I enjoyed Dr. Pie’s interesting article ” A ‘Simple’ Way To End Terrorism” in the December issue of the Psychiatric Times (P.1) where he discusses the role of paradoxical narcissism and projective identification as defenses of the mind of the terrorist. I’m sure these mechanisms are active, especially in the leaders, but wonder whether the mind-set of the leaders might be different from the followers. In the followers, I imagine there is a considerable amount of attachment dependency as well as transference to the leaders and the icons of worship as parental figures. In either case, I’m also sure simple classifications will not explain the entire phenomena.
Doug Berger, M.D., Ph.D.
US Board Certified Psychiatrist
Tokyo, Japan
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