults. Taking into account the drastic defences implemented by adolescents in the throes of identity aimlessness, the author then opens up a debate on the fundamental origin of any radical terrorist violence. It might be located at the crossroads of a desperate attempt to prove the survival of the object in the face of extreme destructiveness and the expression of a defused death masochism. Fundamentalist religious terrorism could therefore be a contemporary figure of the death drive. Identity religious terrorism is also underlain by forms of subjective alienation and discontent in contemporary Western civilisation. This highly contagious phenomenon questions us on the possible melan-cholization of our hypermodern and neoliberal societies.

Language: fr

Keywords

Adolescence; Alienating identifications; Civilisation and its discontent; Community of denial; Death masochism; Destructiveness; Ideal-ego; Ideology; Melancholic superego; Religious terrorism; Survival of the object