In the previous two articles of this trilogy I explained how serial killers’ fixations in Freud’s psychosexual developmental phases led to the acting out of their fantasies on crime scenes. Yet the serial killers are not unique in developing subconscious sexual and aggressive fantasies, as Melanie Klein theorizes that all children could have them. Childhood sexuality is focussed on self-satisfaction, usually involving the erotogenic zone of a particular psychosexual developmental phase and it does not involve other people.
Most of us do not remember the sexual and aggressive fantasies we had as children, since most of these fantasies have been repressed to the subconscious and our incorporation of moral and ethical values have banished these fantasies as taboo.
Self-stimulation and accompanying sexual and aggressive fantasies are repressed during the latency phase, but can re-emerge as censored and subliminal, socially accepted versions during the genital phase, when they begin to involve partners. When adults act out their fantasies, which may centre around fetishes such as sado-masochism, the partners are consenting adults.
But not in the case of the serial killers. Firstly, their fantasies are not repressed. Since childhood and as and teenagers, serial killers remain consciously aware of these fantasies and secondly, when they act out their sexual fantasies, their victims are definitely not consenting adults. To the serial killer, they are merely objects. How can they be so unscrupulous? Freud’s theory on the topographical structure of the psyche, explains both these differences.
Freud’s theory on the topographical structure of the psyche: the id, ego and superego
Freud’s theory on the topographical structure of the psyche, postulates that every human being is born with an id. The id is located within the subconscious and contains the basic instincts, such as sex and aggression, directed at the preservation of the individual and the species. The id can be likened to the witches’ cauldron in Shakespeare’s Macbeth. It bubbles, toils and is full of trouble. Like an infant, it knows no time, no morality and cannot discern between good and bad. There is no logic or language in the id. The id operates on the pleasure principle and it wants all its needs satisfied immediately.
From the id develops the ego, the second structure. The ego is the executive manager of the psyche. It adheres to the reality principle and understands logic and it can communicate in language. The ego exists mainly within the conscious. Its main task is to act as negotiator between the id – the demanding infant -, the superego – the strict controlling parent -, and external reality. It has an ability to repress anything it finds threatening to its self-preservation to the subconscious.
Around six years of age, during the advent of the latency period, the superego, or conscience, develops as a result of an identification with the positive father role model and the incorporation of society’s norms and values. The child also goes to school and learns to socialize, to move from egocentric behaviour to community-based compassion. The child learns to extend the gratification of his needs. A simple example, at home a child can eat whenever he wants, but at school he has to wait until break when everyone eats and sharing his lunch with less fortunate is encouraged. A conscience or superego means consideration of other people and feeling guilty when we focus only on gratifying our own needs at the expense of exploiting others. Where the id says ‘yes’ to everything, the superego says ‘no’ to everything and it can be just as unrealistic in its demands on the ego as the id.
In a mature adult, the ego is the most well-developed structure, exercising executive functions and keeping the impulsive id and the punishing superego in hand, while still relating with reality. A trapeze artist’s balancing act.
The Id, Ego and Superego structure of the serial killer
However, the serial killer has a particularly strong and dominating id and consequently his ardent sexual and aggressive urges run wild. Due to several reasons, such as dysfunctional bonding with the mother, rejection and abuse or neglect he has a weak fragile ego. Furthermore, the serial killer had no positive father figure with whom to identify during the latency period and he did not manage the socialisation process at school, so he did not develop a superego, or developed only faint traces of a superego.
The particular fixation he experienced during any of the developmental phases germinates into a fantasy which becomes more defined and more conscious as the child becomes older. As a result of his weak ego and virtually non-existent superego and dominant id, these pervasive and invasive fantasies cause no anxiety to the ego and are therefore neither repressed nor are they sublimated into more acceptable versions.
All of us are the scriptwriters and directors of our own fantasies, and we never cast ourselves as the losers, but the serial killer’s absolute need for command extends to being omnipotent, or godly– the life or death of others are literally in his hands in his fantasy. As soon as the adult serial killer’s fragile ego and self-esteem are threatened by any form of rejection or pain in real life and the original childhood fixation is triggered, he feels compelled to act out this powerful fantasy where he is omnipotent in real life, which is the only way he perceives to restore the psychological homeostasis of recovering the shattered fragile ego. And there is no superego or conscience to inhibit or prevent him from acting out this fantasy.
Norman Simons, arrested as the Station Strangler exhibited traces of a conscience on one of the crime scenes where the little boy was perfectly redressed – his shirt was very neatly tucked into his school pants – yet it was revealed in the autopsy that he had been sodomised. The fact that the killer had redressed him was an attempt at ‘undoing’ the act – restoring the boy to the state he was in before he was sodomised. His conscience or superego was not strong enough though to prevent him from killing, or to motivate him to give himself up to the detectives in Mitchell’s Plain.
Stewart Wilken professed to feeling guilty about killing his own daughter Wuane, indicating a very, very slight conscience, but he was vehement in his hatred of the sex workers and showed absolutely no remorse. He also hid the bodies of the young boys whom he had sodomised and killed, who represented himself, indicating slight guilt feelings or shame, but he publicly displayed the bodies of the sex workers, wanting them to be found and shamed. Stewart’s wives both reported that there were times when he was very generous and kind-hearted, especially to children.
Passive-active role reversal
The last piece of the puzzle is: Why do serial killers feel compelled to repeat the acting-out of their fantasies and commit repetitive murders?
Freud’s theory on the passive-active role reversal can explain why a serial killer repeats what was done to him either directly or symbolically in order to master the trauma and why he will keep on repeating it until he gets it right. When we experience trauma, one way of resolving it is to reverse the passive-victim role into an active-mastering role, by identifying with the aggressor.
In his fantasy world a serial killer has set up a perfect mastering scenario but unfortunately, when he acts out the fantasy, something always goes wrong in reality, as people are not objects, or actors in a movie scene, where a director can call “take two” for a second shot at the scene. On the crime scene, there is only one shot. So, in his next fantasy, he improves, tweaks and recasts the victim hoping this time it will be perfect.
The passive-active role reversal process and compulsion to repeat the trauma also influences the serial killer’s idiosyncratic selection of victims. As noted he can either directly repeat what was done to him, and will then most likely choose victims who represent himself, or he may symbolically avenge his suffering, and will then be more likely to select victims who represent the original tormentor. Both Norman Simons and Stewart Wilken sodomised and killed boys who were the same age as they were when this happened to them. Symbolically they committed suicide when they killed the boys, for they were killing their childhood selves.
I was called to Stewart’s prison cell when he began hallucinating. Since Wilken was confined to a single prison cell, with no access to victims, he had reverted back to the passive role and he told me in his hallucinations he was being persecuted by his victims, especially his daughter and one little boy who was his neighbour, who had taken on the roles of active aggressors. Since Wilken was never able to master the trauma in his life, he is still caught up in the compulsion to repeat it, albeit this time as the victim once more. It would be extremely dangerous for the community if he is ever paroled or released.
Pistorius’ Theory in a Nutshell
It should also be clearly understood that I am not inferring that all people who were not breastfed or who fixated in one or more of the developmental phases are predestined to become serial killers. That would be preposterous! The developmental process of a serial killer is more complicated and insidious.
My theory proposes that to become a serial killer, a person must have fixated in one or more of Freud’s psychosexual developmental phases, which caused a fantasy to germinate in the subconscious. Secondly, this person must also have a fragile ego, virtually no superego and a domineering id, which means that the fantasy will not be inhibited nor repressed but will be acted out. No conscience develops during the latency period, for he did not socialize and therefore regards his victims as objects. Thirdly, the person’s fragile ego needs to feel threatened by some event in reality which causes a psychological imbalance. The psychological gain he receives from the murder is the restoration of the mental homeostasis, enhanced by the experience of sexual gratification. Not mastering the passive-active role reversal completely and the fact that reality is never as perfect as fantasy leads to repetitive murder. And that in a nutshell, is my signature theory on the origin of serial killers.
Top image: A painting of Zeus emasculating Cronus, circa. 1501 (Public Domain)
