Various psychological disorders and behaviors such splitting, stalking, Multiple personality disorder and serial sexual killing have been identified. People with psychological disorders and behaviors exhibit various characteristics that show they have a problem. The focus of this paper will be on splitting, multiple personality disorders, free will and finally whether human beings are wired for trouble.
Splitting refers to a mechanism in which a person is imbued with good and bad characteristics. The good and the bad exist simultaneously in a person albeit separately stored from each other. The two sides coexist simultaneously as they fail to integrate into one hence split (Savvopoulos, Manolopoulos, & Beratis, 2011).
The splitting occurs in individuals because of borderline. Borderline is the notion of a thin line that every individual possesses, and it stands between two sides that is relative normality and abnormality and leads to failure of telling the difference between fantasy and reality. A person who fails to differentiate between reality and fantasy suffers from borderline personality stalker.
Such individuals have two extreme sides due to intense personal relationships, and they can cross from one of devaluation to over idealization in a heartbeat. Individuals who mostly stalk celebrities have borderline stalker personalities (Simon, 2008).
Persons with splitting not only fail to integrate the bad and the good in other people, especially the ones idealized, but also fail to integrate with their own self-image hence they split it. A person without borderline personality stalker can integrate the good and bad in self and others and create a realistic whole those with cannot.
They are emotionally unstable and hence impulsive that means they can shift their moods quickly and the mood change can last for a number of hours or even days. Depression makes the borderline personality stalker worse as it makes the individuals magnify their feelings and go out control.
For example, criticism can make an individual vent out anger toward a person and even harm them. Other things that trigger the condition are rejection, lack of self-image and the individuals stalk celebrities in an attempt to gain self worth (Simon, 2008).
The personalities are usually difficult in treating because the borderline patients keep crossing from one side to another for instance, they may revere their therapists and in other, they hate them if they think they have been provoked. Moreover, the patients do not even know about the contrasting feelings they experience for the same person hence the difficulty in treatment due to splitting (Simon, 2008).
The other psychological disorder is Multiple Personality Disorder (MPD) that occurs in persons who have two or more personalities that are fully developed. In other cases some personalities may be fragments however each personality is unique for instance with different behaviors and memories.
Some personalities are aware of the presence of the others but others may not know of the existence of the others. MPD develops from severe child abuse and psychiatrists urge that most of the patients experience the abuse during their sixth and seventh year of their lives.
The young abused children develop psychological mechanism of dealing with the traumatic experiences they go through in the hands of their abusive parents. The psychological method of dealing with the pain results into multiple personalities (Simon, 2008). Abuse during childhood causes MPD as explained in the following paragraph
A child who experiences severe abuse in the hands of their parent(s) is often unable to assimilate the action of the loving parent to that of the abuser that inflicts pain. The child is helpless and cannot escape from the abusive parent or caretaker physically and hence a mind warp occurs. The mind warp means that the, “young child tends to view self and others in all-or-nothing, good-and-bad terms” (Simon, 2008, p.146).
A person with MPD has two types of personalities that is destructive and protective personalities. The destructive personalities often harbor anger or guilt that may be directed at the primary personality. The destructive personality may unleash violence when it takes control. The destructive personalities develop because of the pain experienced as a child and they duplicate the abuse experienced during childhood.
For instance, a person who was sexually abused as a child may grow up, become a pedophile, and hurt other children. Other patients may create an environment that enables other men to hurt their own children, neighbors or family friends among others. It is important to note that not all victims of abuse become abusers as adults as statistics show that about 70 t0 90% of the victims of abuse do not become abusers. The cycle of abuse perpetuates because children imitate their parents hence they become abusive like their parents.
The abused children come to accept the abuse, and blame themselves for their parents’ behavior towards them. Some children developed MPD to deal with the abuse but others do not but may develop destructive lifestyles, physical problems and depression among others (Simon, 2008).
Neuroscience confirms that human beings lack total free will. The free will enables an individual to make choices on how to act, and one without a free will cannot control their actions. The notion of lack of total free will is controversial because some people urge that if human beings do not have free will cannot blame people for their destructive actions or praise those who do well. If free-will lacks there can be neither legal culpability nor moral responsibility (Gardar, 2011).
The notion of lack of free will would influence many sectors of our live such as the economy and the justice system greatly. For instance, people are punished in the justice system to deter future occurrences of bad behavior and to give justice to those harmed however; the justice system does not punish people who are considered crazy because they are assumed to have acted destructively due to a force beyond them. Therefore, punishing people who have no free will would be similar to punishing crazy people.
Some neuroscientists urge that some people make bad choices because they have a faulty brain and neural activity. The neural may develop defects due to traumatic experiences during childhood, injury to the head, genetic defects and substance abuse among others. Such individuals are prone to make bad choices (Simon, 2008).
Free will helps one to choose how to act in a situation or behave toward other people. Neuroscientists of the opinion that free will is an allusion urge that a human being is not capable of controlling their impulsive behaviors. They unable to do so because they cannot make a choice between right and wrong and sometimes the impulses are so intense that they cannot control them even if they tried. Some struggle to overcome their destructive impulses but fail and end up acting them out.
The topic of free will remains controversial as it is not easy to prove that a person did not have the power to control their actions especially when mental illnesses has not been detected. Moreover, some serial killers plan their murders and them cover-up so well and it is difficult to determine whether they know if their actions are morally wrong (Simon, 2008).
Each human being has an innate seed of evil. However, the difference between good men and bad men is good men can control their evil impulses even though not perfectly and the bad men act on them as Simon puts it “bad men do what good men dream” (Simon, 2008 p. 143). People who can control their evil impulses are emotionally healthy whereas the bad men are psychologically dysfunctional.
The psychologically dysfunctional people cannot separate themselves from other people and depend on them completely such that they cannot draw a line between themselves and others.
On the other hand, psychologically functional people accept themselves and do not depend on others for approval. The healthy people accept both their strengths and weaknesses but the unhealthy people will seek to destroy other people to experience self-worth albeit for short period until they commit their next destructive act.
Some studies show that human fate lies in our genes. For a long time it was thought that a person’s fate lay with the stars but the genes play a big role in a person’s life and their character. The brain is unique in very human being and reacts differently to the surrounding and relationships formed throughout life.
Some people can integrate well in their environment and become good men and women but others fail to do so and become bad men who act on their evil impulses making them psychopaths. As mentioned before every human being has a dark or evil side in their personality that is shaped by the environment, family, parents and the world.
Unfortunately, some people are wired for trouble due to the composition of their genes. Luckily, most people are able to become good people and keep their evil impulses in check and life. That is why there are few serial killers despite the high number of abused children because many such children do not become abusers (Simon, 2008).
Finally, our justice system should put concerted efforts in rehabilitation of people with psychological and disorders and behaviors who commit unspeakable acts that a psychologically human being would normally not commit. The four chapters in the book Bad me do what good men only dream, show that the justice system has not been very effective in dealing with the problem by punishing bad men as some who have been released from incarceration went back to their evil ways and did committed more killings.
The punishment received did not deter them because the problem is often beyond their control hence they need rehabilitation and in some cases to be kept in the rehabilitation centers for good because some cannot control the urge to kill if set free. More resources should be devoted to study psychological disorders and behaviors as it is not a well-known subject and remains controversial. There is potential of reducing the number of people who die in the hands of people who have mental problems if only the right action is taken early.
The justice system should take victim’s complaints of stalking seriously and accord them the necessary protection before they lose their lives in the hands of killers who will stop at nothing until they have accomplished their selfish ends. Moreover, the justice system should come up with stiff punishment for parents and caregivers who expose children to abuse as in so doing they create potential monsters who will one day unleash violence on innocent victims.
A healthy childhood it appears would solve a lot of problems that children develop later in life as they would not need to develop spilt personalities to cope with the pain they experience in the hands of their abusers because some of the split personalities developed become destructive and chilling crimes are committed.
Prevention is better than cure is cliché but rehabilitation would be better than awaiting to punish wrong doers that might not even recognize their wrongs. Enable people to contain their inner demons instead of waiting until the come out, and harm innocent people.
Reference List
Gardar, A. (2011). Neuroscience, free will and moral responsibility. Trames, 15 (2), 147-155.
Savvopoulos, S. Manolopoulos, S. & Beratis, S. (2011). Repression and splitting in the psychoanalytic. The International Journal of Psychoanalysis, 92, 75-96.
Simon, R. (2008). Bad men do what good men dream. Washington, DC, London: American psychiatric Publishing, Inc.