There are now more cases of murderous erasure of families. It’s new and surprising, says the psychologist – Nauzal

How do you explain the increase in the number of murders?

It is a cumulation of influences. Times are more demanding, we are going through crises, which affects families. They face higher demands and are not quite ready for it.

Yes. In times of relative peace and prosperity, we had to cope with much smaller demands. But now there is more pressure to provide for the family. There is less money, needs do not decrease and are more expensive, expenses are higher. Family background, peace and the feeling that the family is a support are more important now than before, when we didn’t have to manage such stresses.

So problems within families can have an emotional impact. A feeling of more helplessness comes into it, because I can’t rely on anyone. Help is far away and there are many problems in society.

Then it can lead to what we refer to as the final bankruptcy reaction. A person gets into a situation where his conscience goes bankrupt and the taboo to kill is released because he sees no other way.

Can the increasingly frequent breakup of families due to financial difficulties also have an effect on this?

The external environment certainly affects families in a suffocating way.

We are not trained for these serious problems like financial distress, our standard of living is changing. This leads to great stress and frustration, from which aggression sprouts. Then it leads to bad thoughts, which then result in the so-called erasure of the family.

But there can be more reasons. They may be related to the fact that a disturbed personality is less able to cope with stress. These are offenders who can’t stand being abandoned. They cannot cope with the departure of their partner. This type of men is uncompromising. It follows the “after me flood” program, so it wipes out the whole family. The motive here is revenge and revenge, but it can also be desperation.

For example, thinking that I’m a failure, that I can’t take care of my family in this difficult time, that I don’t want to be here anymore, that I’ve exhausted all my strength, but I love my family and I don’t want them to suffer here without me.

In the last two serious cases in Svitávka and Boňkov, it was the revenge of former partners against women, but they committed multiple murders. Have there been more cases where the perpetrator kills several people from the same family?

There have always been partner murders. Now comes a wave of tragic cases that we could describe as the erasure of the family. It’s new and startling. Perhaps the psychological deprivation we experienced during the time of contact restrictions due to covid is reflected. There is greater psychological fragility and greater emotional numbness.

But these cases cannot be summed up in one bag. They need to be analyzed. However, the fact is that there are more of them recently. That is, cases of deletion of several members of one family. It’s not just murder-suicide anymore, but multiple murder-suicide.

In both mentioned cases, the perpetrator attacked all family members who were close to the main victim, i.e. the ex-partner, at the given moment. Is it new?

Yes. Here, however, we still cannot distinguish when it is a planned and prepared erasure of the family and when there is an affective action.

According to the available information, it seems that in both cases the perpetrator had a plan to kill, it was not in an affect.

It’s all the more serious because it’s an all-out aggression against everyone in the vicinity of the main victim. Indeed, it then indicates considerable emotional numbing.

Self-centeredness has increased and the ability to endure stress, to handle situations that are part of life, such as a breakup, has decreased. People increasingly feel that stress is something that should not happen to them.

What else is responsible for people becoming perpetrators of such acts?

I think social networks too. Relationship skills, i.e. the art of establishing a regular relationship and, conversely, dealing with rejection, are declining in the population. We live in generations that implement contacts on social networks. The number of followers and likes is almost more important to them than real contact.

Exactly. The ability to value a relationship and understand what it means to like another, the responsibility that comes with it, you get all this from personal experience. Without it, you won’t know how to deal with people. How to get to know them, but also how to handle breakups.

So is it true that the greatest tragedies and multiple murders take place in family or partner relationships?

It is understandable. Ideas, goals and dreams take place in the family. It is the most important space in life. When misfortunes occur in it, they have far-reaching consequences.

Can such accidents be prevented?

We cannot prevent crimes. But there are cases that ended in murder in the family, where the partner was killed by the partner. There, the tragic act of domestic violence preceded it. In these cases, we should already be able to help the victim in time so that the ending does not happen. We already have the tools for that, but we need to make them more widely known. It is also about making sure that all the components that are supposed to deal with domestic violence work well.

Then there are cases where the possibility of preventing it in time is minimal. What with this? The advice is simple and we all know it: Raise children properly by paying attention to them. At the same time, give them limits and teach them that even stress is a part of life and that it is possible to manage it. Ethical and family education in school would also help.