In the Face of My Own Fear

Abstract

A fter seeing many murderers and reading about others, I sometimes worry that I have become desensitized. At one time, I frequently attended a weekly conference on the treatment of mentally ill murderers that soon began to take on a predictable course. The clinician presenting the patient’s case would discuss the patient’s childhood, school history, and relationships. Frequently, there was violence, alcohol, or drugs in the home. Slowly, as the clinician discussed the patient’s adolescence and young adulthood, a girlfriend or mother or father’s story would be woven in more and more, until it became clear that this person was the victim. At a point of tension, the clinician would pause, sigh, and say, “And then he killed her (or him).” This pattern became ingrained in my mind. One evening, although not in a sociable mood, I attended a dinner party. I was lost in my own thoughts and only half-listening to a young man animatedly telling a story. I later learned that he was telling how he had obtained a job working under a man that he idolized.