Ted Bundy and Psychodynamic Theory Essay -- Psychology

Theodore Bundy was born on November 24th 1946. He was born to an unwed mother who was told that she was his sister. He was raised by his grandparents who portrayed themselves as his parents throughout his early childhood years. According to the article I read Ted’s grandfather was abusive towards Ted and his other siblings (Montaldo). Ted was shy and said to be sociably awkward, but during high school he developed into good looking guy and was liked by many. Ted met his first girlfriend in college and eventually falls in love. His girlfriend did not see Ted as someone who would be successful and eventually broke up with him and this broke his heart. This was about the time he learned the truth about his family too. He developed deep depression and this marked the time his killing ventures started. Ted’s breakup with his girlfriend was a huge deal to him. It seemed that his problems really came to surface after this point. He became quite dysfunctional at the time. The breakup could be marked under Axis III (Comer, 2011). This is a general medical condition that Ted suffers from as an adult. Ted Bundy’s style of killing describes sexual sadism. Sexual sadism is the intense sexually arousal by the thought or act of inflicting suffering on others by dominating, restraining, blindfolding, cutting, strangling, mutilating, or even killing the victim (Comer, 2011). This condition would fall under Axis I because it causes significant impairment. Ted Bundy had antisocial personality disorder which is on axis II of the DSM-IV-TR. He is characterized by the following: failure to conform to social norms with respect to lawful behaviors as indicated by repeatedly performing acts that are grounds for arrest, deceitfulness, ... ...articipate in therapy. They do not see that they need to change anything. While doing my research on Ted I do believe he was ready for change. I think that therapy sessions to uncover inner turmoil along with medication may have helped Ted. It would have been interesting to see if these treatments would have worked. Works Cited Comer, R. J. (2011). Fundamentals of Abnormal Psychology, 6th edition. New York: Worth Publishers. Midwest Behavioral Health Network. (2009, September). Guidelines to use of Axis V: Global Assessment Functioning Scale. South Bend, IN, United States of America. Montaldo, C. (n.d.). About.com. Retrieved August 12, 2011, from http://crime.about.com/od/serial/p/tedbundy.htm Varcarolis, E. M., Carson, V. B., & Shoemaker, N. C. (2006). In Foundations of Psychiatric Mental Health Nursing (p. 283). St. Louis: Elsevier Inc.