Journal article

Converting to jihadism... as an attempt to resolve a subjective impasse

Pages 273 to 286

Cite this article


  • Fraiture, E.
(2017). Converting to Jihadism... As an Attempt to Resolve a Subjective Impasse. Cahiers de psychologie clinique, No 49(2), 273-286. https://doi.org/10.3917/cpc.049.0273.

  • Fraiture, Eric.
« Converting to jihadism... as an attempt to resolve a subjective impasse ». Cahiers de psychologie clinique, 2017/2 No 49, 2017. p.273-286. CAIRN.INFO, shs.cairn.info/journal-cahiers-de-psychologie-clinique-2017-2-page-273?lang=en.

  • FRAITURE, Eric,
2017. Converting to jihadism... as an attempt to resolve a subjective impasse. Cahiers de psychologie clinique, 2017/2 No 49, p.273-286. DOI : 10.3917/cpc.049.0273. URL : https://shs.cairn.info/journal-cahiers-de-psychologie-clinique-2017-2-page-273?lang=en.

https://doi.org/10.3917/cpc.049.0273


English

In this article, we study the discourse of an incarcerated young man accused of participating in a terrorist (jihadist) organization. We approach this discourse with the following questions: What form of subjectivity are we dealing with? What relationship does subjectivity establish with an anonymous ideology—religious, political, military? This hateful discourse surprises the clinician with its apparent erasure of any subjectivity. Nevertheless, the analysis reveals traces of: traumatic seduction; early depression; anxieties about exploding, about being penetrated, and about losing one’s substance; a superego pathology; a paranoid type of defense. At first glance, ideology appears to be opening up the destructive imaginary rivalry to a third, symbolizing dimension, thus shielding against certain subjective difficulties. In reality, this jihadist ideological solution fails in this case because, on many points, it remains a mere copy or intensifier of the subjective impasses that arise.

Keywords

  • radicalism
  • jihadism
  • subjectivity
  • religion
  • third
  • super-ego

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