For Love of the Father: A Psychoanalytic Study of Religious Terrorism

Ruth Stein's pioneering study explains suicidal terrorism from a psychoanalytic perspective. She argues that most Islamic extremists undertake destructive and self-destructive actions not out of blind hatred, nor even for political gain, but to achieve an explosive merger with a transcendent awesome Father, God. The extremist is thus motivated more by his love for God than his hatred of the infidel. The contemporary Islamic terrorist kills "God's enemies" to express his intoxication with and complete submission to the God-idea. Stein further shows that this same leitmotif of filial submission and sacrifice runs through patriarchal monotheism in general.

Author: Ruth Stein
Publisher: Stanford University Press
Published: 10/28/2009
Pages: 248
Binding Type: Hardcover
Weight: 1.10lbs
Size: 9.00h x 6.00w x 0.69d
ISBN: 9780804763042

Review Citation(s):
Chronicle of Higher Education 12/11/2009 pg. 22

About the Author
Ruth Stein is Associate Professor in New York University's Postdoctoral Program in Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis and a clinical psychologist and psychoanalyst. She is the author of Psychoanalytic Theories of Affect (1991; 1999).