On the Borderline:Some Observations on Internal Pathological Organizations,Patterns of Early Attachment and their Later Emergence in Criminal Offending and the Therapeutic Relationship

Alistair D. Sweet

Abstract

This paper considers some of the proposed links between developmental deficits and anti-social criminality. There is particular emphasis on the apparent lack of internal containment that many offenders demonstrate and an exploration of the linkage between the psychodynamic concept of pathological organizations and earliest attachment patterns. So called pathological organizations, considered to indicate intra-psychic object relational defensive structures, are also explored in relation to deficits that criminal offenders may have experienced due to a failure in earlier life to internalise capacities to meaningfully symbolize their experience within the primary caregiver relationship. Clinical case material is presented for illustrative purposes.