Life History and Personality Characteristics of Marital Aggressors: Psychoanalytic Contributions

Abstract

Research indicates that trauma (sexual, physical, and emotional abuse) is a factor commonly present in the life of marital abusers. This study aimed to investigate the life history characteristics and personality of men who perpetrated violence against women and were detained in the Central Prison of Porto Alegre, Brazil. We also identified sociodemographic characteristics, the presence of psychopathological symptoms and understood the intrapsychic dynamics involved in the participants’ marital choice, as well as their perception regarding the experience of detention. Three participants filled out a personal data sheet, answered the Rorschach method, the MINI Interview, and participated in three semi-structured interviews. The interviews were examined from the interpretative analysis technique based on psychoanalytic theory. The results allow us to understand the violence committed by the participants as a result from a life story marked by traumatic experiences that produced narcissistic flaws and the expression of aggressiveness.