Obsession, Self-Destruction, And Pathological Victimisation: A Forensic Psychological Study Of Narrative, Compulsion, And Consequence
- IJLLR Journal
- Apr 28
- 1 min read
Adv. Ishaan D. Joshi, Forensic and Criminal Intelligence ExpertFounder and Director, CCSFI – Centre for Crime Sciences and Forensic Intelligence
ABSTRACT
This paper examines obsession, self-destruction, and pathological victimisation through a forensic psychological framework grounded in narrative analysis. It argues that many forms of victimisation cannot be understood solely as discrete events but must be read as psychologically organised stories in which desire, humiliation, grievance, duty, fantasy, guilt, and fatalism become binding scripts. The paper distinguishes clinical obsession from broader cultural and interpersonal fixations, showing how compulsive attachments may arise through trauma, betrayal, narcissistic injury, moral conflict, and distorted meaning-making rather than through obsessive-compulsive disorder alone. Drawing from victimology, trauma theory, moral injury scholarship, psychoanalytic thought, cognitive distortion research, and narrative identity theory, it demonstrates how individuals may become trapped in patterns of revictimisation, coercive attachment, stalking, sacrificial duty, and revenge-oriented self-undoing. Mythic and literary figures including Narcissus, Icarus, Ahab, Ravana, Bhishma, Duryodhana, Shishupala, Hiranyakashipu, and Surpanakha are treated not as decorative analogies but as compressed narrative laboratories of obsession, contradiction, and ruin. The paper concludes that forensic psychology benefits from narrative reading because it clarifies motive, distortion, vulnerability, and escalation without collapsing complex victimisation into either pathology alone or moral blame, while also preserving the ethical distinction between explanation and exculpation in law, psychiatry, and victimological analysis.
Keywords: victimology; obsession; self-destruction; narrative identity; forensic psychology
