Philip D. Jaffi is a faculty member of Psychology and
Education Sciences, University of Geneva, Switzerland.
Frank DiCataldo is affiliated with Bridgewater State
Hospital, Bridgewater, MA. Address all correspondence
to Dr. Philip D. Jaffk, University of Gcncva, FPSE, 9
route de Drize, 1227 Carouge, Switzerland.
Vampires arouse strong popular interest and attract large print and film audiences.
Their influence is also notable in clinical vampirism, a rare condition described in
the forensic literature covering some of humanity's most shocking behaviors. Definitions
of vampirism involve aspects of necrophilia, sadism, cannibalism, and a
fascination with blood. Its relationships with established diagnostic categories,
particularly schizophrenia and psychopathy, are also examined and illustrated by
the presentation of a "modern" vampire. As myth and reality are disentangled,
clinical vampirism reveals the complex mother-child dyad's blood ties running amok.
In the modern age, vampires have become
media stars. Published in 1897,
Dracula by Bram Stoker1 made the word
"vampire" a household term. More recently,
the vampire trilogy by Anne
Rice2-4 became a bestseller. On the silver
screen, W. Murnau's Nosferatu (Prana
Films, Berlin, 1992) remains a classic
and a new Dracula movie is periodically
released to please today's audiences.
This enduring fascination with vampires
evolved from beliefs and superstitions
dating back to medieval Europe and to
humankind's most archaic myths. Curiously,
while providing inspiration for
the arts, their legacy is also found in the
rare clinical condition of vampirism,
which groups some of the most shocking
pathologic behaviors observed in humanity. In this article, we review the
clinical aspects of overt vampiristic behavior
and its various definitions and
describe its relationship to more established
psychiatric disorders. The original
case study of a "modern vampire" will
help illustrate how myth and reality can
blend and solidify in dramatic fashion.
But first, by way of introduction, we
review the vampire myth to which clinical
vampirism owes its existence.
Mythological Precursors to the
Modern Vampire
Records of vampirelike figures exist in
several ancient religions. Commonly
mentioned are the Vajra deities of Tibet
represented as blood drinkers, the
Atharva Veda and the Baital-Pachisi in
ancient Indian literature, and Mexico's
Ciuateteo, who was associated with
women in Mexico having died during
their first labor. Summers5 describes
what is perhaps the first pictorial evidence
of the vampire, an Assyrian bowl
showing a man copulating with a female
vampire whose head has been severed.
He also reports on Babylonian, Semite,
and Egyptian beliefs involving a dead
person that continues to live in its original
body and feeds off the living. Similar
ancient beliefs are traced to ancient European,
Chinese, Polynesian, and African
cultures, and most refer to demonic
female figures and fused relationships
between the living and the dead, expressed
through blood rituals as well as
sexualized and aggressive exchanges.
Current manifestations of these ancient
beliefs still are found in voodooism and
associated practices in the Caribbean
and in Latin America. In Catholicism,
wine continues to symbolize Christ's
blood and is consumed by priests during
mass.+
The modern vampire media myth
probably originated in Scandinavia and
the British Isles, but it most firmly took
hold in medieval Central and Eastern
Europe. It owes its etymology to Slavic
languages (e.g., upir in Bulgarian, vopyr
in Russian, vapir in Serbian, vampir in
Hungarian). Periodic vampire scares
agitated these regions and their superstitious
inhabitants late into the 19th century.
A prevalent belief involved a person
who had died leaving his tomb at
night to attack his victims, often friends
and relatives, to suck their blood to retain
his own immortality. The vampire
then returned to his coffin before sunrise
or risked paralysis and total helplessness.
Some superstitions give the vampire
the power of metamorphosis, the ability
to transform into animal form (most
frequently a butterfly or a bat)$ or into
Jaffe and DiCataldo
vapor and mist. In addition, because the
vampire is "dead" and soulless, it has no
reflection. Those who the vampire attacks
are generally in a trance and are
almost sensually embraced while their
blood is sucked. Summers5 also relates
more cannibalistic practices, whereby
the vampire bites the victim's abdomen
and sometimes extracts and eats the
heart. The victim eventually dies and,
unless proper measures are taken, will
in turn become a vampire. Other ways
to join the "undead," depending on local
tradition, are to commit suicide, practice
black magic, be cursed by parents or the
church, be a werewolf, or even be an
unlucky corpse in Greece on the way to
the cemetery and have a bird or cat cross
in front of the procession. Jones6 reports
that in Dalmatia vampires were divided
in two categories: innocent and guilty,
respectively called Denac and Orko.
Some of the prerequisites to becoming
an Orko vampire were working on Sunday,
smoking on a religious holiday, and
incestuous relations with a female ascendant,
in particular, a grandmother.
To counter vampires, schemes ranging
from the crude to the elaborate were
designed to identify potential vampires
and to eliminate them from the world
of the living. Garlic and the crucifix were
considered effective apotropaics (i.e.,
protective measures against evil). Identifying
vampires in many ways paralleled
witch-hunting techniques. Tell-tale
signs indicating a possible vampire were
unusual birthmarks, infants born with
teeth, red-haired and sometimes blueeyed
children, tall and gaunt people, and
epilepsy. Tombs often were opened to
Clinical Vampirism
see if the cadaver had moved, if it had
fresh cheeks, open eyes, and if the hair
and nails were still growing. Similar rituals
were performed in Connecticut in
the 18th and 19th centuries.'
Suspected vampires or suspicious
corpses faced a variety of measures.
These ranged from symbolic exorcism
to brutal mutilation. In Bulgaria a sorcerer
armed with a saint's picture would
drive the vampire into a bottle, which
was then thrown into a fire.8 Elsewhere,
the suspected vampire would be put to
death, and some of its blood or flesh
consumed. If already buried, the cadaver
was unearthed and the head severed and
placed between the feet. If necessary the
heart was also boiled in oil and dissolved
in vinegar. The most popular response
was to impale the vampire on a wooden
stake with a single blow through the
heart. Sometimes a priest was called on
to shoot the vampire with silver bullets.
The image of the vampire also owes
much of its notoriety to reality. A companion
in arms of Joan of Arc, Gilles de
Rais, in the 15th century and the Hungarian
Countess, Erzsebet Bathory, two
centuries later, are famous for having
murdered up to 600 children to obtain
their blood. Dracula, Bram Stoker's literary
creation, was probably inspired by
Vlad, a Walachian nobleman in the 15th
century whose cruelty earned him two
epithets "Tepes" (i-e., "the Impaler")
and Count "Dracul" (i.e., "dragon" or
"devil").
Several authors suggest that the "undead"
quality of vampires may have resulted
from inadequate or premature
burial during times of plague.%any
people were perhaps mistakenly buried
alive while suffering from catatonic stupor
and hysterical state^.^ Barberlo offers
elements of forensic pathology to understand
the combined effects of premature
burials and human tissue decomposition
(e.g., cadavers may change position and
hair and nails may continue to grow).
There is also an explanation based on
the porphyrias, genetic disorders that
produce reddening of the eyes, skin, and
teeth; receding of the upper lip, craclung
of the skin; and bleeding in ~unl ight' .9-11
These reality-based speculations cannot
fully account for the vampire myth,
which is too psychologically complex
and deeply embedded in ancient powerful
beliefs and symbols. Indeed,
Wilgowicz12 points out that Dracula is
only the "typical figure of a large family
with entangled branches." In a sense, the
more modern and media-inspiring image
of the vampire masks fundamental
aspects of the underlying myths and archetypes,
the very ones that may allow
for a more significant understanding of
the rare clinical condition of vampirism.
Indeed, today's human beings who are
described as vampires owe this label primarily
to overt behavior. Yet, closer examination
reveals the power of the more
ancient vampire myths and the process
by which they are transposed into modern
manifestations.
Clinical Vampirism: Overview
and Definitions
Both clinical and forensic psychologists
and psychiatrists have described
cases that involve acts that are strongly
reminiscent of some aspect of the mythical vampire's behavior. Clinical definitions
of vampirism reviewed in the literature
place the emphasis on overt
vampiristic behavior.
In the broadest definition, Bourguignon13 proposes to call "vampirisms
[. . .] all sexual or aggressive actswhether
or not there is blood suctioncommitted
on a deceased or a dying
person." This view tends to cover a variety
of behaviors that the author himself
identifies: necrophilia, necrosadism,
necrophagia, sadonecrophilia, and vampirism.
The case of Antoine Liger who
in 1824 drank his victim's blood but also
raped, murdered, mutilated, and partially
devoured a young girl is summarized
by Bourguignon to illustrate an
instance of polyvampirism.
A more recent case fitting this broad
definition of vampirism is described in
detail in the psychiatric literature.I4-l6 In
1978, during a two-day rampage in the
Mayenne region of France, a 39-yearold
man attempted to rape a preadolescent
girl, also biting her deeply in the
neck, murdered an elderly man whose
blood he drank and whose leg he partially
devoured, killed a cow by bleeding
it to death, murdered a married couple
of farmers, and almost succeeded in
doing the same with their farm hand.
Arrested on the third day, he also admitted
to strangling his wife almost a
year before and disguising her death as
a drowning.
Vandenbergh and Kelly" propose a
definition that excludes overt necrophilic
activity and emphasizes a libidinal
component. They see clinical vampirism
"as the act of drawing blood from an
object (usually a love object) and receiving
resultant sexual excitement and
pleasure." In this view, the sucking or
drinking of blood from the wound is
often an important part of the act but
not an essential one. They report on a
case of a young man serving a prison
sentence who came to the attention of
prison authorities after several inmates
were caught stealing iron tablets and
expressed a fear of developing anemia.
The investigation showed that the young
man had been trading sexual favors with
these inmates in return for the opportunity
to suck their blood.
Hemphill and Zabow18 attempt to define
vampirism closely to the Dracula
myth as a recognizable, although rare,
clinical entity characterized by periodic
compulsive blood-drinking, affinity with
the dead, and uncertain identity. Relying
on the modern vampire myth, they
reject associated features such as desecrating
graves, violating corpses, eating
human flesh, or having sexual intercourse
with the living. Their clinical
sample expressed no interest in sex, and
blood ingestion represented a compulsive
behavior that brought mental relief
to the participant without any ability to
psychologically comprehend the experience
or ascribe it any meaning.
A fourth definition involves autovampiristic
behavior. This condition is distinguished
from self-mutilating behaviors,
intentional suicide attempts, dramatic
gestures in the context of
treatment of borderline patients, and
manipulative self-harm that may take
place for secondary gain in prisons.
Vandenbergh and Kelly" discuss the
Clinical Vampirism
case of a 28-year-old man who at puberty
began masturbating and taking
erotic satisfaction at the sight of his own
blood flowing. With practice he was able
to direct blood spurts from his neck
artery to his mouth. McCully19 describes
autovampiristic behavior in a young
man that strikingly resembles the previous
case. Although there is no conclusive
evidence, we believe that the same
patient is described in both publications.
Bourguignon" introduces an important
distinction within autovampiristic
behaviors by relating the case of a young
woman hospitalized during her fourth
pregnancy following repeated vomiting
of considerable amounts of blood. She
apparently enjoyed these hemorrhages
and the sight of her blood. She also
voluntarily disconnected transfusion
equipment, let her blood drip, and stated
she would prefer to drink it. At first no
investigation was able to determine the
source of the bleeding. Finally a mouth
examination by a specialist revealed several
bleeding wounds at the base of the
tongue. Treating staff inferred that she
sucked these wounds, swallowed the
blood, and then vomited. Apparently
sometimes she just would keep the blood
in her mouth before rejecting it, because
subsequent analyses revealed that gastric
juices were not always present. She eventually
developed severe anemia and died
two years later. An autopsy revealed a
stomach bloated with blood. A psychological
feature of critical diagnostic importance
was the patient's mythomania.
It is likely that this patient suffered from
the rare syndrome of Lasthénie de Ferjol, described exclusively in female
patients, often paramedical staff, who
bleed themselves surreptitiously and
wrap themselves in a web of nontruths.
In addition to hiding their instrumental
involvement in the condition, they also
make up stories regarding important aspects
of their lives.
Regardless of which definition is
adopted or for that matter, if they are all
adopted, overt vampiristic and autovampiristic
behavior are rare phenomena.
Relying on figures of a thesis by
Desrosières , Bourguignon13 tallies 53
cases, all but one men having acted out
almost exclusively on deceased women
various blends of necrophilic vampirism.
Prins9, 23 conducted an informal
inquiry into the incidence of vampirism
in Great Britain by contacting mainly
forensic mental health specialists. Seven
cases were reported, one of which was a
third-hand account. Hemphill and
Zabow18 report on four cases of vampirism,
which they view as an all-male phenomenon
as opposed to autovampirism,
which is a gender-blind but predominantly
female behavior.
Cases of clinical vampirism are suficiently
rare to warrant a full description
of a "modern vampire" with whom both
authors were directly involved at a maximum-
security forensic hospital in the
U.S. The case of Jeremy also illustrates
many of the nosological difficulties associated
with this pathologic behavior.
This aspect will be discussed in the last
section of this paper.
The Case of a "Modern Vampire"
In addition to the authors' personal
knowledge of the case, biographic information also was drawn from hospital
records. Other sources include a journalist's
report of an interview with the
patient24 and a review of portions of the
trial transcript in which the patient's
mother was a principal witness.
Jeremy, currently 35-years old, was
raised in a seemingly ordinary middleclass
family. His father worked as an
electrical engineer, and his mother was
a mathematics teacher. He has a brother,
two years younger, whom he felt his
mother favored over him. He harbors
an intense hatred toward her and believes
that her testimony at the trial
sealed his conviction for the murder of
his paternal grandmother. He often has
alleged that his mother was physically
abusive during his childhood. Descriptions
of the abuse vary over time and
are colored by delusional thinking. For
instance, he believes that she belonged
to a witchcraft club, when in fact she
taught astrology on the side. During the
club's occult siances, Jeremy claims that
blood was drawn from him. He has
openly expressed his wish to kill his
mother and fantasizes about her death.
He has written her letters seething with
hatred from prison and the maximum
security hospital where he now serves his
sentence.
Jeremy first demonstrated his fascination
with blood at age five when he
was hospitalized with pneumonia. While
convalescing, he drew pictures of hypodermic
needles dripping blood and buttocks
with open wounds oozing blood.
In school, his preoccupation expanded
to include drawings of goblins, bats,
witches, and scenes of violent deaths
Jaffe and DiCataldo
from gunshot wounds. To this day, he
paints vampires ravaging helpless females.
He also became an avid reader of
witchcraft literature and horror novels,
including most of the classics.
His mother testified that when he was
13 years old he started killing small animals,
such as cats, squirrels, fish and
birds, and ate them. He also became
nocturnal and wandered the streets of
his hometown.
By adolescence he was using illicit
drugs on a daily basis and was arrested
for shoplifting and vandalism. At 15
years of age, he was caught stealing a
case of tear gas from the local police
station. This led to the first of several
court-ordered hospitalizations. After his
discharge, he began showing signs of psychosis.
He developed the delusion that a
transmitter in his head was controlled
by someone in outer space. He felt something
was wrong with his head and built
and wore a cardboard pyramid in the
hope it would somehow protect and heal
him. He was in and out of treatment
until age 17 when he disclosed to a therapist
that he was thinking of killing his
father.
After a two-week hospitalization, he
returned home. However, his family was
alarmed when he began keeping an ax
at his bedside. They installed locks for
their bedrooms. They even slept in shifts
so that one family member would be
awake at all times. Eventually Jeremy's
mother obtained a court order to remove
him from the home. He moved
into his own apartment and then traveled
to Florida.
He called his parents from Florida
Clinical Vampirism
telling them that vampires were trying
to kill him. A year later, at age 19, he
returned home and lived with his family
again. His mental condition deteriorated
rapidly. He was unable to sleep, became
withdrawn, and neglected his hygiene.
He reported hearing voices for the first
time. These voices warned him to beware
of his family and friends, because
they were vampires. His interest in consuming
animal and human flesh was
rekindled. He killed several cats and removed
their brains to see if he could
learn how to correct his own brain,
which he believed was dysfunctional. He
also reportedly drank horse blood.
His obsession with the ingestion of
blood, especially human blood, seems to
come from his belief that he could become
a vampire and escape the torment
of voices in his head and be granted
eternal life. Initially he obtained human
blood through accidental circumstances.
Later, in psychiatric hospitals, he cut
elderly and infirm patients with small
staples and also traded sex for blood. He
also bought a hand gun with the intention
of shooting someone to draw blood.
After another court-ordered hospitalization
for killing, dissecting, and eating
a cat, he was released into the custody
of his now-divorced father. Auditory
hallucinations kept warning him that
some people were vampires. They ridiculed
him because he had never killed
anyone and told him that to become a
vampire he must kill and drink someone's
blood. Furthermore, he believed
that his grandmother used an ice pick to
steal his blood while he slept. That she
was an invalid and in a wheelchair did
not shake him from his belief. He also
believed that she was trying to poison
him. A few days later, he murdered her.
Jeremy's verbatim account of the
murder, documented in the court-ordered
forensic mental health evaluation,
reveals his psychotic state of mind:
So it was raining one day, and I washed out of
this job interview so then I took out a gun and
painted the bullets gold. I asked my grandmother
if she wanted anything done and she
said she wanted me to do the laundry. I did
the laundry and asked her if she wanted anything
else done. She said 'no.' So I put on my
suit and shot her. 1 thought she wanted to die.
When I pulled the gun on her I was surprised.
She said 'no, no, don't do that.' But it was too
late. Once I pulled the gun on her, 1 had to do
it. I shot her in the heart, and she was wiggling
and screaming at me. Then I shot her three
more times real fast. Then I started saying a
bunch of weird things to her real fast. I whispered
in her ear something about the devil,
something I had read in a witchcraft book
once. I gave her the last rites and said a small
short prayer.
The coroner's report indicates the victim
also was stabbed, but Jeremy has
always denied this. Currently he denies
drinking her blood, but at one point he
admitted trying to suck her wounds but
gave up because she was "too old."
He dragged the corpse off the sofa and
into a bedroom where he poured dry gas
on it. He ignited the corpse, which eventually
led to the whole house catching
fire. He then disposed of the gun in a
nearby river, picked up his father, and
drove him to his house. He was with his
father when the police called to report
the tragedy. Jeremy and his father drove
to what remained of the torched house.
He tried to enter it to retrieve a box,
telling the police it contained tax returns. The box already had been confiscated
by the police and contained among
other things gold-painted bullets. The
next day he went to the police station
and forcibly tried to recover the box. A
struggle ensued, and he was arrested and
charged with assault and battery on a
police officer. He confessed to the murder
the following day.
His trial showcased a battle of mental
health experts. Jeremy's lawyer pleaded
not guilty by reason of insanity and introduced
four expert witnesses who testified
that he suffered from paranoid
schizophrenia. The prosecution, in an
attempt to get a murder conviction, introduced
their own expert who testified
that Jeremy suffered from a borderline
personality disorder and was criminally
responsible. The jury convicted Jeremy
of second degree murder, which carries
a life sentence, and returned a concurrent
lengthy sentence for arson.
He was sentenced to a maximum-security
prison and managed rather well
for three years on antipsychotic medication.
After stopping medication, he
developed the delusion that a prison officer
was stealing his spinal fluid. He also
believed that the left side of his body
was dying, and that by consuming human
flesh or spinal fluid he could reverse
the process. He bought a shank from the
prison underground for protection and
shortly after almost killed the prison officer
he feared.
Jeremy was charged with attempted
murder but this time was found not
guilty by reason of insanity. He was
committed to a maximum-security forensic
hospital and has remained there
Jaffe and DiCataldo
for the past three years. Considerable
therapeutic effort has brought behavioral
stability. However, he still remains
invested in a portion of his delusion of
being a vampire needing to consume
human blood and flesh. There are no
plans to discharge him from this hospital
in the near future.
Jeremy underwent a complete psychological
assessment in 1992, and records
of test results dating back to 1978,
before the killing of his grandmother,
also are available. Overall, Jeremy's intellectual
functioning falls in the average
range according to Wechsler's classification,
with verbal IQ slightly superior
to performance IQ. The analysis of projective
records reveals a subtle transformation
between the two assessment^.^^
From the 1978 records, a clinical picture
of psychotic dimensions emerges with
some salient psychopathic traits in the
background. However, 14 years later, his
presentation is rather psychopathic with
some elements attesting to an underlying
psychosis. This apparent contradiction
will in part orient the discussion in
the following section.
The Relationship to
Psychopathology
The relationship of vampirism to psychopathology
is complicated by the low
incidence of this behavior. Some authors,
such as Benezech and associates,
citing the psychological complexity of
their cases, describe associated symptomatology
and refrain from any further
speculation15. Others, including McCully, theorize from the perspective of
individual depth psychology, but their
Clinical Vampirism
analysis offers little possibility of generalizing
to other cases. Yet, as descriptions
of vampirism cases have accumulated,
inferences about psychopathology
may be drawn. The reader will recognize
Jeremy's symptoms in several of the following
categories.
Kayton8 considers that the vampire
myth gives "a unique phenomenological
view of schizophrenia" and indeed overt
vampiristic delusions have been associated
most notably with this disorder.
The connection is particularly salient in
the more gruesome cases involving cannibalistic
and necrosadistic behavior
that resemble the content of schizophrenic
delusional material acted out.
These cases generally present massive
disorganized oral sadistic regressions,
depersonalization, confused sexuality,
multiple concurrent delusions, and
thought disorder in content and form.
Psychodynamic explanations draw attention
to Karl Abraham's biting oral
stage during which the infant uses his
teeth with a vengeance to Melanie
Klein's description of children's aggressive
fantasies" and to W.R.D. Fairbairn's
notion of intense oral sadistic libidinal
needs formed in response to actual maternal
deprivation.27
Despite the speculative nature of this
theoretic approach and regardless of
whether early psychological and/or
physical abuse actually took place, it is
interesting to note that schizophrenics
often manifest persecutory delusions of
incorporation, introjection, devouring,
and destruction. Lacking the capacity
for symbolic thought, the ingestion of
blood and/or body parts may be a way
for the schizophrenic to literally replenish
himself. This feature may also be a
more regressed manifestation of peculiar
dietary habits sometimes exhibited by
some schizophrenics. Another consideration
is the lack of any stable sense of
self. Some schizophrenics may well succumb
to extremely concrete forms of
testing their very existence such as cutting
through the skin to determine that
blood flows and merging with and living
off dead or dying victims. According to
Kayton,8 other aspects often observed in
schizophrenic patients and related more
directly to the vampire myth are a preoccupation
with mirrors (another sign of
profound identity disturbance) and reversal
of the day-night cycle.
The psychodynamics of vampirism
are quite different for the cases featuring
psychopathic and perverse personality
traits. As defined by Cleckley2' and later
by Hare,29,3 0 psychopathy is a personality
disorder characterized by grandiosity,
egocentricity, manipulativeness, dominance,
shallow affect, poor interpersonal
bonding, and lack of empathy, anxiety,
and guilt. Among the most contrasting
elements with schizophrenics displaying
overt vampirism are that psychopathic
and perverse personalities carry out
more integrated and organized behavior
and reality testing appears mostly intact.
Bourguignon, l 3 emphasizing the
strong libidinal component in vampiristic
behavior, labels it a perversion. The
perverse aspects can be observed in few
cases of vampirism, specifically when
the subject apparently draws sexual satisfaction
from drinking a live victim's
blood. Here, the subject's history may
be the key to understanding the fixation
on blood and its idiosyncratic meaning.
Within the psychopathic clinical
cases, depending on the actual circumstances
of the vampirism, the strong desire
to control the victim may be the
most important feature. This aspect may
account for the popularity of sadomasochistic
scenarios involving aspects of
vampirism. In mainstream sexuality,
love bites between amorous partners
may be highly symbolic remnants of
vampire sensuality. However, in the case
of necrophilic and necrosadistic vampirism,
even when, for example, cadavers
are sexually violated, the link between
vampirism and perversion is not clearly
established. In this we disagree with
Bo~rguignon,a'~n d our review of published
cases of clinical vampirism suggests
that as far as vampirism is concerned
sexual behavior appears almost
completely subordinated to a destructive
and sadistic drive barely more elaborate
than what is observed in the more gruesome
schizophrenic vampirism. The
cases of Jeffrey Dahmer, the Wisconsin
multiple murderer of the early 1990s,
and Sergeant Bertrand in the mid- 1850s
in France illustrate this predominance
despite sexual acting out.'
When vampirism is embedded in a
psychopathic personality disorder, the
potential for extremely dangerous behavior
seems compounded. The cases
presented by Hemphill and Zabow18 fall
in this category. In cases of vampirism
within psychopathy, subjects frequently
present the common salient childhood
impulse control difficulties, are undersocialized,
and demonstrate an early
tendency to violate limits and rules.
More often than not, a history of animal
abuse including mutilations is elicited.
These features tend to persist into adulthood:
lack of empathy towards others
becomes glaring, and criminalization
can occur. The acquisition of physical
force and the propensity to act out on
innocent victims without the capacity to
foresee and without concern for unpleasant
consequences create the conditions
for lethal behavior.
Whereas clinical vampirism would
seem to maintain strong nosological ties
to schizophrenia, Jeremy's case indicates
connections with various diagnostic categories.
Indeed, a striking feature of unusual
forensic cases involving extreme
behavior is that they are almost literally
situated at what Prins9 calls the "boundaries
of psychiatric disorder." As such,
clinical vampirism is one of the few
pathologic manifestations that blends
myth and reality in dramatic fashion
and contains a hodgepodge of nosological
elements, including schizophrenic,
psychopathic, and perverse features. Unfortunately,
there has been scant literature
on the question of violence in psychopaths
who also suffer from psychosis.
In fact, there is considerable historical
resistance within most diagnostic systems
to juxtapose psychosis and psychopathy.
A notable exception has been the
contributions of Meloy3' and Meloy and
Gacono32 . The association of schizophrenic
and psychopathic features seems
particularly relevant with regard to clinical
vampirism.
Conclusions
One of the inherent aspects of all
myths is that new versions succeed one
Clinical Vampirism
another with the most recent reflecting
transpositions of the earlier ones. By
virtue of its universality, the vampire
myth does not escape this evolution.
Earliest mythology has associated
vampires with female figures representing
potential destruction and children in
a state of dependency and helplessness.
Wilgowiczp12 points to affinities between
the Dracula inspired vampire myth, on
the one hand, and childbirth, on the
other. Birth implies opening the eyes and
sunlight entering. Symbolically, birth
also buries the umbilical and blood-sharing
relationship between mother and fetus.
The modern, Dracula-based, vampire
myth insists on blood ties in a
macabre sense, i.e., suction of the victim's
blood, but also in a relational and
familial as well as sexual sense, i.e., victims
were generally family members.
We believe contemporary psychoanalysis
and psychology have generated
new versions of the vampire myth.
Jones6 relies on traditional psychoanalytic
theory to analyze the vampire myth
from the living's perspective. Love, hate,
guilt, libidinal urges, sadistic drives, and
incestuous feelings towards important
figures who died form the psychological
web that contributed to the creation and
fear of vampires. However, when the
myth blends with reality, as in Jeremy's
case, complementary explanations are
needed. In this view, maternal figures
provide affective nourishment essential
for the child's successful development,
but under unfavorable circumstances,
children also can experience depletion
and a form of psychological vampirization33 .
Vampiristic behavior thus no longer
represents the outwardly expression of
vitiated intrapsychic drives, but acquires
a strong dyadic and relational quality,
albeit irremediably disturbed. Vampirism
and vampirization are the two poles
of this extremely close, literally bloodtied
relationship. Clinical vampirism
represents the most dramatic manifestation
of perhaps the most archaic relationship
running amok. Vampiristic behaviors
that very frequently involve a
fascination with the dead or actually killing
represent in our view a hopeless attempt
to extricate from an archaic relationship
with parental figures even
though the victims are rarely the parents
themselves.
Appendix
*
This article is an expanded version of a presentation
madc at the XIXth International Congress of thc
International Academy of Law and Mental Health,
Lisbon, Portugal, June 1993.
t In 785, King Charlemagne of France was compelled
to legislate against the literal interpretation of
transubstantiation.
$ The association with bats seems to have been most
popularized in movies. However, in 1762, the French
naturalist Buffon named a bat variety vampynis sanguisangus.
6 The LasthCnie de Feriol svndrome. named after
the'heroine of Barbey d'~u>evili~n'so vel, Une histoire
sans norn, was first described by Bernard, Najean, Alby,
and Rain." Burguin and Feillard2' present a more
recent case.
11 Discussing the primitive use of the body to express
aggressive fantasies, RivikreZ6g raphically lists the child's
physical armamentarium: "Limbs shall trample, kick,
and hit; lips, fingers and hands shall suck, twist, pinch;
teeth shall bite, gnaw, mangle and cut; mouth shall
devour, swallow and kill (annihilate); eyes kill by a look,
pierce and penetrate; breath and mouth hurt by noise
[. . -1." p. 50.
11 In his own written rebuttal to views expressed at
his trial by a famous forensic psychiatrist, Sergeant
Bertrand exclaims: "Oui! Destructive monomania has
always been stronger in me than erotic monomania, it
is undeniable, and I believe that I would never have
taken any chances to rape a cadaver had I not been able
to destroy it afterwards. Therefore destruction wins over
sexuality, whatever is said, and nobody is able to prove
the contrary; I know better than anyone what was going
on in me."13
Jaffe and DiCataldo
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