Citation

Stuhr U, Puschel K. Psyche (E Klett) 2004; 58(11): 1035-1062.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2004, Ernst Klett Verlag)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

The phenomenon of "extended self-destruction" takes us into a sphere where hermeneutics comes into its own. Familiar patterns of understanding no longer function, and we feel called upon to penetrate to a deeper level in an attempt to comprehend why a murderer first kills his partner and then himself. The witnesses of the deed, so indispensable from a criminological viewpoint, are both dead. With reference to five randomly selected cases, the authors undertake to reconstruct case histories from the police files and to identify an "ideal type" for the phenomenon in question. The invariant element in this qualitative research strategy is taken to be a self-object relationship.

Language: de

Keywords

theory; human; homicide; suicide; review