UNPROVOKED ASSAULTS - MAKING SENSE OF APPARENTLY RANDOM VIOLENCE

An unprovoked assault occurs when a total stranger assaults a totally innocent victim he has never met. Presenting findings from three such cases, representative of a series of ten seen as part of his work as a psychoanalyst at a special forensic hospital in the UK, the author at tempts to tie together the victim and his attacker in the attacker's m ind, setting out to explain how the victim fits the need of a psychoti c man's fantasy, at a particular time. A provisional hypothesis about the internal situation of such patients and its diagnosis, treatment a nd management is put forward and discussed, in the context of the impl ications for the treatment of such offenders and the psychoanalytic th eory of projection and symbolisation.