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An Islamist perpetrator in Dresden has been visited several times in prison by a teacher sent by a non-profit association for violence prevention.
Even after his act (a tourist was killed, his companion was seriously injured) he spoke to the helper without the helper having any idea what had happened.
The alleged murderer is now back in custody and awaiting trial.
The multiple murderer in Vienna had been released early from custody because he had agreed to take part in a program of deradicalization and rehabilitation on probation.
This was carried out by associations oriented towards religious education (Derad and Neustart).
Here, too, the helpers did not reach the perpetrator, no working alliance was formed - more: Disguised as a repentant sinner, the perpetrator was able to get automatic weapons and ammunition.
He did not survive the attack.
With this double failure, the socio-educational offers of help have also come under fire.
Reason enough to think about the contradictions that helpers have to grapple with in an area of tension between justice, education and therapy.
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From the point of view of the judiciary, the matter is simple: First-time offenders with poor personalities should be given a chance.
Before their ideology is confirmed in a group of fanatics in custody, it is preferable that they are given probation, not just like that, but only as long as they participate in and complete a prophylactic program.
The therapists have agreed to cooperate with the court and report whether the rehabilitation succeeds or fails.
If a perpetrator ignores the conditions, he is arrested again, possibly in preventive detention.
From the helper's point of view, things are considerably more complicated.
They know that socially disturbed people cannot be reached without a relationship of trust.
They suspect that a fanatical idea can be as effective in relieving the emotional pain caused by a personality disorder as it is in other cases of drug or alcohol abuse.
If your clients now claim that they are seriously interested in changing their fanatical attitudes, that they are willing to listen, understand why they have become criminals, and do better, then the social workers know very well that they do not blindly trust them should.
You get into a dilemma from which there is no safe way out.
"It was known that the perpetrator could have connections to IS"
The Austrian interior minister said at a press conference that it could only have been a perpetrator.
WELT reporter Daniel Koop on the current status of the terror in Vienna.
Source: WORLD
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Lawyers are trained to be skeptical.
You have learned to separate feeling and judgment.
But can we imagine a helper who doesn't believe in the potential good in his client?
Who immediately recognizes every attempt at deception?
It would be something like the egg-laying woolly milk pig - we would like it, but we won't get it.
Anyone who examines the history of such perpetrators usually discovers an impoverished psyche tormented by fears and depression, which cannot find a satisfactory place in groups of peers.
The forced role of the outsider and the marginalized is accommodated in the course of radicalization in a conspiratorial community.
The perfidious seduction power of radical preachers is based on this offer.
Whether they are “defending” the Aryan race or the Islamic caliphate, the result is an edifice in which there are many enemies and a grandiose future.
The latent depression is overcome by the fact that aggressive fantasies are directed against all who are held responsible for a joyless present.
This structure of thought is mostly colored sexist;
an envious aggression is directed against all who are doing well in this world that the perpetrator experiences as "wrong" and who find his fanatical doctrine of salvation uninteresting.
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The seductive power of narcissistic grandiosity is an insidious enemy of change.
The psychological dynamics of such perpetrators is related to the personality disorder that underlies drug addiction.
Those who do not feel comfortable in a close, emotional exchange, take refuge in the antisocial role of the junkie, numb their pain, cross borders, ignore laws.
In drug therapy, in which clients who are motivated by the threat of imprisonment have long employed multi-professional teams of psychotherapists, social pedagogues and doctors, everyone involved is familiar with how well the disruptive person can wrap himself in a docile cloak.
There is probably no addiction therapist who has not been dramatically mistaken at least once: While the therapist is still drafting the path to a drug-free life with his client, the latter has long relapsed and enjoys the secret triumph over the deceived helper.
When is the remorse real?
In addiction therapy, practitioners not only have an established professional culture that protects them from society expecting the impossible from them.
You also have a means of knowing with some certainty whether repentance is real and restart promises credible: the weekly urine test.
The author of these lines has long worked as a supervisor in various addiction therapy facilities and has deep respect for therapists who are busy with this very demanding and often thankless task.
He is convinced that the employees of organizations that deal with deradicalization and violence prevention also deserve this respect.
They should be given time to gain the necessary experience and report on the successes of their work as enthusiastically as they do on the failures.
In addiction therapy, success rates fluctuate widely, there are figures between 60 and 30 percent.
But it would never occur to anyone to stop treating addicts because many of them relapse despite therapy.
A cured junkie saves society so much trouble and money that prevention pays off, even if it fails half the time.
Deportation?
Lock up?
Everything is difficult
This principle should also apply to fanatical threats.
As in addiction treatment, the conditions are so complex that deradicalization can best be done by a multi-professional team.
As in addiction, motivation is fragile, the temptation to relapse is great, and the circumstances under which it occurs are not solely dependent on a therapeutic alliance.
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But what is the alternative?
Deportation?
The perpetrator in Vienna was an Austrian citizen.
Lock up, if necessary forever?
That would cost us the rule of law that we are proud of.
The only question that remains is: What is a humane solution worth to us, and how much can it cost?
Source: picture-alliance / dpa
Wolfgang Schmidbauer works as a psychoanalyst, supervisor and author in Munich. He coined the term helper syndrome in the bestseller "Helpless Helpers" (1977). His most recent book “Cold Thinking - Warm Thinking. On the Contrast of Power and Empathy ”was published in 2020 by Kursbuch-Verlag.