The Pathology of an Unrelenting Stalker

Asahi Shimbun Morning Edition, March 27, 1999

A woman, unable to withstand the stress of relentless letters and phone calls, being followed everywhere she went, silent calls, and constant, excessive proximity, fled the country fearing for her life. After finding a good partner and returning to Japan, she was confronted by the man with the question, “Why did you marry someone you didn’t even love?” This reignited her fear, and she began seeing a psychiatrist.

“Stalk” means “to stealthily creep up on prey to catch it,” like a predator. In the United States, a developed country where mental illnesses are openly addressed, a significant number of stalking cases go to court every year. Under anti-stalking laws, restraining orders prohibiting contact with victims are increasingly issued.

Stalking can escalate from following, eavesdropping, and threats, to assault or even rape. In the 1993 American film Stalking Laura, Brooke Shields portrayed the terror experienced by a woman being pursued. In Japan as well, the TV drama Stalker: Love You Can’t Escape garnered widespread attention.

According to forensic psychiatry journals in the U.S., stalkers can be broadly classified into two types: those with delusional disorders, primarily erotic delusions, and those with borderline personality disorder. However, stalking targets are not limited to members of the opposite sex.

The 1996 American film The Fan depicted a chilling scenario in which Robert De Niro plays a man who, upset that a professional baseball player does not appreciate his fandom, kidnaps the athlete’s son and demands that the player hit a home run and express gratitude to him.

Stalkers are extremely self-centered and interpret the other person’s reactions only in ways that are convenient for themselves. Even when the object of their obsession changes, the new target tends to resemble the previous one in personality or profession. They often engage in destructive, manipulative, and conspiratorial behavior. Because they lack the ability to assess reality accurately, rehabilitation is exceedingly difficult.

In romantic relationships, people sometimes succumb to persistent, intense one-sided affection, or the pursued may even develop feelings for the pursuer. This makes the pathology of stalking difficult for third parties to understand, and the emotional burden on the victim tends to be very heavy.