Abstract
Keywords
Stalking is the word we now use for persistent harassment in which one person repeatedly imposes on another unwanted communications and/or contacts. Stalking behaviours usually induce fear and, in addition, may be associated with threats and assaults.
Stalking is a new word for an old behaviour. People have long been exposed, on occasion, to being harassed, followed and intruded upon. In the clinical literature accounts of behaviour which we would now term stalking are provided by Esquirol as part of his descriptions of erotomania [1]. Legal case reports detail stalking-like behaviour as far back as the early 18th century [2]. Novels and stories based around such pursuits have appeared as early as the 19th century [3, 4], and even further back if you wish to construe Agamemnon as a rejected ex-partner who involved his friends in stalking by proxy the unfortunate Helen. Some of what we would now unhesitatingly label stalking would, however, once have passed not just unnamed, but unremarked on or even been viewed as a romantic manoeuvre. Dante shadowing Beatrice for years on end and Petrarch showering Laura with 364 daily poems were not regarded as a scandal, but as a romantic ideal [5]. These were examples of men constructing images of the beloved which took no account whatsoever of the actual realities of the women who were the object of their passion. Dante and Petrarch continued their persistent intrusions ignorant of, or indifferent to, the preferences and reactions of the women [6–8]. Such behaviour nowadays would be more likely to be condemned as stalking than idealized as romantic love. But the transformation of certain behaviours from acceptable, or even admired, forms of social interaction, albeit one-sided in their nature, required major shifts in the cultural assumptions of societies of developed countries, particularly about the relationships between men and women.
This paper examines how and why stalking emerged as a major social problem and why it is of concern to mental health professionals.
Stalking as social, legal and behavioural sciences discourses
Stalking has emerged as a major social problem in the English-speaking world over the last decade. Lowney and Best documented an increasing concern in the 1980s with the persistent pursuit of women, usually by ex-partners [9]. Such behaviours were described at the time by terms such as female harassment, obsessive following or psychological rape [10, 11]. Despite the best efforts of the women's movement, little public attention was paid to such harassment. Between 1989 and 1991 the American media became intensely interested in what initially appeared to be a totally unrelated phenomena, that of the persistent pursuit of the famous. This they increasingly termed ‘star stalking’. The stalking and eventual murder of actress Rebecca Schaeffer by a disordered fan provided the paradigm example. The extraordinary success around that time of the film Fatal Attraction [12] fed an emerging fear of being pursued by a disordered individual who has become obsessed with you. The word stalking caught the public's imagination. Stalking evoked a sinister image of pursuit and imminent violence which, in combination with the initial connection to the famous, virtually guaranteed it wide attention. Opportunistically, and wisely, the word stalking was harnessed by the domestic violence lobby in the USA to describe the persistent pursuit of women by their ex-partners. The name change finally provided public prominence to an issue which had languished in obscurity under the rubric of female harassment. Stalking's empire did not, however, stop at the annexation of men's harassment of their ex-partners, but rapidly expanded to encompass a wide range of what were increasingly viewed as persistent, unwanted and fear-inducing intrusions.
The level of public concern created by the media around stalking's new connotations brought pressures to bear on politicians which found expression in antistalking law. The first such law was enacted in California in 1991. The Californian law provoked what has been described by McAnaney et al. as a torrent of legislation as all USA States followed suit [13]. Later other countries in the English-speaking world propagated their own laws [14]. In 1993 the first Australian antistalking law was enacted in Queensland, followed in quick succession by New South Wales, South Australia, Victoria, Western Australia, the Northern Territory, Tasmania and the Australian Capital Territory. New Zealand enacted an anti-harassment law in 1997. The history of the legislation to some extent mirrored the expansion of the usage of the word stalking. The first antistalking law was intended first and foremost to curb the activities of star stalkers. Subsequent legislation, particularly in the eastern states of the USA, targeted primarily harassment as an extension of domestic violence. The antistalking law enacted in West Virginia, for example, was directed specifically at men who harassed ex-partners. Similarly, in New South Wales the initial legislation was directed specifically at men harassing their ex-partners and only later amended to offer protection to the full range of victims. The intentions of the legislators, notwithstanding in practice the exigencies of drafting and the practicalities of applying these new laws, ensured that a wide range of harassing behaviours were criminalized, not just those directed at the famous or at women by their expartners. Just as the word stalking was generalized to encompass a wide range of harassing behaviours, so the laws were increasingly applied to a set of intrusive behaviours, largely irrespective of the relationship between victim and perpetrator. Certain legitimate activities involving intruding and pestering were usually protected in the legislation (e.g. police surveillance, tax investigators and the activities of the media).
Behavioural scientists began quite early in the history of stalking to be involved in the assessment of perpetrators, though their interest in victims was somewhat belated [15, 16]. Zona et al. pioneered the systematic study of stalkers in their work with the Los Angeles Police Department's Threat Management Unit [15]. Their classification of stalkers into erotomanic, love obsessional and simple obsessional reflected an overriding concern with those, such as star stalkers, who pursued people on whom they had fixed their disordered affections. Their classification also reflected the conceptualization of stalking as obsessional following [17]. Again in the behavioural science literature, as in the wider society, attention shifted from star stalkers to men who stalked their ex-partners [18–20]. Lowney and Best noted how the shift from a focus on star stalkers to a focus on men stalking their ex-partners was accompanied by a shift in how stalkers were viewed from a mental health perspective [9]. Star stalkers were characterized predominantly as mentally disordered individuals, both male and female who, driven by delusion or obsession, pursued the object of their morbid passion. Stalkers in the domestic violence construction became strongly gendered (i.e. male). Psychological, let alone psychiatric, accounts of the stalker's motivation were virtually excluded in favour of regarding stalking as another example of men asserting power over women through violence and intimidation [8, 19, 21]. Subsequent studies of stalkers have, however, taken an increasingly broad approach to the types of motivation and choices of target found among stalkers [22–24]. A significant proportion of the most persistent stalkers who find themselves before the courts have turned out to have significant, and not infrequently psychotic, psychopathology [23–28]. That being said, much of the harassment which occurs in the community which can quite reasonably claim the name of stalking is the product of disjunctions in relationships that all too often primarily reflect men attempting to impose their wishes and intentions on women.
A multi-axial classification of stalking
Mullen et al. proposed a multi-axial classification of stalking that depended first on the relationship between the stalker and the victim, second on a simple division between psychotic and non-psychotic stalkers and finally on a typology which was based primarily on what motivated and sustained the behaviour [24]. This typology of stalking had five categories.
The rejected stalker
The rejected stalker pursues an ex-intimate, usually a previous sexual partner, but just occasionally a family member or close friend. The rejected stalker usually claims to be seeking a reconciliation though occasionally will acknowledge that he or she is motivated by a desire for revenge. In practice, those behaviours aimed at reconciliation and those aimed at vengeance often coexist, producing a fluctuating mixture of appeasement and aggression. The stalking is sustained probably because it maintains some semblance of a relationship with the lost intimate, and because it offers a vehicle for the stalker to vent his or her rage at lost hopes and disappointed expectations. It is in this type of stalker that connections to prior domestic violence may be found.
The intimacy seeker
The intimacy seeker's stalking is aimed at realizing a relationship with someone who has engaged his or her affections and who is often mistakenly believed to already reciprocate that affection. Intimacy seekers are convinced they are destined to establish a loving relationship with the target. They are oblivious to the victim's feelings and in practice often reinterpret even the most blunt of rejections as a positive response. This type of stalker is drawn almost exclusively from those whose lives have been bereft of intimacy and the stalking is sustained because it maintains a semblance of a relationship and provides hopes and dreams for an eventual union. From the ranks of the intimacy seekers come the star stalkers.
The incompetent suitor
The incompetent suitor is also seeking a relationship, but in contrast to the intimacy seeker they are not in love, merely looking for a date or attempting to establish initial contact. These individuals usually lack basic interpersonal, let alone courting, skills but despite this often evince a remarkable sense of entitlement to a relationship. They appear uninterested in the other's wishes in the matter, repeatedly pestering and harassing their targets. This type of stalking is rarely sustained, presumably because it provides few satisfactions and this type of stalker usually gives up after a matter of days or weeks. Unfortunately, they are prone to repeat the behaviour with a new target.
The resentful stalker
The resentful stalker aims to frighten the victim. The stalking emerges out of a desire for retribution for some actual or supposed injury. Resentful stalkers usually feel justified in pursuing their target and not infrequently present themselves as victims fighting back against injustice and oppression. The stalking is frequently sustained by a self-righteous commitment reinforced by the satisfactions obtained from the sense of power and control which the stalking provides.
The predatory stalker
The predatory stalker stalks preparatory to launching an attack, usually sexual in nature. The stalking is a combination of information gathering, rehearsal in fantasy and intrusion through surreptitious observation. The stalking is a means to an end, the end being the assault, but is sustained by the gratifying sense of power and control, often augmented by the pleasures of voyeuristic intrusions.
The genesis of stalking
Stalking involves behaviours which distress and frighten. Persistent stalking, which can last for weeks, months or even years, almost always inflicts major social and psychological damage on the victim [16, 29]. Stalking becomes, when persistent, a full-time activity which disrupts the perpetrator's as well as the victim's social, occupational and psychological functioning. The activities captured by our current concept of stalking are a very real source of distress and disturbance affecting between 2 and 15% of the population at some time in their lives [14, 30, 31]. Most stalking involves men harassing women, but in 10–20% of cases women are the perpetrators and men the targets, with up to a further 10% of instances involving same-gender stalking [31, 32].
To label a course of conduct stalking is to invoke a particular way of organizing our view of the world which groups together a wide range of human behaviours and interactions that were not previously regarded as linked. Stalking was not discovered, or uncovered, but constructed as a way to conceptualize particular forms of behaviour. Stalking is a relatively new construction which is still largely confined not just to the developed world, but to the English-speaking world. Talking recently about stalking in France evoked only puzzled incomprehension among a group one might have expected to be tuned to a matter so obviously linked to harassment and violence directed against women. Although some attention has been paid to stalking in the European media, it still tends to be regarded as an American problem largely confined to ‘Hollywood stars’, not a real issue for ordinary Europeans [33].
Why did the concept of stalking emerge so dramatically in the English-speaking world at the end of the 20th century? Part of the answer is almost certainly that particular types of harassing behaviours were becoming more common and more obviously disturbing to a wide range of individuals. Fame's price now included being followed and harassed. Greater instability in relationships left more angry men feeling lost and rejected. Social complexity and social isolation left more and more of the less well equipped lonely and struggling to find partners. The culture of blame produced increasing numbers of frustrated claimants and complainants. And finally, the privileged majority were becoming increasingly frightened of those strangers out there in the street who they perceived as threatening their safety. Although these were among the social conditions conducive to stalking's emergence as a behaviour they do not, in and of themselves, explain the remarkable success of a single word in drawing together activities from such diverse realms.
Hacking coined the metaphor of an ecological niche to account for the emergence of new conceptualizations, among which he included diagnostic formulations in psychiatry [34]. The ease with which stalking has established itself as part of our culture's language may have depended on there having been what Hacking would call niches conducive to stalking's emergence and growth. The five main types of stalker postulated by Mullen et al. [8, 24] have, perhaps, each arisen within such a niche which social and cultural changes are rendering problematic. The contradictions inherent in these contexts may have encouraged and shaped the behaviour we now label stalking. The success of stalking as a category may depend upon its ability to resolve at least some of the tensions inherent in those contexts.
Star stalking, which is a prime example of intimacy seeking, emerged in the context of the tensions experienced by the famous between the need to be in the public eye and the fear of that same public. The rejected type of stalker occupies the space created in our close interpersonal relations by the tensions between traditional assumption of permanence and today's reality of unstable and contingent commitments. The incompetent suitors, and those intimacy seekers who fix their disordered affections not on the famous but on those closer to home, are often victims of a social isolation born of exclusion. The resentful stalker emerges in the context of tensions between the language of individual rights and an increasing sense of powerlessness in the face of the institutions of government and business. The predatory stalker has acquired an undeserved prominence as an embodiment of the fear of the stranger.
Star stalking occupies the space between the avidity of the famous for public exposure and their desire for protection from that myriad of strangers who form their audience. That the famous began to fear the strangers in their audience is hardly to be wondered at given not only the increasing intrusiveness of fans and the media, but also the highly publicized attacks, and even assassinations, of public figures in the latter half of the twentieth century. A burgeoning industry of security advisors and security providers fed that fear, and as security became all pervasive so real, or supposed, incursions inevitably became more common. This conflict between being in the public eye and fearing those very eyes, one might speculate, was mirrored in the audience who wanted to know more, and to see more, of the famous, but at the same time were increasingly critical of the methods used to appease their own hunger. The paparazzi are the creation of the rampant and prying curiosity of a significant subsection of our community, but are often roundly condemned by that very audience to whom they pander. The paparazzi are both our agents in stalking the famous and the embodiments of the demonized, ‘high-tech’ intruder we increasingly fear. We, the audience, are in conflict about the results of our own intrusive curiosity. The stalker filled the gap. The stalker embodied the fears of the famous and legitimized their withdrawal behind security screens. The stalker externalized the audiences' own guilt at being intrusive at the same time as providing yet another opportunity to pry into, and sympathize with, the trials and tribulations of the famous.
Those who unilaterally end relationships have probably always run the risk of becoming the target of harassment from the ex-partner. What changed with the emergence of stalking was the meaning attaching to those behaviours. Relationship breakdowns are increasingly common leaving more and more people, in practice mostly males, feeling angry and distressed. The rejecting partner may well feel guilty about terminating the relationship, however reasonable and justified their actions. This is probably more likely if a woman has initiated the end of the relationship as women are more obviously caught between the emerging attitudes about what they have the right to expect from a relationship and the traditionally more modest expectations dependent on female compliance and compromise. In the mind of the stalker, stalking potentially resolves such conflicts. Society's traditional tendencies to support men trying to sustain or re-establish relationships (relationships which may be against their female partner's interests) can be balanced by a rejection of strategies which amount to persistent harassment. The rejected partner who indulges in stalking behaviour retrospectively legitimizes the rejection in the eyes of the world. His or her stalking behaviour renders unnecessary the guilt at having initiated the end of the relationship. Establishing stalking as a universally condemned criminal activity is in part about society acknowledging women are not the chattels of their male partners, relationships can and do end, and women as well as men have a right to say ‘no, this is enough’. In this context stalking thrives in a gap created by the tension between a declining tradition concerning the permanence of marriage and women's place in such unions and, alternatively, an emergent set of values around independence and equity.
The social distance which now exists between people is particularly problematic for isolated individuals who are disadvantaged interpersonally and often economically. The level of social skills required to negotiate the transition from stranger to acquaintance, and from acquaintance to potential partner inevitably increases in a fragmented, fearful society. There are now greater opportunities to fail in approaches, particularly those aimed at establishing romantic and sexual relationships. Equally, given heightened suspicions about strangers, the chances of reacting to such approaches with a fearful withdrawal are also increased. Stalking both describes the more spectacularly inept of such approaches and removes any lingering embarrassment the privileged may have at distancing themselves from the less attractive. It is within this conflicted space that the incompetent suitors and many of the intimacy-seeking type of stalkers find their origins. Their stalking takes shape in the space between the rhetoric of community and the realities of an escalating fear of strangers productive of withdrawal and suspicion.
Resentful stalking takes its origins from the behaviour which has emerged from what Douglas termed our culture of blame [35]. Blaming and claiming have become a major element in the interactions between citizens and, in particular, between individuals and what they perceive as the agents of power and control, be that government, big business or the professions. Those frustrated by a quest for what they fondly believe are their rights can, and do, turn to harassment aimed specifically at frightening and distressing an individual, or occasionally an organization, on whom they have focused their resentment. The space into which this type of stalking fits is created by the tension between the culture of blame and the bureaucracies of power. Our culture extols individual rights but in practice often operates systems of power which, through appeals to specialist knowledge, rationalism, efficiency and expediency, seek to avoid accountability, both by, and to, individuals. The frustrated claimant, the marginalized whistle blower and the unsuccessful litigant may all resort finally to harassing those they blame for their predicament. In labelling this ‘stalking’ their claims cease to have any legitimate content and become manifestations of personal psychopathology. Conversely, the powerless supplicant is transformed in his or her own eyes, and in the eyes of society, into the embodiment of a gratifyingly sinister form of power.
Predatory stalkers are rare in practice but command a remarkable prominence in the media portrayals of stalking. Predatory stalking thrives in our imagination despite few concrete instances outside of film and television dramas. In many countries we live increasingly among strangers. Urbanization, the disappearance of neighbourhoods where those who lived together shared a common economic, social and employment reality, as well as increasing geographical mobility, are among the factors which disrupt the bonds which have previously linked people into communities. At the same time our society's escalating fear of the crime perpetrated by the predatory stranger endows the unknown other with sinister qualities, particularly if he is young, male and apparently disordered (i.e. unpredictable). The privileged increasingly experience themselves as under threat from the less advantaged [36]. The rhetoric of community continues apace as the reality for many citizens of any real connectedness to our neighbours evaporates. Stalking embodies a fear of the stranger and justifies that fear. We would of course like to be more open, more sociable, more egalitarian and more available to strangers but our failure to attempt such moves is justified by stalking and other predations imminent in so many strangers.
Inherent in Hacking's metaphor of a niche which allows for new constructions of human behaviour to emerge is a subversive element which not only places in question the validity of such constructions, but asserts their essentially transitory nature. However, this is not a necessary implication of such social constructions as Hacking himself has ably argued [37]. The question which hangs over stalking is not the existence of the behaviours but the utility of grouping them together under the single rubric of stalking.
The utility of the stalking construct
The manner, and rapidity, with which stalking emerged as social, legal and behavioural science discourses cannot but raise the suspicion that there is more of fashion to it than substance. Is stalking, as Anthony Clare wrote, one of the pathological phenomena of our fractured times (quoted in [8]), or is it a piece of ephemera built on media hype?
The utility of stalking as a construction rests primarily on its ability to direct social, legal and health energies to support victims of persistent harassment and to relieve their suffering. From the perspective of health professionals, ‘stalking’ has worked as a word because it has focused attention on the distress created by the behaviours it describes. The contexts and meanings of stalking behaviours are many and varied, but there are remarkable commonalties in the impact on their targets. It matters little whether you are stalked by a fan, an expartner, an amorous stranger or an angry client; in each situation the disruption and fear induced can be corrosive of the victim's social and psychological wellbeing. The persistent intrusions and threatening presence of a stalker can and does wreck people's lives [16, 29]. Without stalking in our cultural vocabulary it would not be possible to organize for victims appropriate legal and health responses, nor, one suspects, to evoke the support and sympathy needed from family, friends and employers (for discussion of supporting victims and managing their distress [8, 38]). Being a victim of stalking is now so well established as a social role that false claims of being stalked are occurring and persecutory delusional systems are now presenting as complaints of being stalked [39].
The victims of harassment may benefit but what of the harassers? They experience their admiration, their love, their desire for reconciliation, their quest for justice all relabelled ‘stalking’ with its implications of a fearful and disturbed pursuit. Hidden behind stalking lies the reality for the stalker of a futile, time-consuming and ultimately self-damaging odyssey. The emergence of stalking as an offence brought with it an interest in stalkers and ultimately in the states of mind which initiated and sustained that behaviour. Treatment programs for stalkers are primarily motivated by a desire to relieve the victim of the unwanted attentions but, in the process, they remove from the stalker the burden of pursuit.
From harassment to stalking
Stalking behaviours overlap with a number of interpersonal exchanges which, however irritating and unwelcome, are part of most people's everyday experience: the ex-partner who, following the ending of a relationship, keeps telephoning and turning up unannounced; the awkward and embarrassing approaches of someone attempting to establish a relationship; the belligerent intrusions, for example, of a disgruntled colleague or patient. All such interactions could be constructed as stalking and potentially lead to a criminal prosecution under most antistalking statutes. The criminal courts can usually protect themselves from the prosecuting of a myriad of trivial infringements of antistalking laws by common sense and the sheer inertia of most criminal justice systems. The problem in the criminal justice context is not the overuse of antistalking statutes, but the difficulty in obtaining proper action in quite obvious and seriously disruptive examples of continuing harassment. Behavioural scientists, however, have to develop definitions which more clearly separate behaviours which they wish to study from the universe of related phenomena [40]. This might have been a formidable problem if there had been a smooth continuum between the intrusive interactions of everyday life and those persistent intrusions which constitute stalking. In our view, however, there exist three largely distinct groups of experiences.
Harassing intrusions are related to a range of interpersonal conflicts which, though experienced as unwelcome and unacceptable, do not produce fear. This type of harassment usually lasts for only a day or so, or if more persistent, does not occur more than once or twice a week. The harasser is almost always known to the victim, being, for example, an ex-partner, work contact or other acquaintance.
Intense harassment which occurs in short bursts which almost always induce fear in the victim. This type of harassment involves multiple intrusions and lasts from days up to several weeks. Strangers figure prominently among the perpetrators of such harassment as do disgruntled work contacts or acquaintances.
Persistent stalking which lasts for weeks, months or years during which time the victim is exposed to multiple intrusions covering a range of unwanted communications and approaches. Persistent stalking almost always creates fear in the victim and leads to significant social and psychological disturbances. The perpetrators of persistent stalking are most frequently rejected expartners and those pursuing some disordered quest for intimacy though all the five types of stalker described can fall into this group.
Our data and experience suggests that harassment lasting more than 2 weeks and involving multiple (10 or more) intrusions is the watershed between the briefer forms of harassment and fully fledged stalking. Repeated unwanted communications and imposed contacts which go on for longer than 2 weeks are highly likely then to last for months or years. Another critical factor is the induction of fear. Those forms of harassment which produce fear in the victim also tend to be associated with psychological and social damage. Fear, in our experience, results not from the idiosyncratic sensitivities of the victim, but from the behaviour of the stalker and the context in which the stalking occurs. There are, however, a tiny minority of victims who are either unusually sensitive to intrusions or conversely respond stoically to even the most outrageous of harassment.
Conclusions
Stalkers and their victims are now part of the proper concern of psychiatrists. The victims of persistent stalking develop stress-related symptoms very similar to the victims of other forms of chronic trauma, such as domestic violence. Victims of stalking may well be referred to almost any psychiatrist. Psychiatrists now have a responsibility to know enough about the impact of being stalked, and to be sufficiently informed about the sources of legal and victim support services, to assist their patients. Stalkers are far more likely to be directed to specialist forensic mental health services, but, given that stalking is more common among the mentally disordered, purely by chance many psychiatrists will find themselves called on to contribute to their management. Finally, mental health professionals are at high risk of finding themselves victims of stalking. In the past psychiatrists who were being stalked by ex-patients often received little understanding and even less support from their colleagues. All too frequently they were made to feel guilty for ‘failing to manage the transference’ or ‘over-reacting’. To the misery of being stalked was added, for many of our colleagues, the burden of being judged, if not incompetent, at least less than adequate. Such ignorance and insensitivity is now unforgivable.
In part now we have laws to protect, and services to support the victims of persistent harassment because of the emergence of the concept of stalking. Those who laid their own, and their victim's, lives to waste by their pursuits have the emergence of the concept of stalking to thank for offering them assistance in stopping their destructive behaviour. Stalking is a curious construction born of a range of tensions in contemporary society, but is proving a useful label and a useful concept.