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This paper puts forth a psychoanalytic interpretation of a medicolegal observation and a case history with a discussion of Kurt Eissler's ideas.
The case demonstrates some of the motivations of the thief: the need of ethical self-justification, the sado-masochistic character of his human relations, and finally the difference between true mastery of reality and the thief's magical self-assertion of omnipotence. Hero worship also played a genetic role.