Group two - week 3 : Psychology of Criminality

 "Evil is a religious concept, it's not a science concept" Forensic Psychiatrist Dorothy Lewis, M.D... The quote stated is one of my many favorites worded by Dorothy Lewis in the documentary Crazy, "Not Insane" which brings a new perspective on how people initially view serial killers. As a psychology major, I have always been interested in the world of what makes people necessarily tick and what triggers people to complete an immoral act, and others not so much. Dr. Lewis even states at the beginning of the documentary that she has had similar thoughts as she has wondered when reaching a point of anger why some people kill and others don't. What is separating the two from feeling the emotion and acting on it? After a while of watching the documentary there begins to be a noticeable pattern of how such distinct serial killers came to be. At first, it was theorized that people were sometimes just crazy until the continuous research into one's family history changed that theory. Dr. Lewis was able to come to the conclusion that people who were continuously neglected and abused as children were more likely to commit acts of violence on the grounds of homicide. People who were also neglected and abused in childhood also have developed multiples also known as Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID). These multiples developed were made by the patient when they were younger during their troubled times of nurture in order to help spare the bearing weight of the painful moments they underwent. Proof of another personality being in the patient is looking at their entire family background from how they were raised, how they talked to people if they had different handwriting, all of this ties into if they had another person doing the acts for them or telling them do it which goes back to denying the process of calling someone evil as they weren't originally that way, but instead something made them out to be. A close example of a case that ties into the neglect and abuse of children and what it does to them down the line is the infamous case of the Menendez Brothers. If not familiar with the case, two brothers one day killed their parents in their family home in Beverly hills with no immediate cause or reason behind it. It was shocking to the nation to hear about two young men who appeared to have everything from family and friends, to wealth, and to a great future ahead of them. They did not originally paper as suspects for the murder as it didn't make sense to anyone else for it to be them until they started to get really messy and excited with their spending from the new money they received from the death of their parents. The spending made them suspects and soon the conclusion of them being behind the murders was confirmed. In court, the brothers were not trying to get out of their sentence completely, but rather explain why they did what they did which soon came out to be that both of their parents had sexually abused them from childhood to young adulthood. As far as I know, they did not have DID or any mental disorders that would have unconsciously carried out the horrendous acts for them. Still, it goes to prove that the conclusion Dr. Lewis made of there being a connection between the foul way of being nurtured can lead to a life of bringing harm to others. The reading that was assigned that caught my eye was "From abused child to serial killer: investigating Nature vs Nurture in methods of murder" by Nicola Davies as it continues to confirm everything that is believed to form a serial killer as personal traumas can affect behavioral choices and can make an impact of decisions made down the line as not all abused children become serial killers, and not all serial killers were once abused. I really enjoyed this week's topic as the topics of psychology and philosophy bring my brain to points of thinking I love to observe and figure out as it is very satisfying learning about other people's different thought processes.