The emotional terrorist and the violence-prone

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The source of the terrorist’s goal as in the case of the political terrorist, usually can be understood to spring from some “legitimate” grievance. The grievance’s legitimacy may be regarded in terms of justified feeling of outrage in response to an actual injustice or injury, or the legitimacy may exist solely in the mind of the terrorist. Whether this legitimacy be real or imagined, the grievance starts as the impetus for the terrorist’s motivation. One hallmark of an emotional terrorist is that this motivation tends to be obsessional by nature. Zimbardo PG, Ebbesen EB, Maslach C (1977). Influencing Attitudes and Changing Behavior. Addison-Wesley: Reading, MA.

Pfefferbaum B, Nixon S, Tivis R, Doughty D, Pynoos R, Gurwitch R et al (2001). Television exposure in children after a terrorist incident. Psychiatry 64: 202–211. Dear Dr. Vali, Barb's attitude had always been curt, but it had escalated over the last few years . We had worked on the same big public project several times, and the last time I was her manager. She offended the client and staff and so it was decided that it would be the last year she was put on the project. She was gently informed through what I call a "soft message." In as positive a frame as possible, I let her know that it was apparent she no longer enjoyed this assignment and would be relieved of it. I let her know that we wanted her to be comfortable and that the plan was to find her another assignment to do something that she liked better. She left the meeting and it felt positive. Apparently, her first stop after our meeting was to tell a vulnerable staff member, Lois, that she had been "fired." Lois was crushed and believed that managers had betrayed Barb. For the next several months, Lois was consumed by her emotions and spent several hours a day ruminating. As her manager, I did not know the connection and was confused by Lois' sudden emotional demise.

Manipulation

Breslau N, Chilcoat HD, Kessler RC, Davis G (1999). Previous exposure to trauma and PTSD effects of subsequent trauma: results from the Detroit Area Survey of Trauma. Am J Psychiatry 156: 902–907. and the terrorist, seeing themselves clearly for the first time, might be encouraged to reconsider their behavior. More commonly, however, extremely deep therapy is required. For the terrorist's behavior to change, there must first be a solid and fundamental change within the terrorist's physiological constitution. To be sure, many women exist, extremely dependent within their relationships, who, probably having suffered severe emotional betrayal during their childhood, genuinely feel that their life outside a relationship would be so lonely as to be unbearable. The source of the terrorist's goal as in the case of the political terrorist, usually can be understood to spring from some “legitimate” Monk C, McClure EB, Nelson EB, Zarahn E, Bilder RM, Leibenluft E et al (2003). Adolescent immaturity in attention-related brain engagement to emotional facial expressions. Neuroimage 20: 420–428.

To limit the terrorist's feelings of omnipotence, there are many effective measures. The guiding principle, as in the handling of political terrorists, must be: “There is no negotiating with terrorists.” Whether suicide remains only a threat or is realized, the true terrorist uses suicide not so much as an expression of desperate grief but as a weapon to be wielded against others.In this position of fear, the family terrorist sets out to achieve a specific goal. There are many possible goals for the terrorist, including: reuniting the family once again, or ensuring that the children (if there are children in the relationship) remain under the terrorist’s control, or actively destroying the terrorist’s spouse (or ex-spouse) emotionally, physically, and financially. Bulletproof is something different. Bulletproof is when people, including those with image-armor, push that thinking too far, to a point beyond which they take risks that are not reasonable to take. Bulletproof people believe they are beyond the domain of what "regular" people must accept. Law enforcement and fire service professionals with image armor survive in severely risky situations. But if they see themselves a bulletproof they may put themselves and others on their team at risk. If wishing to undertake the second sphere of disarming a terrorist — personal intervention with the terrorist herself — the therapist must be prepared to be straight, honest and very direct. In my own dealings with women as terrorists, I have found on occasion that one quite simply can point out to the terrorist, “You are behaving like a terrorist. This is what you are doing. This is how you are being destructive. This is the destruction you are heading towards,”