BETWEEN PSYCHOSIS AND NARCISSISTIC PERVER SION - SERIAL KILLERS A CLINIC OF HORROR

The separation between psychosis (Dementia Praecox) acid perversity (m oral insanity) was a clinical and forensic problem for alienists and t he notion of perversity remains unclear. Racamier -inspired by Freud's later work-provides a dynamic approach. Serial killers are studied as extreme cases of the connection between narcissistic perversion and p sychosis. Observations are used to study criminal repetition although the author does not claim to offer a general model: starting from an o riginal experience -a revelation for the subject- the relapses are org anised around an experience of a narcissistic orgy accompanied by sexu al excitement. Absolute control of the object-victim requires the abse nce of conscious hatred, indifference and the pseudo-fetishisation of his bodily wastes. Pushed to an extreme, the repetition of the crimina l act becomes the ultimate despecified common path of all destabilisat ion of the psychic economy and enters into the service of the splittin g of the ego.