Serial killers: a contemporary mythology and its relations to the sideration mechanism

The researches presented in this article deal about studies aimed at the analysis of the modes of subjectivation of individuals who present serial homicidal behaviors, in order to investigate, in particular, the role of the sideration mechanism present in this subjective configuration. The mechanism of sideration is a particular form of projective identification, which directly impacts the psyche of the victims of the acts of serial killers. In this sense, I present in this article, theoretical articulations, combined with examples of the practice of psychoanalytic clinic. As an instrument of such research, we used open interviews with individuals who committed serial homicides, inmates in prison units in Brazil. These were based on the clinical method, using the tool of floating listening and were analyzed and interpreted in the light of the epistemology of Psychoanalysis. The results pointed to the importance of considering the role of the sideration mechanism and the schizoparanoid position, in its specific set of anxieties and defenses, and also of its relations with the perverse social bond, aspects that make the phenomenon that involves the acts of serial killers a kind of mythology of contemporaneity.