ALEXAN DER MITSCH ERLICH
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ment from oneself. To use Erikson's term, there has developed a
"diffusion of identity . " The changing personality strucrure that has
accompanied our recent civilization includes new types of psychopath–
ological patterns of response, along with new variant forms of asocial
behavior. Internalized superego control has been re-externalized on
an unexpected scale. For example, shoplifting is common among
young people , chiefly students . This behavior is performed with a
pseudo-naive attitude, which suggests how strongly these people have
regressed . The regressive craving for very early stages of blissfulness
expresses itself in the enormous spread of the use of drugs-from
aspirin ro heroin, from sleeping pills
to
amphetamines . Addicts are no
longer a marginal group who can be overlooked by pigeonholing
them as psychopaths. Three hundred thousand narcotic addicts
" buying and selling junk every day" in New York alone represents a
rather important minority; important because of the severe psycho–
pathological damage inflicted by the narcotic drugs . This psychopath–
ology mirrors basic features of our society to a remarkable degree .
Millions ofpeople experience daily the same kind of reckless contempt
for the object when they are pushed around in their working places , in
bad schools , etc. This dehumanized behavior is even
more
clearly
evident in those cold- blooded organizations called concentration
camps, or work camps, where millions have been gassed or starved or
exploited to death.
Further , and just as important in its impact on society, is the
dangerous degree to which the alienation of our object relations has
developed. Emotional estrangement in our social relations is clearly
demonstrated in the attitude of' 'not getting involved ." In Fall , 1972,
Professor Wolfgang Friedman was stabbed to death at 4 p.m. , and only
a few blocks from Columbia University . A numberof people witnessed
the event. They stood motionless, perhaps watching in cold blood,
perhaps too frightened
to
move , but in any case unable to give help to
one who was in mortal need of immediate help . I believe that we must
learn to perceive the way in which destroyed object-relations are inter–
connected. We all participate in these processes of emotional empti–
ness and narcissistic solitude , of inability to feel empathy for the
helpless and humiliated.
Allow me to propose once again , here , the project of a careful
psychoanalytic and psychosocial investigation of criminals in sufficient
