Ed Gein: The Psychopath

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Ed Gein: The Psychopath Colton Collins, Anthony Tavarez, Aimee Nightingale, Bridgette Jones, Candy Burtle CJA 314/Criminology February 3, 2014 Carl Meidich Ed Gein: The Psychopath Psychopaths exist all around us. The act of psychopathy can be determined by looking at someone’s behavior to determine if that individual is exhibiting signs of psychopathy. A large amount of violent criminal offenders exhibit symptoms of psychopathy. It is yet to be determined by scientists if psychopathy is a genetic condition or a learned response. Ed Gein was a highly notable psychopath in American history. We will discuss his life, his crimes, his mental capacities, and how it relates to symptoms of psychopathy. The goal of this paper is to increase…show more content…
The upbringing of Ed Gein left him emotionally impaired. After he was sent to prison, Ed was diagnosed by psychiatrist with the psychotic disorder of schizophrenia. (Hassett, 2007). Hallucinations and delusions are symptoms of Schizophrenia (Psychotic Disorders, 2014). Neurochemical imbalances were to blame for his condition after years of studying this disorder and his living condition. Ed would see, hear and talk to his mother after her death. Ed Gein’s case of necrophilia and transvestism fetishism is one of the most infamous cases in America. Ed Gein’s mental state arose from the unhealthy emotional attachment he experienced with his mother and how she raised him. Ed Gein had a natural sexual attraction to the opposite sex but remembered how his mother discouraged all sexual desires. The attraction to females and lessons of his mother created conflict within Ed Gein’s mind, Rachael Bell and Marilyn Bardsley (2014), “This love-hate feeling towards women became exaggerated and eventually developed in to a full-blown psychosis.” Ed Gein, never experiencing interactions with the opposite sex, began to take walks to the local cemeteries where he would dig up the graves and exhume the bodies due to lust building inside. Ed Gein developed a sexual attraction to dead bodies though Ed Gein claimed to have never had sex with the bodies. The women, in which Ed Gein would exhume, had attributes…show more content…
This illustrates his egocentric tendencies and grandiose thoughts. The women that he would exhume would have attributes of his mother. He was so unremorseful and into his delusions that he would use his victim’s skin to make clothing and house ware items. He desperately wanted to be a woman, specifically his mother. The clothes that he made out of their skin would give him the idea of what it would be like to be a woman. He would wear the clothing at
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