Terrorist violence can express omnipotence fantasies masking inner impotence and identification with aggressors

Evidence

The terrorist group represents an outlet for archaic aggressive tendencies, frequently rooted in youthful conflicts with stepfathers. Such aggressive tendencies reflect fantasies of omnipotence corresponding to the individual’s own inner feelings of impotence and inferiority. The attraction to violence may also be a result of identification with the violent acts of father figures (a violence several individuals had actually experienced); that is, an identification with the aggressor (see especially Böllinger, 1981, pp. 222–224). — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 4099

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the idea that aggression often comes from identification with an aggressor, resonant with Hanna Segal’s and Anna Freud’s psychoanalytic concepts.