Serial Arsonists: Socio-Psychiatric Research FIRE’s Addiction Psychopathologic Determinism: to plane new modalities of cares Volume 8 - Issue 4

Hugues Scharbach*

• Neuro-Psychiatrist; Doctor of Psychology; C.A. and C. Cass. Expert Hon, France

Received: January 03, 2025;   Published: January 10, 2025

Corresponding author: Hugues Scharbach, Neuro-Psychiatrist; Doctor of Psychology; C.A. and C. Cass. Expert Hon, France.

DOI: 10.32474/SJPBS.2024.08.000292

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Abstract

Materials and Methods: ambivalence about fire. A revolutionary factor of technological progress and development of research as well as life’s comfort /versus destructive, devasting; underlying libidinal drive; It’s perception according to ages, impact of symbolic and mental resonance; human community around the hearth.

Results: Psychopathological Acting: aesthetics of flames and emotional aspects; sexual drive base the addictive dimension by serial arsonists.

Discussion: psychopathological features of the personality highlighted in the frame of some forensic examinations, with the value of expertise, reenforced by references to studies.

Conclusion: a therapeutical conception of care, as the one devoted to addictive personalities.

Introduction

We have attached a particular attention to that one, because he is the more secretive criminal actors and responsible for a significant part of fires that cause environmental and community damage, sometimes leading to her death people and always animals and plants in rural areas, able to stay showing, hidden, the disaster close of the hell representation. We have also wanted to highlight the ambivalent strength of the representation of the fire, from which the ability to generate it by rubbing and to imagine what kind of revolution that discover must represented: a spring in the creative evolution of humanity. We have tried to be conceptualized therapeutic means concerning these particular criminal transgressors, in fact so different in their mental organization, even if they may share the same close, devastating actings, sometimes felt moved by negative and counter-artistic feelings.

The usual psychiatric works about addiction include rarely serial arsonists, who set fires habitually and compulsively. Accomplishments were involved by A. D. SAPP and al. [1] in a conduct by the NCAVC in United STATES in the 20.3 % of arson cases. If no discernible patterns were observed in the overall target selection of 83 serial arsonists, we think that these impulsive and repetitive behaviors should be not connected to an unequivocal diagnosis of pyromania. Since being due to a variable symbolic determinism which underlie them, it seems obvious that they need a thorough and comprehensive approach of the psychopathological Features of the Personality inducing disturbances, sometimes worsened by mental, alcohol and sometimes drug problem. It’s necessary to distinguish between different modalities underlying the enactment by the pyromaniac. Their location seems no longer obvious in the main mental classification like D.S.M.V-R of the W.H.O. (ICD -10 codes used for reimbursements) or C.I.M. 11. We will present here a research based only on our personal clinical and psychopathological observations gathered in the frame of our commitment as forensic expert during 4 decades, having to explain before the judgement the determinism of the acting after a long time of intensive examination, devoted to explore the life’s history of the arsonist, his habits, his social insertion and his common modalities of being, his psychopathological features of personality, his identity’s expressions, the aspect of his phantasmatic imagination, which underpinned its transgressive and destructive enactment, in order to realize an assessment of his mental organization and of his morbid features of the personality. Its harmful comportment is implying a failure of some of his 10 psychic defence mechanisms, notably sublimation. We purpose that research without having taken in consideration a statistical study, no used semi-structured scale and no precise the prevalence between rural or urban origin in reason of the weak number of our cases of the serial arsonists that we have had to meet but having taken in account the need to answer precisely 7 questions concerning a broad exploratory spectrum posed by the judge. We have also wanted to highlight the ambivalent strength of the representation of the fire, from which the ability to generate it by rubbing and to imagine what kind of revolution that discover must represented: a spring in the creative evolution of humanity.

Development of that type of Assuetude

However, they have often the attraction of making fire spring forth is multifaceted and can be found at all ages. For instance, we have even had, some years ago, to realize a forensic expertise of a young boy, who was fascinated by lighters, by rubbing the knob for ignition. He makes the flame emerge and his mental research was so strength, that, he set fire to papers laying on the table in a medical room in an office-hospital, reaming the corridors, after he had left his parents, who were visiting a member of his family. -I had also to take care of two young adolescents taken care of in a specialized center devoted to teenagers suffering of disharmonic features of the personality’s entangled with dissocial troubles, after they set fire to the director’s car in retaliation. During social demonstrations, the number of cars burned is often impressive. Young squatters may set a fire before leaving the barn or the attic where they spent the night.

We have described their actings, their clinical history and their psychopathological features and their structural organization of the personality in articles and in books [2,3]. They are renowned to their tendency to recidivate. It will be necessary to evoke the destructive impulse, of unconscious death. Although they had tried to stay hidden, they sometimes been arrested near the places of the fire, of forest or moors for example. They remain often close to the fire. They may sometimes experience/feel sexual arousal. Among the worst, Esperanza arsonist in CALIFORNIA, R. LEE Oyler,38, convicted of setting the 2006 Esperenza fire that killed five firefirefighter and sand becoming “more and more proficient”, was sentenced to death, being guilty on five 20 counts of arson and 17 counts of using an incendiary device. The judge said he had set out to “create havoc”. Paradoxically, they could be also beginner firefighters, auxiliaries and even volunteers as a Chilian, who set a fir in last 2024 FEBRUARY, to Vina del Mar, causing 137 deaths. But we know none, such E.L.ORR, fire captain and arson investigator in CALIFORNIA, who was convicted of serial arson and four counts of murder nearly 2000 fires on a third-year arson spree, most of them between 1984 and 1991. The most prolific in American History.

Psychopathological Expression

About the opportunity to include the comportment of some arsonists in the frame of a real effect of addiction. Besides the fact from they are able to commit such repetitive impulsive behavior, the connection with sexual addictions is, moreover, quite obvious: as regards the prior excitement: the arsonists of this register sometimes may masturbate them in front of the fire caused, so strong is the impulse. If they have to act hidden, the Exhibitionist dimension paradoxically exists and the subject, whose repetitive behavior.

We can recall, this very young adult, without socio-professional insertion, obviously immature, according to a weak mental efficiency, to a bad affective-emotional regulation and to a complex expression of his sexuality, who causes the death of 15 people in the incendiary of old Hôtel of EUROPE in BELFORT (FRANCE). He could be caught and arrested, because he was sending each time provocative messages via the Minitel (digital). He believed to act unmasked but, wish to get a famous noxious identity. In this order, the author of a criminal Fire which have destroyed an animation studio causing the death of 36 people sentenced in JAPAN declared in MAY 2024, that he accepted its conviction, the death, but after having made Appeal, in order to have time to talk more to talk about this tragedy.

We will highlight further the recent arsonism of a church in ST OMER (FRANCE). Recently, during last AUGUST, arsonists, who have set fire to a building in NICE (FRANCE), an attack which kills 7 dead including children, do not seem to be classified in this register as the one of BELFORT’s one, but rather according to discriminating opinion concerning the inhabitants. It could have been realized in the same context concerning the recent destruction of a building causing 6 deaths in LA HAGUE. Fire impulsiveness, including repetitive act is enough frequent, but non described usually in the frame of ADDICTION. I had also to take care of two young adolescents taken care of in a specialized center devoted to teenagers suffering of disharmonic features of the personality’s entangled with dissocial troubles, after they set fire to the director’s car in retaliation. During social demonstrations, the number of cars burned is often impressive. Young squatters may set a fire before leaving the barn or the attic where they spent the night. It will be necessary to evoke the destructive impulse, of unconscious death.

Finally, there is the pathological people, often young men, the arsonists, of whom we have already presented their psychiatric clinical observations [1,4]. They are renowned to their tendency to recidivate. They are sometimes arrested near the places of the fire, of forest or moors for example. They remain often close to the fire, fascinating by the flames that rise and vanish in a gradient of red and yellow. They may sometimes experience/feel sexual arousal. We don’t forget beginner firefighters, auxiliaries and even volunteers, as we will precise later.

Development about that kind of Arsonists Acting in a Monomanic Register

The recent great large fires, which caused the destruction of wide spaces with forests, moors, even habitations in CANADA, In GREECE, in PORTUGAL, in CALIFORNIA, i.e. show the dramatic results of serial arsonists [5]. Therefore, few studies have examined the characteristics and typologies of rural arsonists, contributing to the continuing lack of awareness of rural crime. Others are focalized on public, administrative monuments or even on religious sites in cities, firing CATHEDRALS, such in (FRANCE) , the one of PARIS, the organs of the one of NANTES and recently, 1 and 2 SEPTEMBER in Saint OMER’s the Church of the Immaculate Conception and its MERKLIN organ, by an arsonist already convicted of acts of destruction by fire and damage to a religious building by a 39-yearold man, who aroused a lot of emotion and even that one of Elon MUSK. Always in FRANCE, an arsonist had made fire in the PUY-en- VELAY and other churches around, who after psychiatric forensic examinations/forensic, appears to have obvious schizoid features of personality.

Differential Diagnosis

That one could include epistemological factors having taking part in the building of their Psyche. Such acts may be provoked by passionate political or religious convictions could be similar in their need to prove them by actors to an addictive instinctive trait. We could even cite here the destruction of churches by fire in New Caledonia currently, French territory, where the risk of church’s incendiary is currently high. At this level, we have to precise a conflicting mental proximity by these people which bare expressed in this way their ideology, committing such aggressive acts against temples, mosques, and recently, at the beginning of December, concerning the Melbourne’s Synagoge, as well as these driven by disappointment in a romantic passion or in reason of jealousy. Among other famous religious monuments, the Temple KINKAKU-JI (JAPAN), to which a young Buddhist monk, Misoguchy Hayasshi SHÖ Ken, son of a priest, set fire because he was disillusioned and jealous of the promotion of another in a context of borderline immature personality, with psychopathic connotation. Yukio MISHIMA had published a novel in 1956 intitled: “The Gold PAGODE”. In the frame of political Register, Count ROSTOPCHINE took fire in the MOSCOW’s city during the stay of NAPOLEON, that incendiarism leading to harmful great consequences for the conquest’s project.

Some others commit suicide by fire to put an end to an unfortunate fate and famous is the case of HERAKLES committing suicide on a stake to escape the burns of tunic on which DEJANIRE had poured the poisonous sand of NESSUS. Other determinisms: Some people commit a transgressive act about the forbidden to access a kind of purification in relation with unconscious culpability linked to OEDIPE’s complex but also, first to problematic during the primitive sadistic period as would tell M. KLEIN [6].

The comportment of the addicted Arsonist and the Psychopathological aspects and affectiveemotional Representations

As we have already written: two words: impulsiveness, repetitiveness, a kind of Assuetude on the background of bad pulsional control and trying to act masked, but often demasked by disruptive conduct, may be in reason of culpability emergency. The pyromaniac -the majority of men- watch, look for the dance of the flames with fascination and their incessant variations of shapes and colors become fascinating, so that the excitement continues to grow, heightened by the strange and envouting/captivating noise, punctuate by cracks. Sometimes close to a hypnotic state, he can stay close to the fire and be, with acme, as an artist fascinated by a work. He can, in this way, be spotted. We can also think to the smoking followers, in starting to smoke, rubbing the match or the lighter: the act of lighting a cigarette or a cigar or equivalent doesn’t participate in part in an addictive repetition before and out, of course, the effects of nicotine. Some throw quickly, nervously away their halfconsumed cigarette. But above all, the narcissistic fragility relating to the Self, the identity vulnerability, the symbolic connotations of the one, who became famous by his incendiary act concerning the Third Wonder of the World, EPHESE’s temple! EROSTRATE, which should not have been his first provoked fire, reflected, drive/ leaded by a postural complex showing an overcompensation in an addictive mode of appearance, against a background of lack of self-esteem, like the addictive followers of « like ». The case of Imperator’s NERON burning a great part of ROME should had have mercantile aim, even if the flamboyant spectacle of destruction could also, please his perverted personality adjustments.

He fits well with its repetitive tendency underlying the drive level within the framework of addiction. More: if we consider the terminology, firing « faire feu » with a weapon can become, notably, among certain formerly cowboys, as habit, a practice with a psychopathological base, which has lasted for un long time, and which must be considered. But well-socialized considerations into account to fire’s acting don’t be forgotten. It exists many shapes of interest about “firing”, even in the frame of challenges or in the venerable sport of hunting with arms using to shoot/make fire, i.e., still brings together many amateurs or the interest to possess and to use arms to shoot. we must also not forget to mention adventurers, mythic “cowboys” and warriors, who like to use fire instruments at any opportunity. At least, those who instinctively, voluntarily seek out the places of battle.

Discussion Au Plan Psychopathologie

At the epistemological level, the psychopathological conceptualization permits to obtain a better understanding of such behaviors as the nosologically or even the semiologist approach. Deepening the mental determinism of these addictive-likecompartmental disorders would make it possible to better organize care projects. Therefore, this study identifies the discriminant characteristics of rural arsonists and develops a typology of the criminal patterns associated with this rural crime. For this purpose, the sociodemographic and psychosocial characteristics, criminal behavior and crime scene information of 450 rural arsonists’ criminal records were analyzed. Findings indicate that 61% of rural arsonists had mental health and alcohol problems. However, compared to previous literature, most were older adults (M = 45.64; SD = 16.02), had no criminal record (66%) and were employed (54%). By focusing on overcoming the limitations of previous typologies, the current one has been improved conceptually and methodologically, resulting in the classification of rural arsonists into three groups: Expressive-Mental Health Problems (39%), Expressive-Alcohol Consumption (38%), and Instrumental-Socially Adjusted (23%).

Approach Psychopathologie À Vise Thérapeutique

What are the important motives, which crystallize, at the behavioral level and which can prolong the mother’s relationship with the infant? These behaviors manifested in action and dependence refer to a sort of slavery but, which would have the function of protecting what threatens the narcissistic foundations, and Ego weakened by the failure of transitional phenomena. Considering the idea of J. MCDOUGAL [6], the anxiety of these subjects is located from the side of collapse. Their psychic problematic has its stem conceptualized, early in their development, as M. KLEIN and her epigons have before the Oedipal moment, during the process of separation/ individualization, compromising the process of introjection and therefore the narcissistic foundations and the feeling of internal securities of objectual investment. The « pyromaniac one », by his intra-psychic structuration, having preoedipal foundations, will develop that kind of dysfunction in the psychodynamic, topical and economic level. This is notably highlighted in our approach relating to his personality features in the frame of forensic examinations. The aim is to clarify the type of cares that should be implemented, sometimes in the institutional frame.

M. BENEZECH [7] believed that the arsonist is shared between his pleasure to set fire and his sado-masochistic expression. J. JEAMMET [8], as pedo-psychiatrist and analyst, had explained that it is less a question of a compulsive discharge source, than of an attempt to differentiate oneself in constituting in reality an external object guarantor of identity, to be submitted to a grip to not depend on it.

To refer to the destiny of impulses, in a psychodynamic, topical, economical approach and to the operational bringing into play of certain of the 10 Defense mechanisms of such subjects is central to understand how can emerge, in different manners and ways, in the field of consciousness of individuals an approval of such violent act, despite the prohibitions and the consequences in reality.

It seems that a therapeutical APPROACH doesn’t permit a grouped therapy, for example in the frame of a workshop, to the extent that, as with addicts, subliminal messages of inductive reinforcement could occur.

A depth-based listening therapy analyzing losses, dreams, prolonged graph-pictural productions will be necessary to complete the care, independently of the reference to the sanction. We cannot forget the great gap between a young subject, often a big adolescent, immature, socially unqualified after a difficult schooling linked to certain limitations of efficiency, who seeks selfexpression in a world whose contours he doesn’t understand well all and the subtle aspects of the mental organization even by the socially and professionally apparently integrated man integrated man, apparently socially accomplished, who puts into action an unspeakable vengeance or culpability ‘s expression linked to early/ primitive conflicts in his development, this related to neurotic, paranoïaque/paranoïde, borderline of the psychic features of the personality. A long we could finally even recall the famous question of one of the worse diabolical man: “Is PARIS burning?

Conclusion

The use of the object of investment can be a goal to achieve satisfaction was written S. Freud. Subjects, who commit as Arsonist repetitively fire’s destruction, appear more complex as it could seem, including and addictive dimension in the frame of a large spectrum of psychopathological features of the Personality. The Disorders could be ranging as well from neurotic disorders, particularly in hysterical form, in BSD, in schizoid form or in simple schizophrenia during decompensation, in paranoïa with feelings of revenge or of claim, to mild mental impairment, to unquenchable hatred of certain places or monuments symbols that are too populated, too symbolic or venerated, irritability, to frequent outbursts of anger in cases of frustration, even slight, when they feel so little recognized.

The question of narcissistic Disturbances [9] must be evoked, taking up the destiny or the fate of this legendary young man, who found death in a paradoxical state’s evolution arousing despair after having experienced an ecstatic visual sensation: like for him or me or the other…The flames dying, leaving a void, which may have to do with the negative hallucination. The resort to setting on fire could have also been a mean as a sign of over compensatory sexual activity. We can consume ourselves with love or cause the environment or other one to consume itself. And finally, let’s not forget the library arsonists: when humanists themselves cause the fire of their library, acting close from the self-damage [10- 17]. Still more: Throwing yourself into the water to declare his love (water is used to extinguishes the fire) vs self-bursting. getting embroiled-torrential rains vs storms-lightning with fireball. An antinomy: to be set on fire by love vs to be set on fire by enemy.

Conflict of Interest

No conflict of interest.

Acknowledgement

None.

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