Dr V V L N Sastry

Serial Killer Ted Bundy Dr V V L N Sastry

Bundy's criminal behaviour as a serial killer can be explained in terms of Freud's psychological theory. According to Freud, a person's behaviour comes about as a result of interactions between three aspects of his or her personality including the superego, ego, and id. Id drives instinct and controls what a person does from birth. There are both constructive and destructive instinctual drives. A person's ego moderates his or her instinctual drive while the superego is needed for a person's development during which he or she learns the values of society. As Freud puts it, large portions of ego and superego can remain unconscious, making an individual unaware of whatever he or she is doing (Ahmed, 2012). Examples of unconscious experiences include disturbing memories and extreme sexual behaviours. If the person becomes aware of these unconscious experiences, he or she is likely to engage in destructive behaviour. It can be concluded that Bundy's ego and superego may have been unconscious when he was committing initial criminal activities. However, when his awareness was restored, he responded by even more destructive behaviour like when he decided to kidnap and kill more than one lady during the day (Ahmed, 2012). This book analyses the serial killer Ted Bundy.