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Give sorrow words: the grief that does not speak whispers the o'er-fraught heart, and bids it break.
Every day scores of men and women, by means of physical force or persuasive behavior, cause others the outrage of undeserved suffering. Many of these acts are violations of criminal statutes, still others more appropriate to define as immoral than criminal. Nevertheless, all are malevolent in that they have in common treating other people with a lack of respect and consideration for the victim's humanity.
In my clinical experience, the destructive actions of malefactors are based on one or both of two pernicious beliefs: 1. The victim is so weak, stupid or incompetent that he or she can be treated as an object rather than someone who deserves decent consideration; 2. The victim is so threatening to the offender's physical or psychological well-being that the destructive action is justified (Goldberg, 1997).
I saw Nora for psychoanalytic treatment shortly after her acrimonious separation from her husband. At the time, Nora was thirty-five, with long reddish hair and a brogue she brought with her as a child from Ireland. There her father had been a diplomat and a member of the Parliament. Nora, the eldest of three children, had inherited her father's intellect and early career—she practiced criminal law.
Nora played an audiotape for me during her second session of analysis. During a long distance car drive, she had taped a conversation between her and her estranged husband, a notorious gambler and alleged swindler. Their angry discussion focused on the fact that before he had left their home to start a relationship with another woman, he had stolen her confidential files of clients she represented, together with $750,000 of Nora's security bonds. He planned, she told me, to use the money to stage what virtually