Abstract
Terrorism belongs to the extreme forms of violence that have so far received little attention in psychiatric research and are rarely mentioned in textbooks of psychiatry. After terror attacks, however, the question regularly arises whether terrorists suffer from mental disorders. The aim of this review is to summarize the multidimensional causes of terrorism with special emphasis on psychopathological aspects of the perpetrators. In addition to abrief summary of the historical background and recent developments in terrorism, aliterature search was performed using PubMed, SCOPUS, PsychInfo and PsychARTICLES. From apsychiatric point of view, a differentiation between lone terrorists and group terrorists is essential. Lone terrorists have amuch higher prevalence of psychiatric disorders, such as psychotic, paranoid and affective symptoms. The majority of terrorists acting in groups rarely suffer from such mental disorders. For these perpetrators biographic aspects and socialization, group dynamics and ideological personality profiles with narcissistic, histrionic, fanatic and antisocial components are more relevant. The phenomenon of terrorism predominantly being a male domain is discussed. The manifold manifestations of terrorism are caused by complex patterns of interacting biographic, sociological, ideological and psychopathological components that differ between lone acting and group terrorists. The real causes for acts of terrorism are not various ideologies permitting violence but consist more of apre-existing violence-oriented mentality of the perpetrators looking for such ideologies to justify their acts. The possibilities of psychiatry in prevention and early recognition are limited. Some recently developed scales for risk assessment of extreme violence are mentioned.
Highlights
Terrorism belongs to the extreme forms of violence that have so far received little attention in psychiatric research and are rarely mentioned in textbooks of psychiatry
The aim of this review is to summarize the multidimensional causes of terrorism with special emphasis on psychopathological aspects of the perpetrators
The majority of terrorists acting in groups rarely suffer from such mental disorders
Summary
Laut Global Terrorism Index [38] starben im Jahr 2018 bei Terroranschlägen weltweit 15.952 Menschen. Nach einem stetigen Ansteigen des weltweiten Terrorismus mit Höchstwerten im Jahr 2014 (33.555 Todesfälle) ist seit der sich abzeichnenden Niederlage des sog. Dennoch ist die Zahl der Opfer von Terroranschlägen heute noch dreimal so hoch wie eine Dekade zuvor. Gesellschaftlichen und psychosozialen Konstellationen sind für viele Einwohner einer vom Terror betroffenen Region relevant, jedoch wird nur ein äußerst geringer Anteil von ihnen zu Terroristen. Ziel der vorliegenden Arbeit ist es, neben einer kurzen Darstellung historischer Aspekte und verschiedener Formen von Terror, aus der zu dieser Thematik verfügbaren Literatur eine Übersicht über das multifaktorielle Bedingungsgefüge mit besonderer Beachtung psychopathologischer Aspekte von Menschen, die Terrorhandlungen durchführen, zusammenzustellen. Um per definitionem von einem terroristischen Anschlag sprechen zu können, muss es sich bei der Attacke um einen absichtlichen Gewaltakt mit politischen oder ideologischen Motiven handeln, dessen Ziel häufig ein Symbolwert für ein verhasstes System zukommt
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