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Do terrorists have a psychological condition? Where do psychoanalysis and psychohistory meet? Do we have the right to diagnose a group of people from our Western couches? I believe the answer is yes. To penetrate these seemingly impermeable borders, we must take into account aspects such as (1) childrearing practices, ideology, mythology, and (2) psychodynamics such as shame, guilt, envy, jealousy, control/domination, and dependency, and how they are qualitatively and culturally experienced. Now there are some who proclaim that terrorists are highly intelligent, sane, very focused, and use terror as a political weapon to achieve their geopolitical aims. It is noteworthy to mention there is a difference between a political/ Islamic Fascist Muslim and a religious Muslim. In this article, I am introducing the concept of the "V-spot" (vulnerable spot), a unique term I devised for couple therapy to describe what happens when partners "push each other's buttons." In psychological terms this is known as the archaic injury. It is suggested that cultures also share collective group myths and fantasies based on early unresolved archaic injuries or "V-spots" very much like couples we see in clinical practice.
Objectives:
The study aimed to achieve the following two objectives: First, it sought to examine the rates of sexual abuse in Palestinian society at three ages (12 years or less, 12-16 years, and 16 + years) by three perpetrators (a family member, a relative, and a stranger). Second, the study sought to assess some psychological implications of sexual victimization.
Method:
A cross-sectional survey was conducted among 652 Palestinian undergraduate students from the Palestinian Authority. A revised version of Finkelhor's scale was utilized to measure sexual abuse, and a revised and culturally adjusted version of Derogatis and Melisaratos' Brief Symptoms Inventory was used to measure nine psychological symptoms.
Results:
The rates of sexual abuse among Palestinian students fall within the range of the problem in many other societies. Similar rates of abuse were found among female and male students. Moreover, sexually abused participants expressed significantly higher levels of psychoticism, hostility, anxiety, somatization, phobic anxiety, paranoid ideation, depression, obsessive-compulsiveness, and psychological distress compared with their nonabused counterparts. Sexual abuse by different perpetrators at different ages significantly explained between 20.7% and 35.8% of the variance in these psychological symptoms.
Conclusions:
The results provide strong support for the argument that sexual abuse exists in Palestinian society, as well as for the hypothesis that sexual abuse has a strong psychological impact on victims. Furthermore, the results highlight the need for further research into different aspects and dimensions of the problem in Arab societies.