Serial Killers As Narcissists By Zelda Knight: Article Analysis

In the first article, Some Thoughts on the Psychological Roots of the Behavior of Serial Killers as Narcissists: An Object Relations Perspective, written by Zelda Knight talks about serial killers and their upbringing with both their mother and father. Knight paid close attention to whether or not these serial killers were close with their parents as well as if they felt truly loved by them. Early on in the article Knight talks about how sometimes the fathers will be aggressive, or absent and the mothers will reject them, or be too smothering, etc. Also, it is mentioned that a lot of the time these serial killers are adopted or in some situations are sons of prostitutes. This article talked about two different types of serial killers; lust and thrill. A lust serial killer is one who fully plans the

whole murder out. They will figure out which weapons, stalking or abducting, and even continuing once the victim is dead. It was mentioned that they even eat their victim sometimes, which is completely horrifying. A thrill serial killer is one who want to get the most enjoyment out of the murder as possible. With that being said they will take their time and get the most out of it by killing. The difference between the two is that the lust serial killer enjoys the act even once the victim is dead while the thrill serial killer loses interest quickly after the victim is dead.
As mentioned above this article focused closely on the upbringing and nurture of these serial killers. There are two main tasks that each parent should take part in; encourage the child’s interest and provide a tremendous amount of support to the child. Just by doing these two things psychologists say that it can decrease the chance of the child having a psychological disorder later in life. It’s important to show the child that as their parent you will support them and encourage them to succeed as well as being involved with their hobbies and interest. It is hard for a child to grow up in a neglectful household and that can cause the child to develop psychological issues. Another big issue that was brought up in this article was narcissism in the infant. Narcissism can develop in two ways; being admired by their mother or being able to admire and idealize their father. In the article it is mentioned that the issue is these men feel empty to hide people from seeing that they cover it up using defense mechanisms to portray themselves as inferior. Essentially narcissism is a defense mechanism for those who experience low self-esteem.
The second article was, Emotional Loneliness in Sexual Murderers: A Qualitative Analysis, written Jack Milsom, Anthony Beech, and Stephen Webster talked about the depth of social isolation and emotional loneliness during their childhood as well as adulthood. In this study there were twenty-five men over the age of twenty one serving a life sentence. This article had mentioned the same characteristic of the first one when talking about murderers with sexual intent but in they added that there may have been a history of sexual abuse growing up. In some situations you either break the cycle or you unfortunately carry it on like some of these men. Another major characteristic is that they will most likely have had these fantasies early on in their childhood. Just like when murderer will torture animals early on because they are easier to control than a human at that age. Something that was very interesting was that a lot of these men had reported that they had very few relationships with women and if they did have any they were shallow and lacked depth.
In article two they examined two types of criminals; rapists and sexual murderers. To be considered a sexual murderer you had to have killed with sexual intent, meaning you performed a sexual act on the victim. While a rapist is the idea that you performed sexual acts on the victim but did not kill. They found that rapist actually had more past convictions for sexual crimes than the murderers. This could be due to the fact that the rapist isn’t killing and therefore they feel that have less consequence to worry about versus actually murdering the victim. The sexual murderers overall had experience more abuse as a child which could explain why they go through to kill the victim because they have almost been in that position many times themselves.
The last article was Sexual Murderer’ Implicit Theories, written by Anthony Beech, Dawn Fisher, and Tony Ward and was also about sexual murderers and rapists and their thought process while committing these acts. This study focused on twenty-eight criminals who were serving a life sentence and whether or not they knew the person they committed the crime on. The criminals reported on five things: dangerous world, male sex drive being uncontrollable, entitlement, women are sex objects, and women are unknowable. The sexual murderers said dangerous world because they blamed it on other people being untrustworthy and this when they would say that they were abused as a child. Male sex drive being uncontrollable was used to explain when they felt powerless, they said that when they killed it was external, and that they felt overwhelmed by their sexual fantasies and had to go through with it. Entitlement was used to explain their dominance as male figures. If they wanted sex they could have it because in most cases they were physically dominate over the women and it was the woman’s issue for arousing him. Going along with entitlement, women are often viewed as sex objects and this was the case for these criminals. They claimed that women should give them what they wanted and if the woman wasn’t interested he was force her. Lastly, women are unknowable was the most rare according to data. The men often blamed the women for failed relationships or assumed that they wanted to make life harder for men on a daily basis. Something that can be taken away from this study is that all of these criminals have the same mindset in which it wasn’t their fault. They all blame other people and specifically women for their actions and wrong doings.
As mentioned above, these crimes committed have involved sexual behaviors and intent.

We see this often in society when we hear of murders. A lot of the time these serial killers have experience pain of some sort in their childhood and it has led them here. They might not realize this, but it can be believed that these acts are unconsciously trying to get rid of their own sexual pain. A lot of time people use defense mechanisms to avoid the actual problem. People get pleasure from sexual intercourse and having control which could be why it is used during different crimes. Also with sexual intercourse there is often a more dominating person and that could be the control they never had. The serial killer could use that as a way to feel in control of something when they lack that feeling in their daily lives. They take their anger and frustration out from never fitting in or always feeling like the outcast while growing up. Some of the criminals have fantasies of domination and end up taking them out on others in real life. I do believe this is a disorder of some sort but it is also hard to understand how a person could ever do something so evil to another human

being.