Psychotherapy and the challenge of evil

Abstract

Psychotherapists are reluctant to use the word 'evil' when considering deliberate, willful, morally indefensible acts of violence directed toward others. Instead intrapsychic causes are sought to explain evil and the language of psychopathology, sociopathy and personality disorders is utilised. While offering no solution to the problem of evil, Ernesto Spinelli challenges the tendency of psychotherapy to avoid the moral and existential dimensions of evil through the language of psychopathology that relies upon metaphors of disease or immaturity - be they physical or psychic. What is all too clear, however, is that evil can be enacted with surprising ease by even the most normal and sanest men and women. Spinelli demonstrates the inadequacy of psychotherapeutic theories when applied to the problem of evil and argues instead for an interpersonally focused viewpoint. (editor abstract)