The Trial of Intent in the Dock

Recently, Fabien Olicard, like so many others before him, speaking about narcissistic perverts, attributed to them an intention to harm and destroy their victims. But what is the reality?

Intention, That Imaginary Thing

When I was a child, my mother often attributed to me the intention to procrastinate, to talk too much, to forget my homework, to seek attention. I was therefore a bad kid who deserved her reproaches, and her violence, since, according to her imagination, I did it on purpose to defy her, ridicule her, damage her image.

Years later, my brother often did the same with my nephews. « He’s doing it on purpose, he knows it annoys me. » Until the day when, exasperated and angry, I corrected him: « A child doesn’t do it on purpose. He doesn’t intend to annoy. He does something that annoys, but hasn’t decided to do it maliciously. You’re acting like mom, and one day, they’ll make you pay for it ».

I cried a lot during that discussion. And I was able to see later that my brother had grasped the extent of his error. His behavior changed, to my great relief. The intention was imaginary. It was he, in his head, in his thoughts who was inventing it.

Many hyperactive children are treated this way in school and family settings. They are attributed this malicious intention. They are repeatedly told how inadequate, bad, disruptive they are. And they end up, as I ended up myself, assimilating it. Since when I don’t do it on purpose, I’m accused of having intended to harm, then I am a bad person.

I opened with the theme of narcissistic perverts, and I’ll return to it. I still wanted to show that this problem is not specific to this subject, since it concerns children, and much more. Who on the road hasn’t thought that a person deliberately cut them off, for example. While in reality, this type of behavior is more often accidental than voluntary.

Making Sense, An Evolutionary Strategy

The trial of intent allows us to make sense, explain a situation, and anticipate the response to give. It stems from a natural evolutionary strategy. We humans are predisposed to infer intentions in others. It allows us to anticipate dangers and cooperate or protect ourselves. Children, very early on, interpret others’ actions as intentional, even when they’re not.

The way we judge these intentions, value or sanction them, depends on the social and cultural context. Some societies emphasize individual moral responsibility, others on the consequences of acts regardless of intention. Legal, media and moral norms amplify or channel this natural bias.

But this mechanism, originally useful, becomes problematic when it distorts reality. Attributing intention where there is none transforms neutral or automatic behaviors into supposedly malicious acts. It’s this shift — from natural to judged — that fuels anger, misunderstanding and inappropriate reactions.

The Consequences of the Trial of Intent

Injustices

As we saw above, the trial of intent can be destructive. In children, who need structure and encouragement rather than blame and judgment, it erodes self-esteem. But this mechanism also extends to justice and society: the victim is attributed an intention to provoke the situation they find themselves in.

This happened to me during a car accident. The judge interpreted my actions as revealing an intention: « Mr. Sissaoui, you wanted to teach the other driver a lesson… » or again: « Mr. Sissaoui, if you’re looking for adrenaline, you should go to a racetrack ». Yet, I was rear-ended by an angry reckless driver who did it intentionally, and I never sought to provoke a chase (on the highway at 80 km/h). My behavior was read through a prism of imaginary intention, and no matter my testimony, I was necessarily lying to clear myself. Moreover, the reckless driver in question didn’t intend to smash my vehicle, but rather intended to make the world what he thought it should be: a world in which when he’s in a hurry, everyone immediately gets out of his way.

This also happened to a friend who was raped under GHB (date rape drug), when a judge told her: « Maybe that night, you were particularly provocative. », thus instantly dismissing her victim status and transforming her into the one responsible for her situation, based on a completely imaginary intention to seduce.

Delayed Healing

In the narcissistic pervert, there is no intention to destroy, contrary to what certain « specialists » too often claim. The narcissistic pervert — let’s remember that this is not a recognized pathology, but a descriptive category based on the observation of narcissistic and manipulative traits — only intends to ensure that everything around them corresponds to the image they have of the world. The victim, meanwhile, is almost always a person with fragile self-esteem, seeking a model, external validation, therefore malleable. A person that the narcissistic pervert will shape so that they correspond to what they think they should be. It’s in this process that destruction takes place.

When they become aware, alone or sometimes thanks to external support, that they are trapped in a toxic relationship, the victim finds themselves confronted with a crowd of « experts » explaining that the person they admired, sometimes loved, was nothing but a monster driven by a manifest intention to make them suffer, to destroy them.

This trial of intent adds a layer of betrayal to the initial trauma. The victim, already weakened, can then become trapped in anger or the desire for revenge, a poor path to healing. Because they will never obtain a confession or recognition of a will to harm: for the narcissistic pervert, the problem has never been them, but always the other, the world, the universe. At no point did they intend to destroy; only to impose their own representation.

I spoke here in the masculine, but this dynamic concerns both men and women, on both sides.

Escaping the Trap of the Trial of Intent

Explaining is not excusing. I’ve gotten into the habit of making this distinction, essential for taking a step back and understanding a situation with more clarity. Explaining the behaviors and mechanisms that make me suffer has allowed me to see their consequences on me: anxiety attacks, anxiety, constant need to justify myself.

Recognizing that intention is often imaginary has helped me be more tolerant towards myself and others. I was able to let go of the guilt of having let myself be taken advantage of, and the anger that people voluntarily wanted to destroy me. Understanding that there was no intention to cause suffering allowed me to turn the page — sometimes with pity and compassion for my aggressor and their future victims — rather than chase after justice I would never obtain.

By stopping judging intention, I was able to focus on myself: understanding what had made these toxic relationships possible, learning to position myself, to refuse the unacceptable. Because contrary to what certain « specialists » claim, the narcissistic pervert doesn’t choose their victim with intention. The relationship establishes itself like a dance for two: on one side, a narcissistic person seeking the puppets of their ideal world; on the other, a victim seeking a puppeteer capable of giving substance to a life they consider inadequate.