Crime as manic reparation in the face of guilt following the death of a parent

This article explores Freud and Klein's notions of how a sense of unconscious guilt can be a powerful driver of criminal behaviour, especially in young people who have suffered the death of a parent. Following a theoretical exploration of unconscious guilt and the role of omnipotent, reparative phantasies, the author illustrates his ideas with two case histories; the first comes via a film called Scrapper (Regan, 2023) and the second describes a clinical encounter with a young man who committed arson following the death of his father.