Enigma of the Suicide Bomber

Franco De Masi is a Training and Supervising Analyst of the Italian Psychoanalytical Society and former President of Centro Milanese di Psicoanalisi and Secretary of the Training Milanese Institute. He is a medical doctor and a psychiatrist who worked for twenty years in psychiatric hospitals. Now he lives and works as a full time psychoanalyst in Milan. Currently his main interests are focused on the theoretical and technical psychoanalytical issues related to severely ill patients. He has published several papers in 'The International Journal of Psychoanalysis' and in the 'Rivista Italiana di Psicoanalisi'. He is author and editor of numerous books including 'Making Death Thinkable'.

'While De Masi is a committed psychoanalyst, his work is not that of the one-track missionary. His approach, on the contrary, is a humane antidote to zealotry. In keeping with this spirit, he is mindful of the risk that psychoanalysis may claim too much and too fervently, not least in applying itself to politics. I commend this perturbing, challenging, and highly contemporary book: it is a far cry from the twenty-four-hour cycle of rolling news sound bites, a culture to which we become too easily inured.'- Daniel Pick, fellow of the British Psychoanalytical Society and professor of history at Birkbeck College, University of London; from the Preface'Can psychoanalysts concern themselves with momentous social and political phenomena such as terrorism? What instruments do analysts have at their disposal to respond to the myriad questions which they pose? In this book, Franco De Masi implicitly sets himself this challenge and bravely confronts it, offering us a forceful, eloquent, and at the same time fascinating account. He presents us with an initial exploration of a difficult terrain whose features are both unknown and contradictory; there is never a moment of tedium, and the narrative unfolds like a novel or thriller that is impossible to put down, as we anticipate the final outcome page after page.'- Anna Maria Nicolo, psychiatrist and psychoanalyst; from the Foreword

• Foreword , Preface , Introduction , A strategic aim , Psychoanalytic contributions , Origins and profile , Martyrdom and the sadomasochistic link , Murder–suicide , The network and filicide , The female suicide bomber , Trauma , Dehumanization , Dissociating emotions , Unique identity and omnipotence , A cannibal God , Terrorism: reversible or irreversible? , Conclusions