I read a story some years ago (probably about 35) in an monthly sci-fi anthology...
It's set in a prison. The main character is a psychopath who has sessions with a psychiatrist - in these sessions he always blames a person in his earlier life for his condition: uncle, father, mother, sibling... each time returning to his cell - time travelling to his earlier life and killing that person...
Example: He blames his father for leading him into bad ways - goes back in time and kills his father. Next session he blames his mother (and the fact that he grew up with no father in his life) - goes back in time and kills his mother. Next session he blames a carer (and the fact that he grew up an orphan) etc...
The story had a very clever dénouement, which is hidden in a spoiler section below.
I would love to read this again - any ideas?
Edited to add: I hope I have explained the format sufficiently - the point is, the psychiatrist helps him to identify where he began to go off the rails and who in his life was responsible. Later when he is alone in his cell he goes back in time (the mechanism for this is not explained - it's as if he can will himself to go to that time) and kills the person identified as responsible.
When he attends his next session: his reality, his history, is different so another person has to be identified as the cause of his problems... the story has a Groundhog Day feel to it...
The final paragraph, the end of the story, has him
sitting once again in front of the Psychiatrist and as if it is suddenly dawning on him he looks up slowly, 'realising' that all his problems started when he first came to see this psychiatrist! Thus leaving the reader in no doubt who will die when he later travels back in time to just before his first session with the psychiatrist...
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