The Self System and Group Violence

Social psychiatry focuses its attention on the transactions between the individual and his social context as these influence the feelings and behavior, mental health, and well-being of individuals. From the perspective of social psychiatry, consistent behavioral patterns or syndromes become evident that are not accounted for by the study of individual cases of disturbed mental functioning.

One social-psychiatric syndrome that has profound consequences for mental health will be described from the individual behavioral perspective, the social circumstances of its occurrence will be considered, and a preliminary model of the psychodynamic mechanisms involved will be proposed as a basis to consider appropriate means of therapeutic intervention. It is the syndrome of group narcissistic reaction.

Men and women afflicted by this syndrome are indistinguishable from the general population in their demographic distribution and premorbid personality development, except that socially marginal persons may be somewhat less vulnerable. The onset occurs at any age beyond puberty, although virulence appears to diminish with advanced maturity. Onset is usually gradual, but once the pattern is established it tends to be progressive, and sometimes acute episodes are precipitated by external events. Recovery, if the condition is not fatal, tends to follow an acute crisis, although chronic forms may continue for many years at subcrisis levels.

The central characteristic of the syndrome is systematic hostile bias toward a perceived threatening agency, with extreme emotionalism, fixed beliefs, and perceptions resistant to any countervailing evidence, and behavioral patterns dangerous to the self or others. The sensorium is clear and even unusually focused, but there is apt to be serious distortion of judgment in assessing reality, whereas insight or any sense of inappropriateness is absent.

The emotional state in this syndrome is extremely labile, swinging from heights of elation to depths of