Délires paranoïaques, dangerosités et homicides

Abstract

“Are you threatening to kill me?”, asks the psychiatrist. “It's not a threat, it's a promise!”, replies the paranoiac patient. In just a few short words, this exchange raises the issue of a dangerous, potentially homicidal nature linked to paranoia. This mental disorder is such that it severely complicates interpersonal relationships. Its mechanisms and delusional themes often cause paranoiac individuals – male or female – to have difficult, tense, conflictual and even violent relationships both inside and outside of the family. These difficult relationships can sometimes lead to serious non-lethal attacks or, more exceptionally, single or multiple homicides that have frequent precursory warning signs. The motives for homicides committed by paranoiacs are linked to the themes of their delusions: persecution, prejudice, jealousy, filiation, erotomania, betrayal, etc. The therapeutic alliance, frequently difficult to set up and maintain, makes healthcare treatment difficult for dangerous paranoiac individuals. Ideally, this treatment is based on two key approaches: medicinal treatment and psychotherapy. When these people are not considered to be criminally responsible for the acts that they have committed they are forced to receive care.