Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-gbm5v Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-24T07:16:34.506Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Women who Kill their Parents

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2018

P. T. d'Orbán  and
Art O'Connor
P. T. d'Orbán*
Affiliation:
Royal Free Hospital
Art O'Connor
Affiliation:
Central Mental Hospital, Dundrum, Dublin (previously Senior Registrar in Forensic Psychiatry, Royal Free Hospital and Friern Hospital
*
∗Department of Psychiatry, Royal Free Hospital, Pond Street, London NW3 2QG
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The literature on parricide is reviewed with special reference to women. Seventeen female parricides (14 matricides, 3 patricides) were identified: in a remand prison (11), a Special Hospital (5), and a Regional Secure Unit (1). Six were schizophrenic, five had psychotic depression, three had personality disorders, and one was alcoholic. Two of the patricides had no psychiatric disorder but retaliated against violent fathers. Regardless of psychiatric diagnosis, matricides were mostly single, socially isolated women in mid-life, living alone with a domineering mother in a mutually dependent but hostile relationship. Similar characteristics are found in male matricides, who are predominantly schizophrenic. It is suggested that these features are of greater significance in matricide than the specific form of psychiatric disorder. Compared with filicides, matricides were significantly older, were single, and more often suffered from mental illness and substance abuse. Attention is drawn to the possible homicidal risk associated with delusions of poisoning and hypochondriacal delusions.

Type
Papers
Information
The British Journal of Psychiatry , Volume 154 , Issue 1 , January 1989 , pp. 27 - 33
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal College of Psychiatrists 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Bluglass, R. (1979) The psychiatric assessment of homicide. British Journal of Hospital Medicine, 22, 366–377.Google ScholarPubMed
Campion, J., Cravens, J. M., Rotholc, A., Weinstein, H. C., Covan, F. & Alpert, N. (1985) A study of 15 matricidal men. American Journal of Psychiatry, 142, 312–317.Google ScholarPubMed
Chiswick, D. (1981) Matricide. British Medical Journal, 283, 1279–1280.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Cole, K. E., Fisher, G. & Cole, S. S. (1968) Women who kill. Archives of General Psychiatry, 19, 1–8.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Corder, B. F., Ball, B. C., Haizlip, T. M., Rollins, R. & Beaumont, R. (1976) Adolescent parricide: a comparison with other adolescent murders. American Journal of Psychiatry, 133, 957–961.Google Scholar
Cravens, J. M., Campion, J., Rotholc, A., Covan, F. & Cravens, R. A. (1985) A study of 10 men charged with patricide. American Journal of Psychiatry, 142, 1089–1092.Google ScholarPubMed
Devaux, C., Petit, G., Perol, Y. & Porot, M. (1974) Enquete sur le parricide en France. Annales Medico-Psychologiques, 1, 161–168.Google Scholar
d'Orbán, P. T. (1979) Women who kill their children. British Journal of Psychiatry, 134, 560–571.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Gibson, E. (1975) Homicide in England and Wales, Home Office Research Study No. 31. London: HMSO.Google Scholar
Gillies, H. (1976) Homicide in the West of Scotland. British Journal of Psychiatry, 128, 105–127.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Green, C. M. (1981) Matricide by sons. Medicine, Science and the Law, 21, 207–214.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hafner, H. & Böker, W. (1982) Crimes of Violence by Mentally Abnormal Offenders. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Hellsten, P. & Katila, O. (1965) Murder and homicide by children under 15 in Finland. Psychiatric Quarterly Supplement, 39, 54–74.Google Scholar
Hirose, K. (1970) A psychiatric study of female homicides: on the cases of parricide. Acta Criminologiae et Medicinae Legalis Japonica, 36, 29.Google Scholar
Home Office (1986) Criminal Statistics England and Wales 1985, Cm. 10. London: HMSO.Google Scholar
Mawson, D. (1985) Delusions of poisoning. Medicine, Science and the Law, 25, 279–287.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
McKnight, C. K., Mohr, J. W., Quinsey, R. E. & Erochko, J. (1966) Matricide and mental illness. Canadian Psychiatric Association Journal, 11, 99–106.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Morris, T. & Blom-Cooper, L. (1964) A Calender of Murder. London: Michael Joseph.Google Scholar
O'Connell, B. A. (1963) Matricide (report of a meeting of the Royal Medico-Psychological Association). The Lancet, i, 1083–1084.Google Scholar
Office of Population Census and Surveys & Registrar General, Scotland (1981) Census 1981. London: HMSO.Google Scholar
Parker, E. (1974) The victims of mentally disordered female offenders. British Journal of Psychiatry, 125, 51–59.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Post, S. (1982) Adolescent parricide in abusive families. Child Welfare, 61, 445–455.Google ScholarPubMed
Revitch, E. & Schlesinger, L. B. (1978) Murder: evaluation, classification and prediction. In Violence: Perspectives on Murder and Aggression (eds Kutash, I. L., Kutash, S. B. & Schlesinger, L. B.). San Francisco: Jossey Bass.Google Scholar
Rozycka, M. & Thille, Z. (1972) Psychological aspects of parricide. Psychiatria Polska, 6, 159–168.Google Scholar
Sadoff, R. L. (1971) Clinical observations on parricide. Psychiatric Quarterly, 45, 65–69.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Schacht, J. (1949) Ein Muttermord. Psyche, 3, 101–119.Google Scholar
Scherl, D. J. & Mack, J. E. (1966) A study of adolescent matricide. Journal of the American Academy of Child Psychiatry, 5, 569–593.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Tanay, E. (1973) Adolescents who kill parents – reactive parricide. Australian and New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry, 7, 263–277.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Tuovinen, M. (1973) On parricide. Psychiatria Fennica, 141–146.Google Scholar
Vaisanen, L. & Vaisanen, E. (1983) Matricide where the daughter was an instrument for the suicide of her mother. Psychiatria Fennica Supplement, 119–122.Google Scholar
Virkkunen, M. (1974) Observations on violence in schizophrenia. Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica, 50, 145–151.Google ScholarPubMed
Wertham, F. (1978) The catathymic crisis. In Violence: Perspectives on Murder and Aggression (eds Kutash, I. L., Kutash, S. B. & Schlesinger, L. B.). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.Google Scholar
West, D. J. (1965) Murder Followed by Suicide. London: Heinemann.Google Scholar
World Health Organisation (1978) Mental Disorders: a Glossary and Guide to their Classification in Accordance with the Ninth Revision of the International Classification of Diseases. Geneva: WHO.Google Scholar
Submit a response

eLetters

No eLetters have been published for this article.