Jeffrey Dahmer A Serial Killer

In the aftermath of the horrific crimes of serial killers, psychologists attempt to analyze the defects in their personalities that make them commit these atrocities, in order to learn more about the human psyche and its dangerous potential. Jeffrey Dahmer, the “Milwaukee Cannibal” whose crimes were discovered in 1991, is a unique serial killer in his willingness to completely expose and explore the reasoning behind his crimes, which include the rape and murder of 17 men and boys, necrophilia, dismemberment and cannibalism. Dahmer’s honesty and exposition of his crimes have allowed psychologists the opportunity to explore his personality, and allowed them to break new ground in the exploration of the minds of serial killers.

Jeffrey Dahmer, a seemingly normal Midwestern man, harbored a dark obsession - strangling young, attractive men and boys, only to later dismember, have intercourse with, and consume parts of them. From the time Dahmer was 18 to when he was arrested at 31, he devised a system of luring men to his apartment (usually under the pretense of taking photos of them for money), crushing five sleeping pills in their drink, having various forms of sex with their unconscious bodies (as well as just cuddling), then strangling them to death. Once dead, Dahmer would have sex with the corpses, slowly dismember them and take photos of the various stages of dismemberment, and usually save a portion of them, ranging anywhere from their decapitated heads, skulls, skeletal remains, flesh from legs, biceps, etc. In his later crimes, he would consume the flesh meat he had saved. He also devised plans that never reached fruition, for an altar composed of skeletal remains and severed heads to sit at and reach a type of nirvana, and t...

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...sses ranging in the fields of forensics to human psychology. The mechanisms in his brain that allowed for such horrific crimes against humanity, and then his complete transparency in regards to the details of all of them, still puzzles and intrigues people. While Dahmer’s psyche can be explored from many theories, his own self-diagnosis proves quite profound: “maybe I felt I had no control as a child and a young adult, and that got mixed in with my sexuality, and doing what I did was my way of feeling in complete control, at least for that situation, creating my own little world where I had the final say” (“Confessions of a Serial Killer”). No matter how we choose to analyze him, from Freudian to modern DSM-recognized personality disorder thought, the mind of Jeffrey Dahmer will continue to remain a mystery to even those who knew him best, and to the victims of it.