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Where Does Evil Come From?
What drives a person to commit unspeakable acts of evil and depravity? We turned to forensic psychologist Stephen Diamond, author of the Evil Deeds blog on Psychology Today for the answer:
Typically it does involve some kind of trauma during childhood. Some kind of deprivation, some kind of neglect, some kind of abandonment. What we refer to psychoanalytically as severe narcissistic wounding, where the childs basic needs for recognition of who they are and acceptance of who they are - and for love are not met.
For example, Diamond says, you take someone who had a traumatic childhood like Charles Manson; he had an alcoholic mother who abandoned him several times and tried to sell him. He spent time living in the streets. Eventually a person like that can develop a rage around how theyre being treated.
In my opinion, it is this anger that festers over time, that turns into resentment, that turns into embitterment, that turns into rage. It is this rage that underlies what we call -- what youre referring to -- as evil, or evil behavior or evil deeds. That's really, to me, the driving force in violence.
Okay but what about someone who didnt have an extremely neglectful childhood. If Juran van der Sloot turns out to be guilty, he would seem to go against that idea. He came from an intact family with professionally successful parents. Diamond said:
This idea of narcissistic wounding is still there. Its still possible because narcissistic wounding is something that can be much more subtle. In other words, the trauma is more subtle, so if a child is in certain ways not accepted for who he is in a family, is put down, is criticized constantly or is not given enough attention or affection. Then this is a form of narcissistic wounding. And this can lead a lot of anger. And rage.
more at the link:
http://news.discovery.com/human/where-does-evil-come-from.html
What drives a person to commit unspeakable acts of evil and depravity? We turned to forensic psychologist Stephen Diamond, author of the Evil Deeds blog on Psychology Today for the answer:
Typically it does involve some kind of trauma during childhood. Some kind of deprivation, some kind of neglect, some kind of abandonment. What we refer to psychoanalytically as severe narcissistic wounding, where the childs basic needs for recognition of who they are and acceptance of who they are - and for love are not met.
For example, Diamond says, you take someone who had a traumatic childhood like Charles Manson; he had an alcoholic mother who abandoned him several times and tried to sell him. He spent time living in the streets. Eventually a person like that can develop a rage around how theyre being treated.
In my opinion, it is this anger that festers over time, that turns into resentment, that turns into embitterment, that turns into rage. It is this rage that underlies what we call -- what youre referring to -- as evil, or evil behavior or evil deeds. That's really, to me, the driving force in violence.
Okay but what about someone who didnt have an extremely neglectful childhood. If Juran van der Sloot turns out to be guilty, he would seem to go against that idea. He came from an intact family with professionally successful parents. Diamond said:
This idea of narcissistic wounding is still there. Its still possible because narcissistic wounding is something that can be much more subtle. In other words, the trauma is more subtle, so if a child is in certain ways not accepted for who he is in a family, is put down, is criticized constantly or is not given enough attention or affection. Then this is a form of narcissistic wounding. And this can lead a lot of anger. And rage.
more at the link:
http://news.discovery.com/human/where-does-evil-come-from.html