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In 2011, Anders Breivik killed 77 of his countrymen in Norway. Breivik is an extremely good candidate for a careful psychohistory as his childhood trauma is well documented because the Oslo Social Service agency tried twice to remove him from his mother's care. This workshop will examine the critical importance of early attachment between mother and child, and the catastrophic consequences to the child of early maternal empathic failures. We will focus on the parental failures that led Anders Breivik to become one of the most horrific murderers in recent history.
The model that will be used to understand and interpret Breivikâ's psychological development is Fairbairn's Object Relations Theory, which was developed in Scotland during the period of 1940-1958. The workshop will begin with a description of Fairbairn's model, then the model will be applied to the psychological development of Anders Breivik. Finally, the last section will describe therapeutic strategies that can help the mental health professional with the treatment of individuals with similar developmental histories to Breivik.
Fairbairn focused on the critical early years of the child's development, noting that the infant and child were absolutely dependent on his/her mother's continuing nurturance. The absence of dependable, empathic care is catastrophic because the infant or child's must, by necessity, dissociate memories of events in which they were treated with indifference or neglected. If the child became conscious of all his/her memories of being neglected or treated indifferently, it would shatter his/her essential unambivalent attachment to their needed object.
For more information and to register, visit
https://events.orinyc.org/childhood-trauma-and-psychological-development-of-a-mass-murderer-through-the-lens-of-fairbairns-object-relations-theory/
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