Psychiatrists and terrorism If society is as impotent in the face of terrorism as it seems to be, can psychiatry produce any answers? This was the difficult question facing a symposium on the psychodynamics of terrorism, and the participants, in failing to answer yes to it, came close to saying no. One speaker from the floor went so far as to say that the psychiatrist, being unable to examine the terrorist as a patient, had virtually no expertise to offer. All is speculation. But chairman Dr. William Nicholls of Vancouver didn't see it that way. The only knowledge that owes nothing at all to empiricism is totally trivial, he said. If the profession is going to say anything at all about this social problem, it will have to take the risk of being told it is speculating. Dr. Nicholls was coauthor of a paper presented by fellow-Vancouverite Dr. Ian Kent, which put forward the proposition that the political causes in whose names acts of terror are committed are, in fact, only justifications. The real motivations of the terrorists are unconscious, and they are psychologically more complex. According to Kent and Nicholls, the elements of terrorism are to be found in everyone. But not everyone becomes a terrorist - the terrorist is made, not born. The paper looked at various forms of socially legitimated violence and concluded there is a clear balance between this and the "gratification of unconscious wishes". Aggression becomes malignant (terrorist) where this gratifi-
cation predominates over "realistic and ethically motivated social gain". What are these gratifications and how are they formed? Kent and Nicholls hypothesized a normal-looking family background that, at a deeper level, contains forces that produce a violent and murderous rage in the child, which is accordingly repressed and later displaced on to other objects. Terrorism can occur where such a murderous rage is given social legitimation. The authors acknowledged that there are few supporting data, but pointed out that what are available tend to display this kind of pattern. "Such repressed homicidal impulses are later able to rise to the surface only in displaced form. It is impossible to become conscious of the fact that the real target of these impulses is a parent. Instead they are redirected, either against those whom the parents have taught the children to regard as enemies or, in less-threatening cases, against more obvious parent-surrogates, such as the government of one's own country." Kent and Nicholls compared youth protest movements in the US with "out and out terrorism.. which seems to flourish most (but not wholly) in the more traditional cultures of the world, "where the ethical values professed by religion are indeed honoured, but mostly by lip service, but the family background is strongly authoritarian and repressive." If expertise in the psychodynamics of terrorism is not yet well developed, expertise in the realities is - especially
in Israel. And Israel was represented at the symposium by that country's former ambassador to Canada, the United Nations and Britain, Michael Comay. Mr. Comay said much of what he said many times at the UN - that terrorism must be resisted and eradicated - and he said it in a forceful style that would have highly impressed an audience of nonpsychiatrists. He concurred with Kent and Nicholls that terrorism feeds on the free publicity eagerly given by newspapers and broadcasters and called for media restraint. Mr. Comay was evidently in for a hard time. CMAJ did not inquire into the racial origins of the floor speakers, but the number of brown faces suggested that the political neutrality called for by chairman Nicholls might not be maintained. And indeed Mr. Comay soon was accused of political propaganda. The unkindest cuts, however, came from unexpected sources. A psychiatrist who said he was Jewish reminded Mr. Comay of the activities of the Stern gang in the Palestine of the mid-forties, and a lady with a charming Irish accent told him he had fascist attitudes surely the most exquisite insult that could be offered an Israeli diplomat. Mr. Comay said it didn't bother him, which in an audience of psychiatrists was a dead giveaway. Mr. Comay did, in fact, make some nonpolitical points - for instance the international network of terrorists that has come about, regardless of the disparate aims of the various groups. He cited the Lod airport incident of 1972, when three Japanese with no apparent interest in Arab aims killed 27 people, most of whom were Puerto Rican Catholic pilgrims. As the London Economist put it: The killers were not bargaining for anything. There was virtually no connection between their physical targets and the object of their political disapproval. They were just squirting bullets to produce generalized terror.
Photo La Presse, MontrEal Ia Quebec, 1970, terrorism becomes briefly a Canadian reality; police escort FLQ terrorists and hostage James Cross to Isle Ste-H.1ene, where he will be released and they will board a plane to Cuba.
The presentations led into a vigourous debate that would likely have lasted all day, had not the schedule called for closure. The debaters quickly got back onto the track of psychodynamics, but apart from urging that the world's social problems all be solved and that all children be brought up in comfort and security, they found little in their discipline to offer those who seek to contain or eradicate terrorism.
CMA JOURNAL/OCTOBER 23, 1976/VOL. 115 797
cation predominates over "realistic and ethically motivated social gain". What are these gratifications and how are they formed? Kent and Nicholls hypothesized a normal-looking family background that, at a deeper level, contains forces that produce a violent and murderous rage in the child, which is accordingly repressed and later displaced on to other objects. Terrorism can occur where such a murderous rage is given social legitimation. The authors acknowledged that there are few supporting data, but pointed out that what are available tend to display this kind of pattern. "Such repressed homicidal impulses are later able to rise to the surface only in displaced form. It is impossible to become conscious of the fact that the real target of these impulses is a parent. Instead they are redirected, either against those whom the parents have taught the children to regard as enemies or, in less-threatening cases, against more obvious parent-surrogates, such as the government of one's own country." Kent and Nicholls compared youth protest movements in the US with "out and out terrorism.. which seems to flourish most (but not wholly) in the more traditional cultures of the world, "where the ethical values professed by religion are indeed honoured, but mostly by lip service, but the family background is strongly authoritarian and repressive." If expertise in the psychodynamics of terrorism is not yet well developed, expertise in the realities is - especially
in Israel. And Israel was represented at the symposium by that country's former ambassador to Canada, the United Nations and Britain, Michael Comay. Mr. Comay said much of what he said many times at the UN - that terrorism must be resisted and eradicated - and he said it in a forceful style that would have highly impressed an audience of nonpsychiatrists. He concurred with Kent and Nicholls that terrorism feeds on the free publicity eagerly given by newspapers and broadcasters and called for media restraint. Mr. Comay was evidently in for a hard time. CMAJ did not inquire into the racial origins of the floor speakers, but the number of brown faces suggested that the political neutrality called for by chairman Nicholls might not be maintained. And indeed Mr. Comay soon was accused of political propaganda. The unkindest cuts, however, came from unexpected sources. A psychiatrist who said he was Jewish reminded Mr. Comay of the activities of the Stern gang in the Palestine of the mid-forties, and a lady with a charming Irish accent told him he had fascist attitudes surely the most exquisite insult that could be offered an Israeli diplomat. Mr. Comay said it didn't bother him, which in an audience of psychiatrists was a dead giveaway. Mr. Comay did, in fact, make some nonpolitical points - for instance the international network of terrorists that has come about, regardless of the disparate aims of the various groups. He cited the Lod airport incident of 1972, when three Japanese with no apparent interest in Arab aims killed 27 people, most of whom were Puerto Rican Catholic pilgrims. As the London Economist put it: The killers were not bargaining for anything. There was virtually no connection between their physical targets and the object of their political disapproval. They were just squirting bullets to produce generalized terror.
Photo La Presse, MontrEal Ia Quebec, 1970, terrorism becomes briefly a Canadian reality; police escort FLQ terrorists and hostage James Cross to Isle Ste-H.1ene, where he will be released and they will board a plane to Cuba.
The presentations led into a vigourous debate that would likely have lasted all day, had not the schedule called for closure. The debaters quickly got back onto the track of psychodynamics, but apart from urging that the world's social problems all be solved and that all children be brought up in comfort and security, they found little in their discipline to offer those who seek to contain or eradicate terrorism.
CMA JOURNAL/OCTOBER 23, 1976/VOL. 115 797
