This article is the second of a trilogy series on my signature theory on the origin of serial killers. In brief, in the first part I discussed how fixations in one or more or Freud’s psychosexual developmental phases plant the seeds of sexual and aggressive fantasies in a serial killer, which are then acted out on a crime scene. I discussed the oral and anal phases and one of Freud’s followers, Melanie Klein’s theory on the contents of these preverbal fantasies. To continue I am discussing the remaining phases, namely the Oedipus, latency and genital phases.
The Phallic Phase
Oedipus was a mythical Greek King who inadvertently killed his father and married his mother, and was so wrecked with guilt that he struck out his own eyes and wandered ancient Greece as a blind beggar. Freud named his composed theory of a son’s sexual attitude towards his mother and hostility towards his father, after Oedipus.
Parents may become concerned when their boys between the ages of four to six become very attached to their mothers and act aggressively towards their fathers. This is a natural phase for boys and parents often misinterpret the child’s behaviour. In a natural development, they grow out of it by six years of age.
According to Freud’s theory on the psycho-sexual development of children, the Oedipus or phallic phase, existing from approximately four to six years, is a most interesting phase when the little boy subconsciously falls in love with his mother and harbours subconscious sexual fantasies towards her, and at the same time he hates his father and harbours subconscious aggressive fantasies towards him.
During the phallic phase children begin to show a natural curiosity in the difference between the genders’ genitals – the show-me-yours-and-I-will-show-you-mine curiosity. The little boy discovers that the little girl has no penis and he cannot fathom that she was actually born without that particular pride and joyous genital – it’s missing! He subconsciously perceives her to be castrated and consequently fears castration himself. If it happened to her, it could happen to him.
A fixation in the phallic phase occurs when a boy triumphs over his father in the battle for his mother’s affection – many women prefer their sons over their husbands and overtly shower them with affection and attention, while excluding the husband completely. Many mothers do not realize the castrating effect they have upon their teenage sons, by still referring to them in diminutive terms or childish nicknames, especially in front of their friends and girlfriends.
A fixation can also occur when the boy experiences himself psychologically castrated either by the father or the mother. In his fantasy, the father might castrate him for coveting his wife and the mother might castrate him by rejecting his adoration for her.
At the end of this period, around six years of age, the little boy decides it is wiser to identify with his father and forfeit his mother as a desired object, in order to grow into manhood and marry his own wife. As a result of this identification with the father and the fact that the boy is old enough to go to school and socialise, a conscience, or superego as Freud called it, develops.
A South African serial killer who fixated in the Oedipus phase was the Cape Town Prostitute Killer. The suspect we arrested admitted to me that he had slept in his mother’s bed until his teenage years. He was her preferred ‘penis carrier’. However, he lost the battle for his mother’s affection and felt psychologically castrated by her rejection when she took many male lovers to her bed. He developed an erectile dysfunction disorder and symbolically compensated for this castration anxiety by shoving a bottle up the vagina of one of his victims, thus literally giving her the missing penis. Seeing the ‘penis’ inside the woman alleviated his fear of losing his own penis.
Mhlengwa Zikode, the Donnybrook serial killer, also fixated in the Oedipus phase. He raped his victims and thereafter immediately shot them, leaving their bodies in their huts with no attempt at concealing them or the crime. One victim was outstanding as she was left naked, spreadeagled in a remote part of the forest. Her face was disfigured, and little bits of tinder were inserted in her private parts. The crime scene spoke of a boy’s curiosity about female genitalia – the show-me-yours-phase, typically of the Oedipus phase.
Mglengwa’s father was paralysed and as a boy he won the favour of both his mother and his older and only sister, who was his primary caretaker. He had a symbiotic relationship with both these women and could never really succeed in differentiating his own personality from theirs. His fixation in the Oedipus phase manifested in his selection of victims. They represented his sister, who had abandoned him when he was ten years old. He was very angry at her. The female victims were mostly women in the prime of their lives, except for the little girl who happened to be present when Mhlengwa raped her mother. Only the last three victims were in their forties and fifties, indicating that subconsciously his anger had shifted from his sister to his mother.
The Latency Phase
The latency phase exists from the ages of approximately six to 12 years, beginning at the time when the boy is sent off to school. All sexual thoughts and subconscious fantasies from the previous phases are repressed as the boy concentrates on socialising, developing empathy for others, sharing, incorporating moral and ethical values and thus developing his internal conscience or superego. In previous articles I have discussed how being ostracised or bullied by other children can impair the structural integrity of the cingulate cortex in the brain responsible for developing a moral code for caring and compassion.
A fixation could occur when the conscience develops too strongly, in which case the boy will develop into an adult who is tortured by feelings of guilt, because he just cannot measure up to the standards of the ‘ideal self’ set up by the internalized voice of his parents (conscience), but this is not the profile of a serial killer.
A fixation in the latency phase would mean the boy fails to socialise and empathise, and the primitive sexual and aggressive fantasies are not repressed, they remain conscious. He also fails to develop a conscience and fails to develop compassion. Thus there is no internal inhibiting force to prevent him from acting out his fantasies. The more he rehearses them in his mind, the more they become acceptable and normal to him. A serial killer is in the making at the age of 12 years!
Genital Phase
During the genital phase, spanning the teenage years, hormones reemerge, and the boy becomes sexually orientated again, but this time he seeks a sexual relationship with an appropriate partner and he has another chance at resolving issues resulting from fixations which developed during the previous phases.
Children are very sexually orientated during the first three phases and self-stimulation is a natural occurrence and a way for them to explore their bodies. During the genital phase it is directed at giving and receiving pleasure with another person.
Mhlengwa Zikode also had another fixation that spanned the latency and genital phase. Because he was only sent to school at 14 years of age and had no contact with any peers, or females besides his mother and sister for that matter until that age, he had a retarded Oedipus phase which lasted until his 14th year.
When he was eventually sent to school Mhlengwa had to mentally confront the latency phase – supposedly a non-sexual phase – while his body was entering the very sexual genital phase. He was developmentally retarded in comparison to his peers and did not have any social skills regarding the forming of friendships or relationships.
His father, being paralysed was not a factor during his life and his brothers had also left home, so he had no father figure role model with whom he could identify. Since he skipped going to school during the latency phase, he was deprived of learning to develop any capacity for compassion, so Mhglengwa never developed a superego or conscience – blatantly obvious on his crime scenes.
He told me it was his sister’s fault that he committed the murders for she failed in her duty to secure girlfriends for him and it was his mother’s duty to apologise to the families of the victims.
Next week in the final article of the trilogy, I will continue discussing my signature theory on the origin of serial killers, by expanding on Freud’s theory on the development of the Id, Ego and Superego, as well as his theory on the passive-active role reversal.
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Top image: Oedipus taking leave of the body of his Queen, by Édouard Toudouze (1871) Beaux-Arts de Paris
