Barriers to discharge: A retrospective study of factors associated with stays of longer than 2 years in a French secure hospital unit.

Background: Extended stays in specialist secure hospital units raise ethical concerns. While this topic has been investigated in various countries, there has been little research on it in France.

Aims: We aimed to study the length of stay of patients in the Henri Colin unit, a secure hospital unit in the Paris area and test relationships between length of stay and sociodemographic, clinical and legal features.

Homicides committed by women with mental disorders: A descriptive study conducted in a French secure unit.

Women remain a small minority of homicide offenders and appear to be understudied in the scientific literature. Gender-specific characteristics are however identified by existing studies. The aim of the study was to explore homicides committed by women with mental disorders, by analyzing their sociodemographic, clinical features, and criminological circumstances of the homicide.

Homicides committed by delusional patients in the early 20th and 21st centuries: A study conducted in a French secure unit.

Homicides committed by delusional patients are the object of a rich scientific literature, which puts the risk of such acts occurring into perspective when analyzing the offenders' sociodemographic and clinical characteristics. However, few articles detail the themes and mechanisms underlying those patients' delusions. To help bridge that gap, the authors conducted this retrospective descriptive study, including two samples of delusional homicidal patients, one from near present day and one from nearly a century ago.

Maternal filicide and mental illness: A descriptive study of 17 women hospitalized in a French secure unit over a 24-year period.

Maternal filicide is defined as the murder of a child by its mother. Many classifications have been elaborated based on underlying motives such as altruism, mental pathology, fatal maltreatment, spousal revenge, or an unwanted child. Pathological filicide refers to cases in which the perpetrator has a major psychiatric illness.

The Psychopathological Profile of Cannibalism: A Review of Five Cases.

In today's society, human cannibalism is extremely rare and represents an unthinkable act of violence. Scientific literature on the topic is sparse due to significant methodological problems, such as collecting enough data and generating unbiased analyses. The purpose of this article is to illustrate some psychodynamic aspects of cannibalism.

Religious Radicalization and Lone-Actor Terrorism: A Matter for Psychiatry?

This article discusses the place of the psychiatric field in the ongoing phenomenon of religious radicalization. First, the article provides an overview of the existing literature on lone-actor terrorists and the link with mental illness. Current research is focusing increasingly on lone-actor terrorists.