Medea Syndrome Example
Psychology / / July 04, 2021
The name of Medea syndrome comes from ancient Greek mythology, from the myth of Jason and the Argonauts, it is the story of a mother who as revenge against her consort kills or lets mortal danger reach her children.
Depending on the version of the story, it is Medea who kills them or who sends them to fulfill a painful task where they will be killed.
This syndrome can occur in both the father and the mother. The difference is that they are usually young children who are killed by the mother, and adolescents or adults who are killed by the father. Of course, this is not a rule, there can always be contrary cases.
Although in the Medea syndrome, the cause of the crime is revenge against the partner, it can also be killed for other reasons. There are cases of Philisids all over the world, but it is especially growing in the middle class. This could be due to a phenomenon called foreclosure, where people lose meaning for the subject, because they do not finds value in their symbolic universe, ends up taking them for disposable objects, especially children little ones. Their lives are worthless as long as they do not represent a market value. This is a disorder belonging to psychosis.
In mythology, when Jason leaves Medea, she kills her husband's lover and then kills or lets her children kill her as a conclusion to her revenge. Many people to take revenge on their partners attack or kill their own children or the children of their partners. They usually commit suicide later. They kill their children for various reasons, either because they know that with their death they hurt their spouse or because they project the hatred they feel for the spouse with the children. In some cases they claim that they were killed to avoid a greater evil, as in Euripides' version, where in the end Medea, regretting his plan, has a dilemma about whether to kill them or not. She kills them because she self-suggests that they will be better off dead than in enemy hands. Thus many people kill their children to prevent their consort from having custody or parental authority.
The name Medea syndrome encompasses other motives in addition to marital revenge, for which the person justifies murdering their children. Fed up, hatred or repulsion towards them, projection of the partner or someone they hate, it could even be the person himself; a physical defect or disability, inability to empathize with the children, the character of the children themselves or even their hyperactivity, or the incompetence of the father or mother.
In some people with hallucinatory psychosis, they see their children as if they were monsters or as if they were trying to harm them. They also hallucinate that their children were changed or possessed by demons or any other malevolent entity. This especially in schizophrenic people or drug addicts.
Some parents, to avoid the responsibility that parenthood entails, prefer to kill their children or abandon them in places where death is most likely, especially when they are small or babies.
In addicted parents, filicide cases are more common. The drugs are not only common drugs (marijuana, coca ecstasy, etc.), but also drug addicts, such as addicts to antidepressants, to antineurotics, painkillers and in general to pharmacy drugs that end up distorting their perception of reality or their empathy towards the rest.
There is no cure for Medea syndrome, the most that can be done is to have the person receive therapy when they begin to feel resentful or repulsion towards children or when he has problems with his partner, so that he does not focus his hatred or revenge on their children.