Five Major Motives of Maternal Filicide Perpetrators*

Publication: Psychiatric News

https://doi.org/10.1176/pn.46.20.psychnews_46_20_25

Altruistic filicide: a mother kills her child out of love; she believes death to be in the child's best interest (includes maternal filicide-suicide cases).

Acutely psychotic filicide: a psychotic or delirious mother kills her child without any comprehensive motive (perhaps accompanied by command hallucinations).

Fatal maltreatment filicide: death is usually not the anticipated outcome; it results from cumulative child abuse, neglect, or Munchausen syndrome by proxy.

Unwanted-child filicide: a mother thinks of her child as a hindrance.

Spouse revenge filicide: occurs when a mother kills her child to emotionally harm that child's father.

Footnotes

* Adapted from definitions by Friedman and Resnick, 2007

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Published In

Psychiatric News

Volume 46 • Number 20 • October 21, 2011

Pages: 25

History

Published online: 21 October 2011

Published in print: October 21, 2011

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Five Major Motives of Maternal Filicide Perpetrators*

Footnotes