Extreme Teen. Children who kill: personal meanings and institutional responses

Abstract

The teenagers murders are examined following the dynamic psychology, the developmental psychology, the theories of social learning and the social psychology in the perspective of the Self and the strategies of moral disengagement in a social cognitive approach. Various models of judicial intervention are examined: an only diagnostic and correctional perspective isn’t exhaustive. Others models of penal intervention have been considered as a narrative approach, even considering the effectiveness and feasibility of a more cognitive-behavioural approach. The narrative paradigm promotes, trough the recovery of the personal story, a path of development in the sense of self awareness and empowering. Clinical action in view of the component of depression, although associated with other disorders, has been sustained.