Step Over the Line. Stories About My Patients

Why is a person more likely to commit a crime in a foreign city than in their hometown? What generates fear of migrants in people, and how does this fear lead them to cross the line of the law? How do misperceptions push healthy individuals into the embrace of rage, madness, and psychosis? Does the brain compel us to commit a crime, or does it seek justification for a decision already made? Karl Jaspers, the great philosopher of the 20th century, began his career as a psychiatrist, and he wrote his best scientific works during his time at a mental health clinic. The stories of his own patients formed the basis of his works on crimes committed in states of rage, reactive psychosis, and murder by migrants. These works were written by the scholar in the early 20th century and were completely revised several decades later, in the second half of the century. The works "Nostalgia and Crimes," "Errors of Perception," and "The Doctrine of Reactive Psychoses" laid the foundation for this book.