The Psychological Profile of Jeffery

The Psychological Profile of Jeffery Dahmer The name Jeffrey Dahmer immediately strikes a chord of disgust and intrigue for the manner and degree of a killing spree that begin in 1978 and culminated in his 1991 arrest. Bludgeoned to death in prison in 1994, Dahmer leaves behind one of the most imaginatively horrific serial murder sheets in the history of criminology. Charged with 17 murders and most assuredly guilty of many more unsolved cases, the various acts of macabre homicide which he committed provoke intense psychological scrutiny. And indeed, an investigation of his formative years and his behaviors leading up to his killing spree indicate that before engaging in murder, rape, necrophilia, pedophilia, dismemberment and cannibalism, Dahmer exhibited a psychological profile that would prefigure his crimes. (Montaldo, 1) Before committing the series of murders that would elevate Dahmer to a terrible infamy, he exhibited an array of psychological characteristics and behaviors that should have sent off alert signals to all of those around him and in the law enforcement community. Severe alcoholism, a litany of deviant sexual acts, general antisocial proclivities and a strange interest in the dissection of dead animals all contribute to the psychological profile of a man likely to commit acts in the categories as did Dahmer. However, the grim scale and disturbing nature of Dahmer's crimes may be seen as something of a perfect storm in terms of psychopathic capability. Evidence surfaced at an early age, with a normal infancy giving way to a more troublesome childhood orientation. According to Montaldo (2008), at "the age of six, after undergoing hernia surgery, that his personality began to change from a jubilant social child to a loner who was uncommunicative and withdrawn. His facial expressions transformed from childhood smiles to a motionless blank stare, a look which remained with him throughout his life." (Montaldo, 1) Another account by Odom (2008) speculates that a number of aspects of this period in his life may have been overlooked. Odom reports claims by a former lover of Dahmer's that he had been molested by a neighbor at the age of six and further contends that his father, Lionel Dahmer, may also have been guilty of molestation. (Odom, 1) Indeed, from a psychological perspective, his withdrawn tendencies and antisocial behavior would demonstrate that something was clearly amiss with the child, who took no interest in making friends and whose only hobby, according to Montaldo, was collecting the bodies of dead animals, stripping the skin from their carcasses and collecting their bones. Here, Dahmer showed an unhealthy fixation on death and dismemberment that surely foreshadows the gruesome detail of his crimes. His nihilistic instability continued to be amply demonstrated through his teen years as he failed to develop any friendships and instead devoted his time to intensifying a drinking habit that would become dominant through much of his life. His alcoholism would cause him to struggle academically in high school, to drop out of college in only a month, to be dismissed from military service and to lose a number of low-level jobs. It was also at this period in his life that the alleged acts of molestation which may have occurred during his childhood began to manifest in psychosexual dysfunction. According to Odom, "in an interview Jeffrey once stated, 'it started at the age of 14 or 15. I started having excessive fantasies of violence intermingled with sex and it just got worse and worse. I didn't know how to tell anyone, so I didn't. I just kept it all inside.'" (Odom, 1) Indeed, the Odom article contends that Dahmer's drinking became a coping mechanism but that his control over his violent sexual fantasies was dashed apart in 1978. Perhaps by no coincidence, the year that he graduated from high school and his parents got divorced would be the same in which he committed his first murder. Indications are also that Dahmer was exposed to violence between his parents during the dissolution of their marriage. The 1978 murder of hitchhiker Steven Hicks would allow Dahmer to live out his fantasies of homosexual intercourse, murder, necrophilia and various experimental dissecting procedures with the body. This would satiate his urges for a reported 9 years. (Odom, 1) The next decade would find Dahmer descending into a psychic haze over his homosexual orientation. As he attempted to fight his urges by appealing to the Christian faith, he was charged in both 1982 and 1986 with indecent exposure to young boys. (Odom, 1) It was at this point that he was recognized by the authorities as a sex offender and at which his grandmother, with whom he had been living, kicked him out of her house for his bizarre behavior and the terrible smells coming from the basement. Ultimately, something would occur to set Dahmer off in 1987, at which point he would begin his spree. Frequently gay clubs and bathhouses, Dahmer would take men whom and drug them in order to conduct deadly experiments of sexual intercourse, surgical dissection and cannibalism. He also became obsesses with the body parts of his victims, practicing acts of mummificaton, freezing, boiling and storage of dismembered body parts, pointedly retaining skulls and genitals as souvenirs. This would allow for the grisly discoveries of police who would be led to his Milwaukee apartment by an escaped would-be victim. After his murder in prison, there emerged "requests from several researchers who want hair follicles and brain tissue from Dahmer to use in studies on abnormal behavior and episodes of anger." (AP, 1) These requests reflect a continued interest by the psychiatric community to understand what could create a man such as Dahmer. But clearly, beyond that which might be reflected in an imbalanced neurology, Dahmer demonstrated throughout his life all the conditions to suggest this was in his experiential and psychological makeup.