Psychological Assessment and Interventions for Individuals Linked to Radicalization and Lone Wolf Terrorism

Carlo Lazzari

• Publisher: Bentham Science Publishers
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9789814998338
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: Forensic Psychology
• Index: Psychology

In recent times, the phenomenon of lone wolf terrorism has been observed with the social assumption that a radicalized individual is only guided by personal, social, and ethnic reasons to commit an extremist act. Nevertheless, there is still much to understand about this phenomenon and improve the methods of investigation or psychiatric interventions. This handbook attempts to cover gaps in understanding the psychiatric aspects of radicalization and the phenomenon of lone-wolf terrorism. Edited by expert clinical psychologists, the contributors have taken both a qualitative and theoretical route to analyze the phenomenon, prompted by their clinical experience with mental health professionals, being in contact with radicalized people living in local towns and prisons.

Philosophical, Epistemological and Ontological Bases in the Study of Psychology of Lone Wolf Radicalization and Terrorism

Carlo Lazzari^{1, *}, Abdul Nusair², Marco Rabottini¹

¹ Department Psychiatry, International Centre of Healthcare and Medical Education, Bristol, United Kingdom

² Department of Psychiatry, South-West Yorkshire Trust, Wakefield, United Kingdom

Abstract

The current chapter focuses on the theoretical aspects of research on radicalization and lone wolf terrorism. The aim is to extract the justification of our research goals and tools and explore what ground we made our assumption of truth about the social phenomenon investigated. Several doctrines of thought are here revisited to frame our observations on radicalization and terrorism. The philosophical, ontological, and epistemological bases of psychological research in radicalization and terrorism are formulated in the current chapter.

Keywords: Epistemology, Lone Wolf, Ontology, Philosophy, Research, Terrorism.

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^* Corresponding author Carlo Lazzari: International Centre for Healthcare and Medical Education, Bristol, United Kingdom; E-mail: [email protected]

Epistemology and Philosophy of Knowledge in Psychology of Terrorism

Empiricism, a term deriving from the Greek word empeiria or ‘experience,’ maintains that all human knowledge derives from experience and arises from stimulation of the five senses such as visual, tactile, auditory, olfactory, and gustatory [1]. In his work Theaetetus, Plato rejects empiricism attacking the Protagorean concept that the judgment or knowledge generated through perceptions is flawless; instead, knowledge should be found in our analysis of these experiences [2]. As Russel points out, in our search for truth, we begin by using our everyday experience and inevitability knowledge derives from it; more specifically, we adopt the perception of what appears while assuming that there is some truth behind it [3]. However, there seems to be little explanation of the methods of knowledge. The same applies to the understanding of mental illness

linked to lone wolf terrorism. However, empiricism could help understand human emotions and behavior where all senses can provide an account of other humans, such as the sound of their voice, the color of their clothes, the strength of their handshake, and so forth. However, as psychological knowledge could be fallacious, a researcher needs to use the Socratic Method to scan subjective realities. For instance, the use of psychological categories should be completed by a robust analysis of lone wolves’ mental health and behaviors.

Socrates employed a method of further questions to an interlocutor following an initial one; the aim is to show that the answers provided are contradictory eventually, making the interlocutor aware of the limited knowledge of the thoughts investigated [4]. For instance, after a person says, ‘I always feel angry towards others,’ the investigator might start to ask, ‘What do you mean with ‘angry?’, or ‘What do you mean with ‘always’? And so on. Therefore, knowledge about the world of emotions or the psyche in the human being and lone wolf can quickly arise from empiricism. In this case, ‘psyche’ is defined as the world of mind, judgments, emotions, and values of a person [5].

On the contrary, for the knowledge of the world of objects, the use of reason or rationalism might be more indicated. Descartes introduces an essential aspect of clinical practice, which is mindfulness about the own biases in thinking defined Descartes as ‘demons.’ This aspect is central in assessing the objectivity of current research methods on radicalization. Descartes introduced the practice of systematic doubt, which, after a process of progressive reasoning, can reach the perception of being correct, although the only truthfulness is the perception of the self (Cogito Ergo Sum: I think hence I am) [3]. Rationalists hold three significant theories [6]:

1. ‘The Intuition/Deduction Thesis’: some truth is knowable only by instinct while others are inferred from these intuitions.
2. ‘The Innate Knowledge Thesis’: other truths are held as part of our rational nature.
3. ‘The Innate Concept Thesis’: we have some notions about a particular object as part of our rational nature.

Rationalists hold that reality has an intrinsically rational nature so that a category of truths and principles can be known as it occurs in logic, mathematics, and ethics [7]. An expansion is that in the clinical work with a lone wolf with mental-health disorders, the clinician applies all these instruments for assessment – having a professional intuition that there is something wrong – and treatment – care plans being assumed as a rational response to a psychological illness.

In conclusion, both empiricism and rationalism are currently applicable in clinical practice and research in the psychology of lone wolf radicalization and terrorism. Especially in the professions of mental health, intuition and knowledge using senses, plus a rationalist assessment of underlying social and ethnic causes, together with the use of approved instruments for diagnosis and treatment, are all equally important. As seen in the current chapter, the practice of scanning reality via senses (empiricism) can help understand the nature of the psyche, for instance, the naturalistic observation of terrorist acts. However, rationalist instruments reinforce intuitions, making the observer aware of personal biases while accepting the physical objects’ rationality and truth, e.g., psychological scales, standardized tools of analysis, mixed-method research approaches.

More on Epistemology of Scientific Knowledge in The Study of Radicalization

Kant hypothesized that Logics identifies the three primary scientific knowledge requirements: systematic, explicit, and meticulous [8]. According to Kant, some objects exist independently of the observer who perceives them and forms a mental and individual interpretation of such objective reality [9]. For instance, fear and palpitations are objective and physiological realities of people who are victims of a terrorist threat, although three different observers could interpret these instances as fear, anxiety, or stress according to their cultural and subjective background. One significant progress towards the way we reason was Aristoteles’s discovery of logic fallacies, some of them named verbal errors; these last are a discrepancy between the structure of a sentence and its meaning [10]. For instance, using the same case as above, ‘He is sweating (S), therefore (:.) he is anxious (A).’ (S:.A). This last conclusion i...