Descriptions of the phenomenon of terrorism have tended to concentrate solely on the external world and to polarize between socioeconomic explanations and the fight between good and evil. This paper takes a psychoanalytically informed approach to issues of causation and process. It explores the importance of meaning and history, regression and dissolution, and changes in the manifestations of communal violence over time. It sets out key features of the triangular tactic of what we generally understand as ‘terrorism’, but most significantly identifies the lasting power of feelings and the particular capacity of humiliation to generate violence.