Peri-homicidal reactions to homicidal behaviours

Homicide is a crime that has received much attention and research yet little is known about the psychophysiological underpinnings that accompany an act of homicide. Current research has tried to categorise different types of homicide such as filicide or mass murder and explain why people who commit these crimes act in such a way. However, the research has failed to find one common mechanism that can be used with all different types of homicide and can also differentiate between aggressive acts and the homicidal act. In this paper, four case studies will be presented, each highlighting a different type of homicide: sexually motivated, escalation of conflict, psychopathic, chronic abusive relationship, and fearful problem-solving. By using guided imagery to obtaining psychophysiological reactions to the event, and visual analogue scales to measure psychological functioning, this study shows that the perpetrators' homicidal behaviour was different from their aggressive behaviours and‚Äö that each type of homicide had different psychophysiological and pen-homicidal psychological patterns. Implications for further research and suggestions for the application of the methodology in a forensic setting are considered.