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Social context in child development
Freud theory of psychodynamic development
Freud theory child development and how does it link to current practice
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As we examine the Eric’s and Dylan’s life before the mass murder, we can see several points within their lives which may have had influenced them to which they felt isolated and victimized by society. In order to properly apply the psychodynamic perspective, we must start as early as we can. We must look at the relationships between the child and parents. We must focus on the psychosexual difficulties each one of them experienced. Then we must see how they coped with these urges as they aged. With so little information provided, it may be difficult to substantially apply Freudian perspectives, but I do see some areas which may have contributed to their world view and behaviors. First, let’s examine Eric Harris. Eric was a shy young child who grew up in a military family which moved around constantly. This made it difficult to make and keep friends. His father was also a strict authoritarian parent who ruled over the family without compromise or discussion. His mother was a dedicated military wife and a stay at home parent. This is just a short synopsis of a military brat. I was a military brat, moving from town to town and had difficulties making and maintaining friendships. Unlike me, though, something happened to Eric to affect him in such a way, he would commit a mass murder and then kill himself. I think one …show more content…
Eric may have felt rejected to some extent from society and certain aspects of schooling and Dylan may have been embarrassed and humiliated from the high school environment. In order to protect their ill developed ego, they lashed out at their surroundings through fantasies, then planning and carrying out a plan to kill those who rejected and humiliated
The minds of these killers prove to be nothing short of fascinating to thousands of people. While many might read this book and see two cold-blooded teenagers that killed their peers for fun, there is definitely some gray area concerning whether or not the youngest killer, named Dylan Klebold, should
Juxtaposing Dylan’s and Eric’s personality traits defies the readers’ expectations. Cullen first uses opposing language to focus on the boys’ conflicting views on the attack. Dylan, Cullen argues, visualized the attack as an escape from reality: he didn’t plan to follow through with it, simply fantasizing about a single attack. Eric, however, truly wanted to destroy everyone. Later, this contrast becomes more prevalent when Cullen remarks, “Eric launched a new charm offensive… he worked his ass off to excel. Dylan didn’t even try to impress Andrea” (258-259). The decision to place the sentences consecutively helps the readers gain insight into the killers’ minds before the attack. By starkly contrasting the murderers’ thoughts, it corrects the misconception that they targeted specific groups of people because they were bullied outcasts. Instead, the readers realize, Eric was quite charming. There was no specific “hit list”, as the media hypothesized, rather the killers planned to murder
Harris was “the callously brutal mastermind” while Klebold was the “quivering depressive who journaled obsessively about love and attended the Columbine prom three days before opening fire” (Columbine High School, History). On an article published by Cullen on Slate.com, it reveals the true motivation and meaning behind the actions of Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold.
...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.
Craig Scott was just 16 years old when he crowded underneath a desk with his two friends while classmates, Eric Harris, 18, and Dylan Klebold, 17, acted out a real-life version of a Hollywood scene of ruthless murder, shouting lines from their favorite movie while gunning down kids and teachers in the corridors of Columbine High. Craig remembers the shouting and laughter of the shooters as they burst into the library armed with sawed-off shotguns, a handgun and a 9mm semi-automatic carbine. Craig recalls how his friends were both shot, one slumped dead on either side of him, their blood soaking into his clothes. Inexplicably, Craig was uninjured, physically at least. “I was experiencing so much fear I thought my heart was going to stop beating,” he recalls (Day, 2009). Later, Craig would learn how his sister was gunned down while eating lunch on the lawn. Rachel, 17, died instantly, the first of 13 victims of mass violence who lost their lives that day in the, now infamous, massacre known simply as “Columbine.” Speaking at an event marking the tenth anniversary of that terrorizing violence, Craig says he is still reliving the horror, “…going through it…over and over again” (Day, 2009). Craig echoes the reality faced by all victims of violent trauma, and particularly those of mass violence; “My life changed that day” (Day, 2009). Victims of violent trauma face many challenges, both immediately following the initial event and long-term. Though the extent of recovery varies for individuals and may include physical, emotional, and financial trauma, victims of violence often struggle with management of the psychological impact of their experience. Like Craig, many victims of mass violence find coping with the impact of trauma chall...
Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris were very intelligent; they each came from solid homes with a loving mother and father, and they had older brothers as well. In school, Klebold and Harris had each competed in sports like baseball and soccer. They also enjoyed operating computers for fun.
They walked around school saluting people as Adolf Hitler once did. They also started their own website where Eric used the nickname, "Reb," and Dylan's nickname, "Vodka". The site was filled with violent rants against anyone and everyone that Harris disliked or thought had done him wrong. On this site, the two teens began to plot their attack on their school. They learned how to make bombs and other types of guns, to which he shared on his website. One of Dylan's other friends helped him get three guns and reported got another gun from someone at the pizza place the boys worked at. The pair made several videos of themselves talking about them shooting the students and Dylan said "I hope we kill 250 of you." The shooting is what they referred to as "Judgement Day." They hoped to kill hundreds hoping to achieve their vengience against the people they hated. Their plan took about a year until they were satisfied with it. Adding to Eric's rage was not only the people at his school, but for the Marine Corps Administration because they rejected him because of his psychiatric medication. Eric was taking Luvox for his
Watching this tragic documentary left me with a lot of questions. I can relate this documentary to more than one theory that I have learned in class, but I think the best theory that explains what I saw is the Psychological School of Criminology. This documentary is a vivid picture of how a person’s life can devastate them psychologically and turn them into something deplorable. According to the Psychological School of Criminology crime results from inappropriate conditioned behavior or abnormal, inappropriate or dysfunctional mental processes stemming from the personality. Defective or abnormal mental processes have a variety for causes including a diseased mind, inappropriate learning, or inadequate conditioning, usually in early childhood. This theory best fits with the documentary of Aileen: The life and death of a Serial Killer. All the mental or psychological damage was done to her during her childhood. All that made an impact on her to the point where she has no self-respect.
“Kill me, please. I can’t believe I did that.” These were the chilling words of Michael Carneal, a fourteen year old boy who massacred a group of students in a prayer circle at his school (Johnson). Many cases of school shootings show students distressed and sometimes incapacitated by certain mental diseases that cause them to lose conscious control of their actions, such as Carneal who was later diagnosed with schizophrenia (Johnson). Many more cases however, are perpetrated by students suffering from severe depression or extreme psychosis. Nine out of ten shooters surveyed were depressed and/or experiencing suicidal thoughts (Toppo). “Research shows that people who carry out school shootings are usually social outcasts, full of rage, and show little signs of remorse or regret during their crimes,” (Johnson). One of the most famous school shootings was the 1999 massacre at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado, in which 15 people were killed and 24 injured by two high school students (Timeline of Shootings). One of the shooters, Dylan Klebold, was later discovered to be a severely depressed and miserable youth, whereas his partner Eric Harris was discovered to be a psychopath with a strong superiority complex and need for control (Toppo).
...o wrestle, liked to run around, ham it up for the camera, and he liked to play with kids and get together with them,” (“Serial Killers). Jeffrey Dahmer had been a normal child until his family moved three times in a short period of time. Afterwards Dahmer’s parents noticed that he had become shy and antisocial. Scientists argue that Dahmer’s genes and brain activity prove why he is a psychopath while psychologists argue that the external factor of moving from town to town is the cause. Though many humans must deal with violent situations and experience horrific events everyday for most of us it does not alter our attitudes and personalities to be mass murderers. All in all, it is true that many children who are victims of abuse become violent in their adult lives but to cross into the category of a serial killer one must be born with a different biochemical makeup.
Kip Kinkel and Michael Carneal have many factors in common, as well as many factors that they do not share between one another. The timing of the shootings were very close in range, Michael’s incident took place in 1997 and Kip’s barley a year later, in 1998. Both of the young men suffered from some form of psychological disorder, for Kip it was Major Depressive Disorder and in Michaels case, Paranoid Schizophrenia. Mental health concerns were present in both boys but as one can imagine the manifestation of these two disorders are entirely different. Because of Kip’s dyslexia he struggled academically, however Michael was a good student and kept good grades. This is an area where the boys had contrasting issues, but with school comes bullies, which was the case for the two. Due to their smaller size both boys encountered bullying while at school. But the outcome from the bullying is different in the two cases, Kip would retaliate and had quite the record of disciplinary problems, while Michaels record was clean.
Psychodynamic therapy, focuses on unconscious mind and how past experiences, inner thoughts, fears, and emotions The main goal of psychodynamic therapy is for clients to be self-aware of the past and how it effects who they are in the present. This type of therapy focuses on the underlying problems and emotions that influenced the client’s behavior. (Psych Central, 2016)
The psychodynamic theory encompasses both Freud and Erikson. Freud believed the three components of personality were the id, the ego, and the superego. The id is responsible for all needs and urges, while the superego for ideals and moral. The ego moderates between the demands of the id, the superego, and reality. However, Erikson believed that personality progressed through a series of stages, with certain conflicts arising at each stage. Success in any stage depended upon successfully overcoming these conflicts. The advantage to psychodynamic is that it encompasses the individual, meaning that the theory looks at personality from childhood all the way into adulthood. The disadvantages of this theory are that it cannot be tested validly. Therefore,
Based off of this module, Dylan’s criminal behavior could be explained by Bandura’s social learning theory. Dylan is imitating and modeling the behavior that he was so fond of as a child living in an environment of family violence and abuse. Furthermore, the article states that he was “placed under the guardianship of the state when he was 11” and also that he “was lavished with weekends spent in hotels, at bowling alleys and at movie theatres” (Edwards, 2016). Other very important statements that followed were that he “was being rewarded for his bad behavior”, as “he knew the carers didn’t care and knew they’d give him all this free stuff for being naughty” (Edwards, 2016). After reading the article, it seems like both Bandura and Skinner’s theories apply to Dylan’s behavior. Dylan both witnessed (which is indirect) and experienced violence directly. With Skinner’s concept of operant conditioning, Dylan’s bad behavior was reinforced by the lavish weekends described. As such, he wasn’t receiving punishment for his bad behavior throughout his childhood, so violence and aggression was probably the most relevant model he knew how to imitate, as it was being reinforced as well. Dylan lacked guidance and lacked
According to Scott Anderson interview with Greg Ousley, the reason why young people commit crimes is because the environment that they live in. “I had been thinking about killing them every time I get mad,” he told his interrogator. “They don’t seem to understand me.” Indicative of either his youth or his mental state at that moment, Greg made a forlorn request of the detective: “Please don’t tell my family” (Anderson). Today teenagers are being abuse from their parents and are living in a negative homes and hanging out with misleading friends. The author of this article gives the main issue of the massacre which is his youth and mental anger issues. This states that the main problem is the lifestyle with his parents. Likewise in the article “Kids are Kids-Until They Commit Crimes” have a similarity about why their growth are not fully mature. It is a vexing question these days for under-eighteen crowd, the group we routinely write off as “only kids.” It’s why they can’t smoke, or drink, or go to R Movies without our OK. It’s is why they don’t vote. It’s why they have curfews. It’s why we fret over their Internet access and fuss about driving privileges” (Lunderstorm 45). Teenagers have restrictions about what they should not do every day in their lives. With this mindset, teenager have no other way, but to commit crimes to satisfy their needs and wants life. The reason why is since teenagers do not understand that they are committing crimes is because of their deficiency on thinking about the consequences and their actions. The reality is that juveniles are unintelligible on the decisions they