Psychology of terrorism

When trying to analyze the psychology of terrorism, it is necessary to answer one very important question, namely: are suicide bombers mentally ill? I suppose not. The clinical picture of any affective disorder (psychosis), including schizophrenia, does not deny the possibility of suicide on religious grounds. However, affective psychosis, including delusions, hallucinations, paranoid (including overvalued) ideas and ideas, develops, as a rule, from within the client’s mind (endogenesis) and can be induced only in some cases.
The psychosis has its own logic - for example, “voices” or “devils” are able to order the patient to commit a terrorist attack, but he is unlikely to obey in this real stranger. In the case of induced (instilled) psychosis, which is often observed among sectarians, the performer is ready to perform some affective actions spontaneously — say, kill himself or the “wrong”; happening, experiencing fear or guilt. In general, the psychotic is unreliable, difficult to impute and difficult to manage; one can hardly expect long-term, organized and purposeful actions in conditions of high concentration of attention and heightened stress. Practice shows that psychotics make up a very small percentage in terrorist cells - the terrorists themselves avoid them and even often are afraid (you never know where it would occur to a bomb to blow up!).

The next, very common diagnosis is psychopathy, and especially one of its extreme forms - sociopathy. This disorder is observed, in particular, in serial killers and maniacs, although it may also be included in the clinical picture of a wide variety of mental illnesses. The main symptom of psychopathy is socially dangerous tendencies (in extreme cases, the desire to kill or rape, cannibalism), which are integrated into the patient's psyche and are not subject to critical attitude, i.e. the psychopath is absolutely confident in the normality of his behavior and is insensitive to the suffering of others.
This disease is characterized by increased aggressiveness, a tendency to conflicts, intolerance to the opinions of others, fanaticism. However, there are a number of other signs: in many cases, the psychopath is unable to exist normally in a team and obey the general rules for all, he hates discipline and recognizes only his own rules of the game, which makes it impossible to participate in underground work. Even if a psychopath (like most serial murders) shows the wonders of disguise in people and in the family, his personality is absolutely centered on itself; most psychopaths are total egoists. People with such inclinations willingly show themselves wherever it is a question of violence, they are capable of the very sophistication of sadism, but never of sacrifice. Suicide in the name of a higher goal is genuine insanity for the psychopath.

So, it is necessary to state an obvious fact: shahids are not crazy, they are no more and no less normal than you and me.