A REFINED DEFINITION OF SEXUALLY MOTIVATED SERIAL MURDER
Serial murder has been defined earlier in this article, however, it is necessary to further refine this definition if the focus is on sexually motivated serial murder.
This means that such a definition should include motivation and the essential character of serial sexual murder. The author proposes that such a refined definition may be:
Sexually motivated serial murder is the killing of three or more victims over a period of more than 30 days, with a significant cooling-off period.
The sexual nature of the crime, which may – or may not – be explicit, is perverse and sadistic and reflects an aggression that is particularly destructive, pathological and rooted in violent fantasies that
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Shadowed by the influence of Ellis (1898) Freud
(1910) presented his first ideas on the social psychology of narcissism which were later elaborated on in his 1914 seminal paper On Narcissism. Of relevance to this paper, he noted that “the self-regard has a very intimate connection with the narcissistic libido”(Freud, 1914, p. 98). This point would later become the crux of all subsequent psychoanalytic work that defined narcissism as a pathological lack of self-esteem defended against by compensatory grandiosity (Ivey, 1989).
Object relations theorists suggest that there are a group of people in whom the main problem appears to be a disturbance of their self-regard in connection to a specific disturbance in their object relations. Within the object relations perspective, the development of the self is seen as dependent on preoedipal childhood experiences of caretakers (Fairbairn, 1949, 1952; Kohut, 1971, 1977;
Winnicott, 1945, 1963). Summers (1999) outlines two significant tasks
The sentencing of underage criminals has remained a logistical and moral issue in the world for a very long time. The issue is brought to our perspective in the documentary Making a Murderer and the audio podcast Serial. When trying to overcome this issue, we ask ourselves, “When should juveniles receive life sentences?” or “Should young inmates be housed with adults?” or “Was the Supreme Court right to make it illegal to sentence a minor to death?”. There are multiple answers to these questions, and it’s necessary to either take a moral or logical approach to the problem.
Whether it is Jeffrey Dahmer, John Wayne Gacy, Ted Bundy, and person of the like, you may have a bad feeling about them due to their ill past. This is not due to an inner judgment of the person on your part, more than likely it is the media that has skewed your views of a serial killer. The news media is just playing their role in society and that is to inform people but they do so in a way that frightens people into coming back to view the media that they produce. The other types of media such as movies, television shows, radio stations, and books also portray serial killers as monsters to entertain people. Although it may be a great way to entertain and inform people, it is not the least bit true and gives serial killers a worse image by labeling them as monsters.
Have you ever wondered what could cause a person to kill another person? How they could do it time and time again and not feel one ounce of regret? Serial killer Joel Rifkin asked himself this same question after he was convicted of killing 17 women. He wondered why he could commit such a violent act, and he decided to have scientist explore his brain to give him the answers that he wanted. Dr. Daniel Amen examined Joel’s brain scans, “When I looked at Joel Rifkin’s scan, I thought to myself, this is a brain that is vulnerable to violence. He had low activity in his prefrontal cortex that most human thoughtful part of the brain” ("Joel Rifkin - Psychopathic Brain"). Joel is not alone on this, 13 out of every 20 serial killers that have been
A killer is not born. A killer is made. However, we are all born with the potential to kill, and any one of us can be made into a killer. It might take a lot to drive us to murder, but some people are simply more susceptible to the idea than others. People tend to believe that serial killers are mentally ill individuals, however, more often than not, they are rational beings who have suffered tremendously. Often, we cannot tell who is a serial killer. It could be the person standing next to you, and you would not have the slightest indication. Serial killers are shaped by isolation from their peers, neglect from loved ones or caregivers, and copious amounts of physical and psychological abuse as children.
What drives a person past insanity? What drives an individual to feel no remorse, but rather a psychological relief in murderous acts? Consider all the different types of people on Earth as well as the lifestyles and situations these people are raised up in. As much as it’s desired to think the world is filled with people who carry no such thing as a bad bone in their bodies, that thought process is simple deception. The fact is that psychopaths and sociopaths hide among others in everyday environments - neighbors, teachers, family members, doctors, friends, or even the local mailman. Psychopaths are declared as people who suffer from a mental disorder causing aggression and abnormal behaviors such as their “lack of
By definition, a serial killer is ‘an individual who murders more than three victims, one at a time during a relatively short interval’, but is it possible to define the reasons and motives behind these attacks? One of the most intriguing aspects of crime throughout the years has been focused on serial killers. What makes a serial killer tick? There is not any one, straightforward answer as to what motivates individuals to commit murder. “Unravelling the making of a serial killer is like aligning a Rubik's cube”.
Of course as a society we condemn people for being serial killers. But what we forget is that there’s still a human being behind that thick shell. We as a society think that serial killers are horrible, so we put them on trial; we put them in jail, death row. But would you think of them any differently if it were father, your neighbor, or some one you went to school with? Robert Maudsley was a British serial killer born in Toxteth, United Kingdom. There are a few nicknames that you might know him as, some called him blue, then others began to know him as spoons but the one that stuck was Hannibal Cannibal. You are probably wondering how I got these nicknames. They called Maudsley blue because that was the color John Farrell’s face turned as he slowly strangled him, he was Robert Maudsley’s first victim
Ressler, Robert K., Ann W. Burgess, and John E. Douglas. Sexual Homicide - Patterns and Motives. Lexington, MA: Heath, 1988.
Ever wondered if there is a serial killer in your community? The characteristics of a serial killer may shock you or be surprisingly familiar to some of you. It is important for society to get informed about the various types of serial killers that are out there. It is essential for families to educate their children about strangers, to be careful with everyone they encounter on the streets, store, and even in their neighborhoods. A serial killer is defined as a person who murders three or more people in at least three separate events, with a "cooling-off period" between the kills. The big question is, what makes a person do these atrocious killings? We will analyze personal histories, categorized serial killers,
Rebecca Webber’s “The Real Narcissist,” explains how narcissism is often mischaracterized to label people we find unfavourable or happen to upset us, when it is actually a trait that helps a person view themselves in more positive light. She uses a clear, persuasive voice and takes an ethical approach with logical explanations to help distinguish the differences between healthy narcissism and pathological narcissism, and the potential causes of the actual disorder. Referring to certified experts and real-life, situational examples to assist her claims, Webber does an adequate job in solidifying her points. However, as she progresses through her article, she only relies on professionals to speak on the behalf of narcissists, without considering to use the
Robins, R.W., Tracy, J.L., Shaver, P.R. (2001). Shamed into Self-Love: Dynamics, Roots, and Functions of Narcissism. Psychological Inquiry, 12(4), 230-236.
Brenna Courtemanche Professor Crombie ENC 1102 4 April 2014 The Mind of Serial Killers There is no specific manual or "how to" book to depict what a serial killer would potentially act or look like. It would be comforting if real-life serial killers were like those in the movies. If they were obviously masked like Jason on Friday the 13th, we would be aware whenever they approached. If they were introverted loners like Psycho's Norman Bates, they could not trick us so easily into their deviant plan.
Robbins & Judge (2009) describe narcissism as an individual “who has a grandiose sense of self-importance, requires excessive admiration, has a sense of entitlement, and is arrogant.” Poet Tony Hoagland brought up a valid observation in the textbook about the American culture
In the 1970’s, Robert Ressler, who was the previous director of Violent Criminal Apprehension Program with the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), coined the term “serial killer”. He did so because when he was a child, the police in England used to refer to murders such as this as “crimes in a...
Following the publication of the book The Analysis of the Self, Heinz Kohut created a revolutionary theory to represent a new branch of psychoanalysis: self-psychology (O'Leary, Trumpeter, Watson, & Weathington, 2008). The idea of self-psychology is based on a series of adaptations made within adolescence following a general pattern. Firstly, the child must develop the “self”, which consists of the child’s feelings and thoughts on the surrounding environment. Born with a “nuclear self”, children are exposed to a “virtual self” presented by the parental figures. To achieve proper stability and structure, children need to first become narcissistic to develop a sense of worth and permanence, giving way to the “grandiose self” (Banai, Mikulincer, & Shaver, 2005). Kohut proposed the idea of adaptive narcissism (positive) and maladaptive narcissism (negative), two forms of the same narcissistic tendencies (O'Leary, Trumpeter, Watson, & Weathington, 2008).