Summary Of Analyzing The Sinner By Ted Bundy
1. Introduction This study provides the psychological/psychiatric theories and disorders employed to account for serial killing which include Freudian psychoanalytic and personality disorders of the serial murderers. This paper presents the exploration of the theories behind the phenomena and offers solutions consequently. The reason behind this selection of the topic is not the personal interests but to explore the issue of true crime which looked at the individual murderers and offered the explanations for the serial murders’ causative factors. Analyzing the Sinner as an investigative thriller is, just as Freud used to say, that the analysis of the human psyche through the conscious would be to look only at the tip of the iceberg. There is much more than the surface and some themes in the series that are less visible are exactly the concepts and references to Freudian psychoanalysis.
2. Psychoanalysis of a serial killer – Ted Bundy
According to the study of Cartwright (2014), Ted Bundy is an obnoxious and famous serial killer in the history of crime. He has been inspired by books, movies and articles. All of these articles, books and movies demonstrate the huge impact that he generated on society. The impact is seen as enormous because Bundy was capable to continue his …show more content…
personal life while he was murdering, raping and torturing brutally to his victims as the real sociopath. As describing the Ted Bundy’s personality is not an easy job since it has different traits, it is quite difficult to determine that Bundy has single personality disorder. He has many different symptoms which belong to different personality disorders (Farrell, 2017).
On the other hand, according to the Freud’s perspective, starting from Ocdipus complex, it is identified that Ted Bundy is in a very difficult way which impacted his personality in a serious way. His personality follows him all over his life like a black shadow. In Ocdipus Complex terminology, there are some emotions, impulses, fantasies and thoughts that feed against the counter-gender of the parent. This also eliminates the parent from his own gender. In accordance of Freudian psychoanalytic, first, love of the child shaped against their parents in their life. This is known as unconscious desire against the opposite gender parent for psychosexual development as the essential stage in Freud’s theory (Freeland, 2018).
In accordance of Messori (2016), Freud claims that the identification of the child is the successful resolution of the complex with same sex parent. This is due to which unsuccessful resolution of the complex might lead to expand the neurosis, sexual obsessions or kinds of sexual orientation disorder. In other words, in case of Ted Bundy, we can observe that he hadn’t resolved Ocdipus Complex which shows his aggression against the women.
This is because he couldn’t be capable to complete his identification with the same sex parent; he does not have his own mother and this is the reason he was not having any kind of object to direct sexual intention. His psychosexual development is known as Libido called by Freud. Ted Bundy was stuck at the stage which is known as “Phallic Stage”. This is the reason why he couldn’t pass the second stage of the Freud theory which is known as “Latent Stage”. Furthermore, he failed to finish his psychosexual development in a healthy way because he was stuck in Phallic stage (Miller, 2017).
Freud claimed that the psychotic behavior of the criminal arises from the inability to develop healthy connection between the superego and ego in a successful manner. Although, it is identified that the body suffering from sadistic torture is not normal because Bundy did not resolve the battle among superego and ego which might have lead to the lack of empathy as he probably felt nothing while he was murdering the people who became his victims. In accordance of the Freud’s theory, the outcome of the defective superego is to have the incapacity to feel affection, guilt and to learn from the experience.
According to the study of Patel (2015), it is identified that another Freudian terminology “Thanatos” is known as Death Drive. The development of Superego, according to Freud, occurs only around 3 to 5 years of age, when the rules of behavior imposed by the parents are incorporated by the child into his own psyche. From then on, he begins to judge his attitudes and regulate his behavior. The parallels with the theories of psychoanalysis and psychology as a whole are so many, and so well worked, that it is impossible to interpret them as mere coincidence. Sinner explicitly resorts to Freud's ideas to propose a deep journey into the human psyche, going through the main themes and concepts of his work, although on the surface it seems to be just another series of suspense (Reid, 2017).
This shows that Ted Bundy, towards the last years of his life, accepts the aggression after the sexual instinct or libido and sexuality as the second instinct of human being. Therefore, this generates Thanatos concept and puts it against the Eros as the second drive of human being. Freud mentioned that “Thanatos” can be a primary source of his libido that also drives his actions. It can be said that there are three dynamics that do not have healthy background and extreme imbalance among these basic components of the personality that generate the monster who can behave like an animal instead of acting like a human being (Secchi, 2015).
3. Single Personality disorder – Ted Bundy Ted Bundy was a psychopath who was suffering from the chronic mental disorder with violent or abnormal social behavior. People with this kind of disorder behave as if social regulations do not apply to them. These people always live in the present state, as there are none of the symptoms of any other mental disorders. According to Sigmund Freud, males try to reach the autonomy with their mom.
The unconscious personality development will influence the behavior for the rest of the life, according to Sigmund Freud. Also, on the other hand, Freud believes that human being develops three aspects of their personality early in life. These include the ego, id and the superego. According to the study of Smith (2016), majority of serial killers suffer from many disorders which do not have clinical diagnosis but permit the killer to charm and manipulate people without the burden of empathy. On the other hand, it is identified that some serial killers suffer from mental illnesses like bipolar disorder, schizophrenia or borderline personality disorder which affect the ability of the serial killer and tell them what is right or wrong.
The opening sequence of the face series already gives the hint. An animation that refers directly to the boards of the Rorschach Test and merges with the face of the main character gives us the indication that this will be a story about the mysteries of the unconscious and information stored in the depth of Cora Tanetti, a character played by Jessica Biel. Created by Swiss psychiatrist and psychoanalyst Hermann Rorschach is also known as "Ink Smear Test". It consists of the presentation of planks with spots of ink symmetrical for the examinee, which gives answers about what you see in these spots (Willmott, Boduszek and Robinson, 2017).
The answers are evaluated by the test applicator, which will use them to draw a picture of the individual's psychological dynamics.
The objective, therefore, is to get rid of the defense mechanisms of the examinee, reaching directly to the contents that cannot be accessed simply by the conscience of the individual. According to the study of Willmott et.al (2017), Ted Bundy committed lots of crimes ranging from homicide and rape to sexual acts and burglary on corpses. Before recapturing from the police, he escaped from custody after the nationwide search. He also lacked positive male role models and was known as charming, intelligent and handsome man graduated from college (Willmott et.al,
2017).
4. Personality disorders of serial murderers In the view of Secchi (2015), Andrei Chikatilo was diagnosed with borderline personality disorder and sadism where he sexually molested children than his activities into murder. On the other hand, John Wayne Gacy had antisocial personality disorder and maintained beatings as a boy from an alcoholic father. He also sustained his life as an adult. Jeffer Dahmer also had a borderline personality disorder as he seemed to be unlikely criminal. Although, they cause disproportionate amount of misery and pain all around the world, statistically, for few of the people, who were afflicted with mental disorders such as schizophrenia or personality disorder, had become killers. According to the medical experts and law enforcement specialists, they have established the fact that serial killers can be better understood because some of the things might lead to the normal person to kill the killer repeatedly (Secchi, 2015).
2. Psychoanalysis of a serial killer – Ted Bundy
According to the study of Cartwright (2014), Ted Bundy is an obnoxious and famous serial killer in the history of crime. He has been inspired by books, movies and articles. All of these articles, books and movies demonstrate the huge impact that he generated on society. The impact is seen as enormous because Bundy was capable to continue his …show more content…
personal life while he was murdering, raping and torturing brutally to his victims as the real sociopath. As describing the Ted Bundy’s personality is not an easy job since it has different traits, it is quite difficult to determine that Bundy has single personality disorder. He has many different symptoms which belong to different personality disorders (Farrell, 2017).
On the other hand, according to the Freud’s perspective, starting from Ocdipus complex, it is identified that Ted Bundy is in a very difficult way which impacted his personality in a serious way. His personality follows him all over his life like a black shadow. In Ocdipus Complex terminology, there are some emotions, impulses, fantasies and thoughts that feed against the counter-gender of the parent. This also eliminates the parent from his own gender. In accordance of Freudian psychoanalytic, first, love of the child shaped against their parents in their life. This is known as unconscious desire against the opposite gender parent for psychosexual development as the essential stage in Freud’s theory (Freeland, 2018).
In accordance of Messori (2016), Freud claims that the identification of the child is the successful resolution of the complex with same sex parent. This is due to which unsuccessful resolution of the complex might lead to expand the neurosis, sexual obsessions or kinds of sexual orientation disorder. In other words, in case of Ted Bundy, we can observe that he hadn’t resolved Ocdipus Complex which shows his aggression against the women.
This is because he couldn’t be capable to complete his identification with the same sex parent; he does not have his own mother and this is the reason he was not having any kind of object to direct sexual intention. His psychosexual development is known as Libido called by Freud. Ted Bundy was stuck at the stage which is known as “Phallic Stage”. This is the reason why he couldn’t pass the second stage of the Freud theory which is known as “Latent Stage”. Furthermore, he failed to finish his psychosexual development in a healthy way because he was stuck in Phallic stage (Miller, 2017).
Freud claimed that the psychotic behavior of the criminal arises from the inability to develop healthy connection between the superego and ego in a successful manner. Although, it is identified that the body suffering from sadistic torture is not normal because Bundy did not resolve the battle among superego and ego which might have lead to the lack of empathy as he probably felt nothing while he was murdering the people who became his victims. In accordance of the Freud’s theory, the outcome of the defective superego is to have the incapacity to feel affection, guilt and to learn from the experience.
According to the study of Patel (2015), it is identified that another Freudian terminology “Thanatos” is known as Death Drive. The development of Superego, according to Freud, occurs only around 3 to 5 years of age, when the rules of behavior imposed by the parents are incorporated by the child into his own psyche. From then on, he begins to judge his attitudes and regulate his behavior. The parallels with the theories of psychoanalysis and psychology as a whole are so many, and so well worked, that it is impossible to interpret them as mere coincidence. Sinner explicitly resorts to Freud's ideas to propose a deep journey into the human psyche, going through the main themes and concepts of his work, although on the surface it seems to be just another series of suspense (Reid, 2017).
This shows that Ted Bundy, towards the last years of his life, accepts the aggression after the sexual instinct or libido and sexuality as the second instinct of human being. Therefore, this generates Thanatos concept and puts it against the Eros as the second drive of human being. Freud mentioned that “Thanatos” can be a primary source of his libido that also drives his actions. It can be said that there are three dynamics that do not have healthy background and extreme imbalance among these basic components of the personality that generate the monster who can behave like an animal instead of acting like a human being (Secchi, 2015).
3. Single Personality disorder – Ted Bundy Ted Bundy was a psychopath who was suffering from the chronic mental disorder with violent or abnormal social behavior. People with this kind of disorder behave as if social regulations do not apply to them. These people always live in the present state, as there are none of the symptoms of any other mental disorders. According to Sigmund Freud, males try to reach the autonomy with their mom.
The unconscious personality development will influence the behavior for the rest of the life, according to Sigmund Freud. Also, on the other hand, Freud believes that human being develops three aspects of their personality early in life. These include the ego, id and the superego. According to the study of Smith (2016), majority of serial killers suffer from many disorders which do not have clinical diagnosis but permit the killer to charm and manipulate people without the burden of empathy. On the other hand, it is identified that some serial killers suffer from mental illnesses like bipolar disorder, schizophrenia or borderline personality disorder which affect the ability of the serial killer and tell them what is right or wrong.
The opening sequence of the face series already gives the hint. An animation that refers directly to the boards of the Rorschach Test and merges with the face of the main character gives us the indication that this will be a story about the mysteries of the unconscious and information stored in the depth of Cora Tanetti, a character played by Jessica Biel. Created by Swiss psychiatrist and psychoanalyst Hermann Rorschach is also known as "Ink Smear Test". It consists of the presentation of planks with spots of ink symmetrical for the examinee, which gives answers about what you see in these spots (Willmott, Boduszek and Robinson, 2017).
The answers are evaluated by the test applicator, which will use them to draw a picture of the individual's psychological dynamics.
The objective, therefore, is to get rid of the defense mechanisms of the examinee, reaching directly to the contents that cannot be accessed simply by the conscience of the individual. According to the study of Willmott et.al (2017), Ted Bundy committed lots of crimes ranging from homicide and rape to sexual acts and burglary on corpses. Before recapturing from the police, he escaped from custody after the nationwide search. He also lacked positive male role models and was known as charming, intelligent and handsome man graduated from college (Willmott et.al,
2017).
4. Personality disorders of serial murderers In the view of Secchi (2015), Andrei Chikatilo was diagnosed with borderline personality disorder and sadism where he sexually molested children than his activities into murder. On the other hand, John Wayne Gacy had antisocial personality disorder and maintained beatings as a boy from an alcoholic father. He also sustained his life as an adult. Jeffer Dahmer also had a borderline personality disorder as he seemed to be unlikely criminal. Although, they cause disproportionate amount of misery and pain all around the world, statistically, for few of the people, who were afflicted with mental disorders such as schizophrenia or personality disorder, had become killers. According to the medical experts and law enforcement specialists, they have established the fact that serial killers can be better understood because some of the things might lead to the normal person to kill the killer repeatedly (Secchi, 2015).