Schizofrenia and Murder

I killed him to get rid of the evil. To save myself and my mother. Anthony

I found courage. Now everyone pays attention to me. Andreas

I didn’t want to die… that’s why I killed him. Joseph

But it was entirely her fault for giving birth to me, allowing me to be tyrannized. Aristidis

I was committed to her… I didn’t exist… I was her instrument… When I played the guitar, my hands were her hands. Nikos

They lock up the psychopath and pass electricity through his head and they kill him because they’re afraid that he’ll commit a crime. Vasilis

How shall we regard the murder of a mother or a father when it is committed by a person suffering from schizophrenia?

A psychological study that attempts to explore the meaning of what at first glance is an irrational and incomprehensible crime and the tendency of opposites to merge: the regression to bliss in an undifferentiated existence; the need for a breakdown; the logical fusing with the illogical; the wish to live with a death wish. Murder expresses truths that are buried deep within all of us and are here revealed in a sensational way.

This book is the product of research in the field of Forensic Psychology. It makes reference to the psychodynamic study of a group of people with schizophrenia, most of whom killed their mother or father. Just how absurd is this type of murder? Is it indeed, as often claimed, an act without reason, the product of a psychopathological drive, inaccessible to rational explanation?
Starting from the basic assumption that the act is consistent with a hidden logic of its own, this research attempts to penetrate the inner sanctum of perceived incomprehensible behavior, in order to decipher its meaning.
The interweaving of madness with destruction, functioning like a magnifying mirror, reveals valuable aspects of their truthfulness to the human psyche.