Stalker, Hacker, Voyeur, Spy: A Psychoanalytic Study of Erotomania, Voyeurism, Surveillance, and Invasions of Privacy

Stalking is a predatory form of terrorizing people. Whether the tormenting erotomanic pursuit by the unrequited lover of his or her prey, or the secretive invasive surveillance in government-backed counterterrorism, stalker and stalkee are ”coupled” in today’s world of idealized yet dissociated intrapsychic, interpersonal, national and international relations. “Cyberspace,” an unprecedented force for good, has become, along with more conventional venues, a fearsomely invasive stalking ground in private and public lives.

Psychoanalytic cases, psychoanalytically informed analyses of film portrayals, and accounts of erotomanic, celebrity, and internationally conspiratorial stalking illustrate the underpinnings and expand the meagre psychoanalytic literature on this topic. Film studies and psychoanalysis converge in a close look at voyeurism in stalking and in the acts of filming and film viewing. Gender differences among stalkers round out this picture.

Parallel processes in the minds, actions, and lives of stalker and stalkee are inevitable in the blurred boundaries yet ineluctable connection between victim and victimizer, whether due to merger fantasies, projective identifications or a host of other psychological links. This book extends and develops these ideas to similar relations between terrorism from within and terrorism from without in both sexual and surveillance stalking.