J Forensic Sci, September 2019, Vol. 64, No.

5
doi: 10.1111/1556-4029.14099
CASE REPORT Available online at: onlinelibrary.wiley.com

PSYCHIATRY & BEHAVIORAL SCIENCE

Sophie Raymond,1 M.D. Anne-Sophie Leger,2 M.D.; and Ivan Gasman,1 M.D.

The Psychopathological Profile of

Cannibalism: A Review of Five Cases*

ABSTRACT: In today’s society, human cannibalism is extremely rare and represents an unthinkable act of violence. Scientific literature on
the topic is sparse due to significant methodological problems, such as collecting enough data and generating unbiased analyses. The purpose
of this article is to illustrate some psychodynamic aspects of cannibalism. After a review of the literature, we will present and compare five
cannibalistic patients hospitalized in the Henri Colin secure unit (Villejuif, France). The patients described fall into two subgroups, suffering
either from severe schizophrenia or from a mixed personality disorder with sadistic and psychopathic features associated with paraphilia. For
the schizophrenia group, cannibalism is a self-defense reaction to a perceived threat of destruction: survival depends on the annihilation or
assimilation of the other. For the mixed personality disorder group, ego and narcissism are the central issue with a desire to overcome deep-
rooted frustrations by means of an extraordinary act.

KEYWORDS: forensic science, forensic psychiatry, cannibalism, anthropophagy, schizophrenia, psychopathy

Cannibalism is defined as “the act of one individual of a spe-
cies consuming all or part of another individual of the same spe-
cies” (1). The word derives from “canib” or “carib,” terms used
during the fifteenth century by natives of the West Indies—dis-
covered by Christopher Columbus—in stories referring to their
belligerent neighbors, famous for having canine faces and for eat-
ing their captives (2–4). Thus, from the beginning, the word “can-
nibalism” carried associations with a cultural “other” and was
passed down as a symbol of barbarism in western civilization, the
“savage other” being the presumed cannibal native of the New
World, in contrast to the “civilized self” of western countries (5).
There are many examples of cannibalism not only in mythol-
ogy (6,7), fairy tales (8), and literature (9–11) but also in lan-
guages, including English, often with a sexual connotation:
maneater, good enough to eat, to eat someone with one's eyes,
he or she is scrumptious, delicious. . . These verbal metaphors
sound unthinkable in their literal meaning, as the consumption
of another human being is one of the few remaining taboos
within modern societies, described by Freud as a powerful prohi-
bition. In Totem and Taboo (12), Freud develops the theory of a
primitive horde, whose “father” is omnipotent and rules over a
harem of females. One day, immature males (the “brothers”) kill
and eat the “father”: this act marks the beginning of social orga-
nization, moral restrictions, and fundamental taboos.
1
UMD Henri Colin, GH Paul Guiraud, 54 avenue de la Republique, BP
20065, 94806, Villejuif Cedex, France.
2
HDJ, Maison de Sante de Nogent, 3bis rue de l'Ardilliere, 94130, Nogent
sur Marne, France.
Corresponding author: Sophie Raymond, M.D. E-mail: sophie.raymond@
gh-paulguiraud.fr
*Presented at the 71st Annual Scientific Meeting of the American Acad-
emy of Forensic Sciences, February 18-23, 2019, in Baltimore, MD.
Received 13 April 2019; and in revised form 15 May 2019; accepted 16
May 2019.
Cannibalism is strangely absent from French law, as the con-
cept does not even appear in the Penal Code (13). In instances
of cannibalism after the murder of an individual, the cannibalis-
tic act is considered a degradation of the victim’s body. Where
there is cannibalism without murder or intent to kill, it is consid-
ered an act of torture or barbarism and is punishable by a 15-
year prison sentence.
The purpose of this article is to illustrate some aspects of the
psychodynamic understanding of human cannibalism by further
developing a previous preliminary study (14).
After a review of the literature, we will present and compare
five patients and their cannibalistic acts and discuss the psy-
chopathological profile of cannibalism.
Review of the Literature
An Ethological Reality vs a Controversy in Humans
Cannibalism occurs in every major animal group as a normal
response to a variety of factors. Fox states that cannibalism is
not a “does occur” or “ does not occur” proposition but rather
often depends on variables such as population density and
changes in local environmental conditions (15). According to
Polis (1,16), certain behavioral features can be observed in inver-
tebrate cannibalism: Immature animals are eaten more often than
adults; many animals do not recognize each other as being mem-
bers of the same “family” (this is especially true when consider-
ing eggs, regarded not as future members of the species but as a
food source); females are cannibalistic more often than males;
cannibalism increases during famine; and cannibalism is often
directly related to overcrowding within the natural habitat of a
species. Schutt also summarizes the environmental conditions
leading to cannibalism as “too many kids, not enough space, too
many males, not enough food.” ((1), page 287).

1568 © 2019 American Academy of Forensic Sciences

 RAYMOND ET AL.
Regarding humans, a book written by Arens (17) has given
rise to years of debate over the existence of human cannibalism
as a social, institutionalized, and accepted practice. Arens argues
that reports of cannibalism are not based on reliable eyewitness
sources or firsthand evidence and that there is no proof that can-
nibalism truly existed in any culture, except in extreme circum-
stances such as starvation or rare instances of antisocial
behavior. Accusations of cannibalism were, according to Arens,
used by colonizers as an ideological justification for their “paci-
fication” practices, meaning predatory behavior toward dehuman-
ized native populations across the globe and throughout history.
Smith (18) describes these cliched scenes as depicting “mission-
aries in pith helmets standing in large cooking pots surrounded
by dancing savages waiting for the water to boil. . .” Linden-
baum (5) emphasizes the risk of defining ourselves in opposition
to “others” and representing our own culture as universal. Mon-
taigne was a precursor in this approach to cultural relativism:
“each man calls barbarism whatever is not his own practice; for
indeed it seems that we have no other test of truth and reason
than the example and pattern of the opinions and customs of the
country we live in” ((19), page 152).
Another controversy was the presupposed nutritional sense of
cannibalism (20). Garn and Block state that a group of sixty
people eating a 50 kg man a week would receive only 9 g of
quality protein per person per day; the nutritional value of canni-
balism is therefore more than doubtful (21).
Subgroups of Cannibalism in Humans
Most anthropologists today seem to agree that there are three
types of cannibalism in humans: ritual, survival, and pathological
(5,22).
Ritual cannibalism occurs, as a social rule, in tribal groups
where the belief system authorizes—indeed requires—the inges-
tion of individuals. Two types are described: endocannibalism,
which is the practice of eating a member of one’s own tribe or
social group, in the form of funerary rites to transfer the spirit of
the dead into the bodies of the living, and exocannibalism, the
practice of eating individuals from outside one’s own tribe or
social group, often as an act of wartime aggression (22–25).
Born of very different circumstances, survival cannibalism is
an exceptional and compelling act committed by individuals
who would normally be averse to the idea. It can be found in sit-
uations of acute starvation, such as famines, military sieges, or
shipwrecks (26–28). Many famous examples exist, such as the
Donner Party in 1846 and the crash of Uruguayan Air Force
Flight 571 carrying the national rugby team in 1972 (29,30).
The pathological cannibalism—an individual and voluntary
practice which attracts sensational coverage from popular news-
papers—is strongly condemned by society. We can refer to sev-
eral famous cases, such as F. Haarmaan, who murdered 24 boys
in Hanover between 1918 and 1924 and sold their body parts as
food (31). A. Fish was an American serial killer who confessed
to a hundred murders with acts of anthropophagy in a context of
sexual perversion; he was sentenced to death in 1936. J. Dah-
mer, arrested in 1991, and diagnosed with a mixed personality
disorder with antisocial, sadistic, and obsessive fetishistic fea-
tures, murdered 17 men, dismembered them, and fed on them
(32–34). A. Meiwes, later diagnosed with a paraphilia and fetish-
ist personality disorder, found his sole—and willing—victim by
posting an advertisement on the Internet in which he explained
that he was looking for a consenting man who would agree to
be eaten alive (31).
. PSYCHOPATHOLOGICAL PROFILE OF CANNIBALISM 1569
Review of the Literature Concerning Pathological Cannibalism
Pathological cannibalism is an extremely rare event, resulting
in a limited number of scientific articles, most of which cover
unique case reports. Two profiles seem to emerge: individuals
suffering from extreme forms of significant paraphilia or severe
psychotic mental illness (31–39).
In 2012, Giordano, White and Lester (40) studied 39 criminal
cannibals and described three types: lust cannibalism (the result
of an intense desire or need), revenge cannibalism (often drug or
alcohol induced), and delusional cannibalism. Parts of the vic-
tims are more likely to be eaten raw and unprepared in the first
and third groups than in the second.
In 2015 (41), the same authors published an article about 345
serial killers, 31 of whom had engaged in cannibalism. Those
who had committed only cannibalism were separated from those
who had engaged in necrophilia and those who had performed
both or neither. Although the cannibals were not as deranged as
the necrophiliacs, they were more so than the serial killers who
engaged in neither cannibalism nor necrophilia. Cannibalism
appears to be associated with a difficult childhood (typically
after experiences of physical abuse, family-member suicides,
psychiatric illness of the mother, etc.) and existing psychiatric
problems (including psychiatric hospitalizations or psychiatric
diagnoses both prior to and after the crimes). Cannibalistic kill-
ers also treat their victims more violently (more often commit-
ting rape and torture) than other killers do, suggesting greater
anger.
Case Reports
We will now present five cases involving cannibalistic
patients—whom we will refer to as Mr. A., Mr. B., Mr. C., Mr.
D., and Mr. E.—hospitalized in the Henri Colin secure unit of
Paul Guiraud hospital (Villejuif, France) at some point over the
last 20 years. Their psychopathology will be discussed in the
next chapter.
Mr. A
Mr. A., 31 years old at the time of the assault, was from a
well-off family, the youngest of five children. His childhood was
marked by intrafamilial violence, with repeated conflicts between
his parents. After obtaining his high school diploma, he went to
university but dropped out after just a few weeks. He then
worked sporadically at odd jobs, smoked cannabis daily, and
sometimes drank alcohol. He was single and socially isolated
and lived alone.
Mr. A. was diagnosed with schizophrenia (after an initial diag-
nosis of atypical depression) 7 years before the assault and was
hospitalized on several occasions. He had a history of destroying
property in his parents’ home and had already assaulted his
father 2 years prior; despite his father’s sequela (blindness in
one eye), Mr. A. was never charged.
At the time of the cannibalistic act, Mr. A. had been out of
treatment for a month and a half. One night, he suddenly ejected
his mother from the family apartment and then tried to kill his
father by knocking him out with a piece of furniture. He tore off
and ate his father’s left ear and three phalanges from his right
hand.
Mr. A. was arrested, taken to the emergency room, and then
transferred to our secure unit. He was detached, cold, and aloof.
He trivialized his act and expressed delusional ideas in a reticent
1570 JOURNAL OF FORENSIC SCIENCES
and elliptical manner: He rationalized his behavior with various
hostile environmental experiences and instances of persecution
by a father he described as being cynical, rigid, and brutal. Mr.
A. recounted what he called his “relegation to a pathetic studio”
for several months (bought for him by his sister, in an attempt
to distance Mr. A. from his parents), “a dirty, small place where
the floor constantly creaks, not to mention the neighborhood’s
noise pollution” (auditory hallucinations?). He compared this stu-
dio to the six-room apartment owned and occupied by his par-
ents, an apartment in whose ownership he intended to assert a
legitimate share: “we are five children, and I won’t let the others
take what is mine. . . My father wants to rob me!”
For him, his was a defensive act: “I had no choice. It’s been
going on for 30 years. I had to do something.” Of his father, he
claimed, “He was eating me up.”—in the original French, “Il me
bouffait la vie.” Mr. A. said he was “exhausted after this
unequal fight” and explained, “I wanted to hurt him as much as
possible, to really crush him.”
We found no premeditation, but there was a precipitating fac-
tor: a discussion he had had with his father the previous night.
The father had shown Mr. A. their family tree and a certified
will according to which the patient was to receive one-fifth of
the parents’ possessions.
After the investigation, Mr. A. was diagnosed with paranoid
schizophrenia and found not criminally responsible by reason of
insanity (according to French law, he received no prison sen-
tence).
Mr. B
Mr. B. was 26 years old at the time of the assault. He did not
know his father and lived with his mother and two sisters. As a
child, he suffered from emotional neglect and dropped out of
high school; he was unemployed, smoked cannabis regularly,
and was declared unfit for military service for psychiatric rea-
sons. He had no previous history of violent behavior and no
criminal record.
A year prior to the offense, Mr. B. was diagnosed with brief
psychotic disorder while hospitalized after a suicide attempt. He
was described as suffering from feelings of persecution and
interpretative thoughts.
Three months before his act, Mr. B. stopped taking his medi-
cation and consumed more cannabis than usual. One day, after a
dispute with his mother, who had asked him to lower the vol-
ume on his stereo, he beat her to death and fled the crime scene.
The body was later discovered by one of his sisters (who had
actually been in the house, listening to music in her room, at the
time of the attack). According to the autopsy, part of the
mother’s face was lacerated, the eyeballs were missing, and two
phalanges were severed.
Mr. B. had a car accident shortly after leaving home and was
taken to the hospital, where he confessed to the murder. He was
first incarcerated in the local jail but was quickly transferred to
our secure unit. He was described as being in a state of deep
distress with suicidal thoughts. His speech was disorganized and
contained elements of delusion (persecution and mysticism). He
also suffered from auditory hallucinations.
Mr. B. initially denied having eaten some parts of his
mother’s body. He did not discuss the course of events until sev-
eral months later, when he explained that he had killed his
mother following hallucinatory injunctions (which had begun a
few days earlier): “It was Jesus who ordered me to do so, to kill
the Devil inside her.” He described his mother as being
omnipresent and intrusive. He felt threatened by her, fearing
total psychological annihilation: “I feared her gaze. She suffo-
cated me. I felt consumed by her . . . It was her or me. . . Other-
wise, I would be dead.” Mr. B. admitted to having ingested part
of his mother’s nose, her eyes, and two phalanges: “I ate her
eyes to make sure the Devil was really dead.”
We found no premeditation. As Mr. B. said, “It was a spark,
a flash . . . a sudden energy that nothing could stop.” There was,
however, a precipitating factor: the anodyne dispute with his
mother over the volume of his stereo.
After further investigation, Mr. B., diagnosed with paranoid
schizophrenia, was found not criminally responsible and, as
such, could not be subject to legal sanctions.
Mr. C
Mr. C. was 22 years old when he attacked his mother. He
grew up in Korea, and his mother moved to France when he
was 8 years old. He remained in Korea with his father, who sex-
ually abused him, until he was 14. Mr. C. then moved to France
and was reunited with his mother, with whom he had a very
dependent and tyrannical relationship. She had remarried, and
Mr. C. lived in permanent conflict with his stepfather.
At the time of his first hospitalization in a psychiatric ward,
when he was 20 years old, Mr. C. was attending university,
where he had already begun showing odd behaviors and often
soliloquized. He was rehospitalized a year later after experienc-
ing clinically significant bouts of delirium. He was subsequently
diagnosed with schizophrenia.
At the time of the offense, he was single and living at his
mother’s residence. He had no history of violent behavior and
no criminal record. He did not have a history of substance
abuse, but he had stopped taking his medication.
On that day, suddenly and for no apparent reason, Mr. C.
tried to kill his mother with a meat cleaver, after which he
bit off and ate a chunk of her forearm. The neighbors called
the police, who immediately arrested him, but he repeatedly
attempted to escape from their custody, endlessly repeating, “I
need to go kill my mother, I need to kill her.” He was
quickly transferred to our secure unit, where he appeared
extremely agitated and overwhelmed by major fits of delirium,
with hallucinations and emotionally charged statements of a
mystical nature nurtured by megalomania. He told the staff
that he was forced to kill his mother in order to “defeat the
Devil in her.”
Again, we found no premeditation, but his mother’s expressed
wish to go away on vacation was a precipitating factor. Because
of his dependent relationship with his mother, Mr. C. could not
stand the idea of being abandoned. He said, “My mother is
influenced by her partner; I want her all to myself; I’m depen-
dent on my mother; it allows me to enjoy life . . . I mean, to get
what I want . . . It’s important she knows I exist.”
As with Mr. B., after further investigation, Mr. C., already
diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia, was found not criminally
responsible and therefore could not be subjected to legal sanc-
tions.
Mr. D
Mr. D. was 18 years old and living at his parents’ home when
he assaulted his family. He had a younger brother and was from
a well-to-do family whose history was full of carefully shielded
taboos and secrets spanning many generations (incest, adultery,
 RAYMOND ET AL.
hidden fatherhood . . .). He had a complicated relationship with
his parents: extremely performance oriented and fraught with
humiliation and an utter lack of positive attention, dominated
by psychological control and submission. At the time of the
events, Mr. D. was a high school senior who made good
grades and did not have a criminal record or a history of sub-
stance abuse. He did, however, have grisly, gory, and extreme
interests, such as Nazism, satanic music, horror movies, serial
killers, and school shootings, to name just a few. He
described himself as a “loner,” incapable of developing ade-
quate social interactions, his relationships limited to two mere
acquaintances: a friend about whom he said, “I prefer to have
only one close relationship; it is pleasant to find a little of
yourself in the other,” and a girlfriend he “found great plea-
sure in manipulating, raising her spiritually . . . I educated
her.” Regarding other relationships, he also said, “As a child,
I always tried to please others, to make my parents proud of
me. Others’ emotions were more important than mine. And
then I tried to like myself by playing with others.” He was
prone to violent fits of anger as well as feelings of humilia-
tion and hatred, and he had fantasized about killing people
for months, his first “pseudo-victim” being a classmate who
had teased him.
Mr. D.’s odd behavior having been reported by his teachers,
he was hospitalized a month prior to the assault. He was then
described as calm, unforthcoming, and strange but not disorga-
nized or delusional, and he showed no signs of psychomotor
retardation or depression. He was discharged from the hospital
after only one week, without treatment. The diagnosis was
uncertain: atypical depression? Schizoid personality?
Mr. D. later said that his “murderous plans became clear” dur-
ing his hospitalization. He decided to put his thoughts into
action, with a clearly premeditated plan: he hid bladed weapons
in the nearby forest and sharpened them the day before the
assault. “It was the period I had been looking forward to for a
long time,” he said. “I was at the top of my game. . . I felt supe-
rior to the others, like a hero.” His plan was to kill his family
and seat them around the dinner table, as if inviting them to a
cannibalistic meal with necrophilous entertainment. He dreamt of
being famous and wanted to organize a school shooting mas-
sacre the following day.
His criminal spree started in the morning, when he first killed
his mother by cracking her skull and eating part of her brain.
Then, around lunchtime, he killed his brother, who had come
home for lunch, and bit him in the arm. Finally, when his father
came home from work in the evening, Mr. D. tried to kill him
with a machete but was overpowered, lost consciousness, and
was arrested before being taken to our secure unit and hospital-
ized. He appeared calm and emotionally cold and talked about
feelings of humiliation and revenge, explaining that he had to
start with his family to “blow up the firewall,” which would then
allow him to kill on a larger scale. He showed signs of shallow
affect, a total lack of remorse or empathy, sadistic features, and
a certain competence in controlling his speech and manipulating
others, with split consciousness. “I operate in extremes,” he said.
“I can have a perfect behavior and terrible behavior. I am white
in front and black behind.”
Because of a diagnosis of schizophrenia made by experts dur-
ing the investigation, Mr. D. was deemed not criminally respon-
sible and not subject to legal sanctions. However, this diagnosis
was not confirmed during his hospitalization, as Mr. D. did not
show any signs of negative symptoms, disorganization, delusion,
or hallucination.
. PSYCHOPATHOLOGICAL PROFILE OF CANNIBALISM 1571
Mr. E
Mr. E., who was 36 years old at the time of the assault, never
knew his biological parents. He was abandoned at birth, placed
in foster care at first, and finally adopted when he was 4 years
old. He was raped by an educator when he was 12 years old
and quit school after 8th grade.
Prior to the offense, Mr. E. had been hospitalized on several
occasions on his own volition to “treat his intense and recurring
sexual fantasies and urges.” He described sadomasochistic and
violent intercourse with not-always-willing partners and “canni-
bal temptations with his wife, to know what she tasted like.”
Each time, he asked to be discharged, complaining about the
poor care, and refusing to take any medication. The diagnosis
was always uncertain: personality disorder? Paraphilia? Psy-
chosis? Bipolar disorder?
Mr. E. also had a criminal record with two previous incarcera-
tions, one for drug use (cannabis) and violence, and the other
for attempted rape.
While serving time in prison for armed robbery, Mr. E. killed
his cellmate and wanted to eat his heart but cut out his lung
instead, which he then sauteed with garlic and onions. There
was no sign of premeditation, but there were decade-old pre-ex-
isting cannibalistic fantasies and a precipitating factor: his cell-
mate wanted him to clean the toilet.
Proud to recount the details of his actions, Mr. E. gave him-
self up to the prison guard, immediately trivializing the act. “It’s
certainly not beautiful,” he said, “but what is done, is done.” At
the time of his arrival in our secure unit, Mr. E. was calm and
detached, showing no signs of disorganization or delusion but,
rather, a total lack of empathy with a touch of manipulation and
deceptiveness. He was concerned about the media coverage his
case would receive and willingly gave a detailed description of
how he had experienced sexual arousal and had ejaculated dur-
ing his meal. “I take pleasure in being sexually violent,” he
claimed; “I want people to know that I am extremely danger-
ous.” He said that he “truly wanted to savor” his feast by choos-
ing the organs and consuming them both raw and cooked. Mr.
E. was sentenced to 30 years in prison.
Discussion: Psychopathologic Profile of Cannibalism
Sociodemographic Features
The five patients described are all men, 26 years old on aver-
age, all single except for one, generally isolated and socially
impaired. They all suffered from dysfunctional childhoods and
emotional neglect, home violence (3/5), or sexual abuse (2/5).
Significantly, only two of them had previous reports of criminal
acts.
Clinical Features
We found no particular history of somatic disorders, but all
five patients had a history of psychiatric care with prior hospi-
talizations (one to six times) and outpatient follow-up periods
ranging from 1 month to 7 years prior to the events. They all
showed extremely poor compliance with posthospitalization
care.
Two groups appear to differ according to diagnosis and psy-
chopathology: Three patients were diagnosed with paranoid
schizophrenia (Mr. A., Mr. B., and Mr. C.), while the remaining
two patients had mixed personality disorder, with sadistic and
1572 JOURNAL OF FORENSIC SCIENCES
psychopathic features associated with paraphilia (Mr. D. and
Mr. E.).
Dynamics of the Act
Let us first examine the different sequences of events. In the
schizophrenia group, the attack started with a sudden outburst of
action/emotion without premeditation. A contributing factor was
substance use (cannabis) or the cessation of medicine intake,
while the precipitating factor was often trivial. For Mr. A., the
act occurred after a discussion about the family tree and the
inheritance; for Mr. B., it was a trivial dispute with his mother,
whom he saw as intrusive and persecuting; for Mr. C., the act
was triggered by a threat of separation, namely the mother’s
intention to go away on vacation. These three patients were all
delusional, with underlying feelings of persecution and injury
(Mr. A.) or mystical hallucinations (Mr. B. and Mr. C.).
In contrast, patients in the mixed personality disorder group
had a total lack of taboos and admitted hidden cannibalistic
plans or fantasies going back many years. We found no con-
tributing but precipitating factors far different from those found
in the first group: feelings of humiliation seem to be the trigger,
and both patients assaulted their victims at a time when they suf-
fered a loss of self-esteem. There were no signs of delusion.
If we examine the details of the acts, we notice that in the
schizophrenia group, all victims belonged to the parental couple:
cannibalism is an aspect of parricide. In all three cases, we
uncovered a history of disturbed patient–parent relationships
with added feelings of hostile dependence, which could explain
the choice of ingested body parts—relational organs such as the
ears, eyes, hands, and forearm. There was no savoring of the
flesh, which was eaten raw and unprepared, and there was no
evidence of sexual satisfaction.
Regarding the mixed personality disorder group, both perpe-
trators were close acquaintances of their victims and were
engaged in a relationship marked by objectification. In both
cases, the victim was part of the situational impasse experienced
by the two patients, with strong feelings of humiliation. Here,
we found evidence of savoring, as body parts were carefully
chosen, prepared, and cooked. There was also an element of sex-
ual pleasure: Mr. D. had planned cannibalism with necrophilia,
while Mr. E. experienced sexual arousal and ejaculated during
his act. There was no subsequent remorse, and the acts were
treated casually by both patients without any consideration for
moral implications.
To summarize our findings, we can say that in the schizophre-
nia group, cannibalism was a self-defense reaction to a perceived
threat of physical or psychological destruction. Mr. A. said that
“he was eating me up,” and Mr. B. explained that “I felt con-
sumed by her . . . Otherwise, I would be dead,” while Mr. C.
claimed that “it’s important she knows I exist.” The self-preser-
vation dynamic led not only to murder but also to an additional
defense—overkill—through cannibalism. It can be linked to the
concept of “fundamental violence” proposed by Bergeret (42),
who described a survival instinct leading to an archaic reaction
with a binary rule: “him or me.” For these patients, survival
depended on the annihilation or assimilation of the other. For
Mr. A. and Mr. B., consumption of the body allowed the
destruction of the object, meaning the annihilation of the victim;
“I wanted to crush him,” said Mr. A. For Mr. C., separation was
the issue, with a great fear of being left alone: Ingesting his
mother then seems to allow the assimilation of the object; as
Green says, “incorporated, the object is fixed.” ((7), page 50).
Although no prison sentences will be served, all patients are
under psychiatric care.
For the mixed personality disorder group, cannibalism allowed
narcissistic restoration and occured in situations of intense frus-
tration, humiliation, and conflict between internal and external
realities. It relieved tensions related to anger and increased self-
esteem: it was a way to eliminate one’s feelings of inferiority or
vulnerability in a megalomaniac atmosphere; as Mr. D. said, “I
felt like a hero.” Victims became inferior individuals to be used
in any way for instant gratification. Here, the issue was not the
“him or me” injunction, but rather “he is me,” or, as Leonoff
says about the perverse form of self-definition (43) “I destroy,
therefore I am.” Ego and narcissism were the central issue, with
a desire to overcome deep-rooted frustrations and inadequate
social-emotional behaviors by means of an extraordinary act.
Both patients faced long and complex trials. One was pro-
nounced insane, and the other was sentenced to 30 years.
Limits of the Case Reports
First, we have studied only five cases of cannibalism; this
small sample size limits the generalization of the findings.
Nonetheless, this reduced scale is inherent to the subject because
it takes into account the rarity of cannibalism in modern society.
The retrospective nature of the exploration impacts the rigor of
data collection.
Second, the choice to study patients hospitalized in the Henri
Colin secure unit creates a bias. Indeed, individuals are trans-
ferred to this unit only when mental illness is suspected. We did
not consider cases of cannibalism by incarcerated individuals
who had not been hospitalized. The data at our disposal are thus
restricted to a forensic cohort. Additionally, this study does not
account for women and young patients, as female admissions to
our secure unit are infrequent and juvenile patients are very rare.
In conclusion, we can say that the rare occurrence of cannibal-
ism makes its study complex, with a limited number of articles
available in the scientific literature and real difficulties encoun-
tered in accessing data in general. Through our case reports, we
strove to meet the challenge of understanding cases of human
cannibalism. We identified two patient subgroups according to
differences in their diagnosis and psychopathology.
As this article is a case report, we do not claim to generalize
these findings. The extreme clinical complexity of these cases
requires careful further analysis. While the biography, the diag-
nosis or the relational mode of these patients may highlight the
reasons behind their assault, the nature of the act remains a
mystery.
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