Understanding Adoptees Who Kill: Dissociation, Patricide, and the Psychodynamics of Adoption

Adoption is often the key to the psychopathology of adopted killers, yet its importance is rarely noted. Three cases of patricide by adoptees are examined in light of a unique pattern of psychopathology, the Adopted Child Syndrome. In this syndrome, an aspect of the self, experienced as "bad" and usually identified with the fantasized biological parents, is dissociated. Under conditions of loss or rejection, this dissociated part of the self may erupt in murderous violence against the adoptive parents and others. In extreme cases, the syndrome is akin to multiple personality disorder, and such a diagnosis could be warranted.