Psycholanalysis

[Blackkat]

Well, we've all debated on why we should and shouldn't psychoanalyize Jack or his potential motives for killing. Mostly we shouldn't because we don't know who he was. We should because it's interesting and the answers are limitless.

Opening the minefield again I wanted to pose this question.

If Jack did have a kind of rage that was fueling him to kill ( which I think that he did because the murders were so violent) what kind do you think he had, or do you think it was more than one. Maybe none at all? Here is the list.


Impotent rage. The threat here is to the human need for control over one’s life. Frustration builds when someone feels helpless to alter significant problems.

Shame-Based rage. Now the threat is to one’s respected place in the community (and to self-respect). Some people react with rage to times when they feel disrespected.

Abandonment rage. This time the threat is the loss of an intimate relationship. “I can’t live without you” leads to jealousy and desperate attempts to maintain a relationship.

[Blackkat]

Also how many of you think that Jack may have had uncontrollable manic rage?

Going back to a few previous posts I remember someone mentioning castration??

[Pilgrim]

Echoanalysis.

Hi BlackKat...

First, I'll have to say it is an interesting title - for a thread about psychoanalysis. It could, perhaps, say something about why many people tend to avoid these ideas. They can lead to weakly founded speculations, or to mere fantasies. I'm not a psychoanalyst, but I made an attempt to follow Mr. Freud's advice here, associating somewhat freely...

1. There's this statement, introducing the subject: "Mostly we shouldn't [psychoanalyze] because we don't know who he was". 2. You, BlackKat, suspects that Kelly knew the murderer, perhaps even knew him well ? 3. Barnett's 'echolalia' was mentioned on that original thread you started.

A tenous thread perhaps, but that "Freudian slip" in the title could then, possibly, be explained. 1) represents the repressed desire, to actually name the suspect. 2) gives some vague indication as to the possible set of suspects. 3) - a fact from our common and "traumatically repressed" past... does, possibly, show why that l turned up after the first two phonemes of

psy-cho-a-na-ly-sis
...e-cho-la-li-a
psy-cho-la-na-ly-sis


We are all familiar with the motion of particles from our every-day experience with solid objects. Like balls on a billiards table, when two particles run into each other, they bounce apart. In contrast, when two waves meet, they pass right through each other! As the animation shows, when two waves overlap they add up to form a larger wave (reinforcement). They can also cancel out to form nothing at all (cancellation), or partially cancel to make a more complex waveform. This is called interference.

~~~

I'm not sure exactly how this relates to rage, but still, I think it could be relevant to the subject, as it is indeed true that there can hardly be any productive psychoanalysis without at least a hypothetical patient.

~~~

And then I'll repost a couple of my contributions to that other thread you started, as I think they were somehow relevant to the subject of psychoanalysis. From the "Inadequate" thread -

Originally posted by Pilgrim:

Holy Waters.

According to Freud himself those waters had been charted by poets: Everywhere I go I find that a poet has been there before me. And then it may seem that he actually set out to drain them: Where it was there should I be. It is a work of culture, not unlike the draining of the Zuider Zee. Some would perhaps say that it simply was necessary to drain the Zuiderzee ? That it was the only and the best way ? I'm not quite convinced.

~~~

I say it could make good sense to see Freud as a symptom. His need to analyze the human psyche surfaced in the 1880's, and that was, after all, the time leading up to these murders.

1. The stolen uteri (hystera), possibly relating to the fact that "hysterics" has been described as centering their fear on some part of the body. (Rather than some other part ?)

2. The fact that this murderer may seem to have been compulsively relating to dying women and their dead bodies.

This reminds me of the story of Anna O. It was after nursing her dying father that she came to suffer from "severe hysteria", the symptoms being paralysis, hallucinations, inability to eat and drink, and suicidal tendencies. Perhaps there could be some reason to think of the Whitechapel murder victims as substitutes for a dying mother. (In a very general sense also, possibly.) In the case of Anna O her problems probably was evolving while she nursed her father, and broke out when he actually had died ? So, there's the exceedingly close relation. And "hysteria" was supposed to be a somatization disorder relating to unmanageable fear or emotional excesses, the fear often centered on a body part, most often on an imagined problem with that body part. (Some might think of it as an inadequacy ? But perhaps entirely imaginary and still verging on the "hysterical".) And people who are "hysterical" often lose self-control due to the overwhelming fear. And then they try to focus on the "right" body part ?

~~~

DeadEd

I would say he was indeed trying to subsume aspects of the victims, that he also was, in his imagination, simply incorporating the memory of the dying and dead victims. It is also possible, I'd say, that he may have been imagining himself to be doing this in service to his dead mother. Perhaps she had about the same view of "prostitutes" as Ed Gein's mother did ? In Gein's case there may also seem to have been a serious confounding of the dead, the lifeless and the living.

Originally Posted by Pilgrim

Gein made that slightly odd "statement", saying that "All I wanted was some human remains". I'm quite sure the train of thought may have been something like "...humans to remain", "...humans remaining...", "to remain human". Surely he would have wanted to remain human ? That possible confusion, or fusion, of 'deer' with 'dear' would be expressing the same trouble. After posting that Whitehead quote I was thinking that Gein's mother may have repeatedly been using expressions such as "Be a dear, Ed", "Ed be a dear". 'Ed' and 'Dear/deer' may have been fusing: "Be Edear, Ed, be Edeer". Though there would of course have to be other forces at work also, such as the very repressive "religious" views held by Gein's mother.

The meaning is vague but insistent. Its insistence plays the part of hypnotizing the individual to complete the specific action associated with the symbol. In the whole transaction, the elements which are clear-cut and definite are the specific symbols and the actions which should issue from the symbols. (#32 - 'Modus Operandi' thread.)

It would seem likely, I would say, that Gein's mind may have been spinning, further, along these lines: Ed, be a dear, Ed, be a deer, Ed, be a de.. Ed, Ed be a dead, be a dead, Ed dead Ed dead dead dead....

If his mother kept repeating the first part often enough, under somewhat inauspicious cicrcumstances kept saying something like that often enough, it might, possibly, have made him feel either dead or like killing someone, perhaps both. I suspect a similar coincidence might have been playing a part in this case, but perhaps on a symbolically more integrated level.

So, I'd say this murderer probably would have been confounding the victims with his mother. That strange act of propping up the (remains of Mary Kelly's) head with a breast could perhaps relate to some such confusion. The breast could of course, then, simply be signifying "mother", while at the same time being contiguous to the deaths-head signifying "dead". So, perhaps he simply had been nursing his mother as she was about to die. The case could then be likened to that of Anna O. After all, Anna O, or Bertha Pappenheim as was her "real name", also went on to spend much of her life fighting prostitution. Who knows what this murderer were imagining himself to be doing ?

~~~

Zone of Transfer.

I find it difficult to believe that a cut-off breast would represent, unequivocally, the "good". And one breast placed at the foot, the other behind a death's-head, a literal personification of death ? It would, at best, seem a sign of extreme ambivalence. But, I think it may be true that it would represent "whores" as death personified, and perhaps in this case as 'dead women' personified. And surely, it must be fairly safe to say the murderer also was perceived, by the public at large, as death personified. I would think there may have been some truth to it all.

~~~

I did however not suggest that there were a confounding of mother and whore. I merely said there probably would have been a confounding of his mother and the victims. It would of course seem quite likely that the murderer was thinking of the victims as "whores". But the first victims could very easily be perceived as motherly figures, quite clearly as victims, vaguely as "prostitutes". The murderer might have been thinking of them as "whores", but on the level of "phenomenological entities" they were also victims and it is likely, I'd say, that they would in some way have been perceived as such. That is where the true paradox lies. And then there was a reversal. It has been touched upon many times before - Mary Kelly was fairly much younger, and there was her blonde or (ambiguously) red-blonde hair.

Originally Posted by paul emmett

I've been struck by the fact that everyone--including JTR--seems to ignore the victims' hair.* Does anyone have any thoughts about why The Ripper never attacked hair? In some cases it might well be a matter of time*, but you would think that this man who was clearly attacking femininity, womb, breasts, vagina, face, . . ., would have cut MJK's long feminine hair when he was working on his own clock.

*Emphasis added.

~~~

Her perhaps most significant feature as perceived from afar, I would say. And as a general feature it would probably still be representing "mother/woman" but, being blonde, it would present the occasion for a literal and desired reversal - "woman/mother" instead of "mother/woman" - the hair somehow presenting a "zone of transfer". So, a most literal matter of time. And then I say there was, most likely, a movement towards a "normalized dichotomy". Mary Kelly probably would have been perceived as more clearly being a "whore" - and in some visual contrast to "mother". The breast was placed under the death's-head. That is, as the image was perceived, behind the literal personification of death. I say it means, metaphorically and literally, that his mother was dead and that he was trying, in a very ambivalent way, to replace her with something else.

~~~

Jan Toorop (1858-1928)

Streetband in London (1885) / Refuge (1888) / Nightlife (1889) / Motherhood (1891) / The Knight at The Gate (1892) / Venus Saved (1895) / Study for The Three Brides (1892) / Dead Nun Mourned By Two Women (1893) / Anarchy (1894) / The Muses of Art Arriving by Architecture (1895) / The Pilgrim (1921) / Mussolini (1927)

~~~

My Regards.

[Sam Flynn]

Hi BK,

Well, we've all debated on why we should and shouldn't psychoanalyize Jack. We should because it's interesting and the answers are limitless.

...and therein lies part of the problem, and not just in terms of the use of psychoanalysis on Jack the Ripper. It's a generic problem with almost any application of Freud's methods - especially amongst lay-people. Almost anything can be conjured up, and that which doesn't fit a given thesis can be explained away by a convenient "defence mechanism". With that in mind, its value as a tool is practically zero.

Trying to "get inside Jack's head" might actually be useful, but if we think that invoking Freud's specious framework somehow "legitimises" the exercise we're deluding ourselves.

[Blackkat]

Hi BK,...and therein lies part of the problem, and not just in terms of the use of psychoanalysis on Jack the Ripper. It's a generic problem with almost any application of Freud's methods - especially amongst lay-people. Almost anything can be conjured up, and that which doesn't fit a given thesis can be explained away by a convenient "defence mechanism". With that in mind, its value as a tool is practically zero.

Trying to "get inside Jack's head" might actually be useful, but if we think that invoking Freud's specious framework somehow "legitimises" the exercise we're deluding ourselves.

Heya Sam,
Well ya know I've made a couple of references to Freud. I think I said in the Inadequate posts I don't really know much about Freud. I'm really bad at knowing anything Freud after the pre and oedipal definations. Mainly I'd like to be able to use more than just Freud to discuss this. I do think there are some good points made with Freud that may be valid in the case of JtR, but I also think that staying only with Freud does us no good at all. Just my opinion. Thanks Sam for the post, and thus in turn I had a chance to answer about only using Freud.

[paul emmett]

Hello, Blackkat and Pilgrim.

You neither ask easy questions nor give easy answers. So let me associate a bit.

For rage, I'm going with a combination of a&c: Impotent&Abandonment. Indeed, I think there is a school of thought regarding rage stemming from Klein and Kristeva that finds rage to begin with loss, abandonment if you will. Infantile losses produce in us all infantile rage. So loss of the breast, loss of the womb(birth), those early loses trigger rage. Most of us get over it with a loving nurturing mother. I don't think JTR ever did get over it. He takes wombs because he wants to be back there; he explores the body of the mother because he wants to be back there to the symbiotic bliss before self, seperation, and rage. Clearly, rip as he will, this ain't gonna work.

But I think that for JTR one of the reasons that he can't reunite with the benign mother is that the Mother isn't benign. I would say that for Jack, mother is contaminated by both whore and masculinity. The association, confounding, identification, of mother and whore seems clearer, so I'd like to consider the masculine aspects of Mother which I think lead Jack to impotent rage.

I see JTR's image of mother/whore as powerful, masculine, phallic. And in turn I see his butcherings, his cutting off of noses and (nearly)heads as his attempts to castrate the POTENT mother image that renders him powerless. He wants to unite with the female pure Mommy, so he kills/castrates the "whores." He excises the dirty and the potent.

I think it might even be argued that he quits cuz it works--kinda. Like Pilgrim, I see the breast under MJK's head as important, but I empasize that it's the kidneys, breast and womb TOGETHER. And using some "humain remains"-like wordplay, I do think that the fusion of womb, breast, and "Kid" rectify the infantile losses of womb and breast, and give JTR a kind of peace. And to close with Pilgrim's telling image of the death's head that was MJK's face, I would say that beneath death, beyond death, through death, JTR finds a purgative symbolic, symbiotic fusion with the cleansed, feminized Mother.

[Sam Flynn]

I would say that for Jack, Mother is contaminated by both whore and masculinity.

He may never have known her. If he did then he may have got on really well with her, or it may have been a bad relationship.

If the latter, then he was in the same boat as Stephen Sondheim, who once harboured ambitions of becoming a serial composer but - as far as I know - never a thought of becoming a serial killer. I've heard some people murder his songs, however, but that's hardly his fault.

[Blackkat]

Hello, Blackkat and Pilgrim.

But I think that for JTR one of the reasons that he can't reunite with the benign mother is that the mother isn't benign. I would say that for Jack, Mother is contaminated by both whore and masculinity. The association, confounding, identification, of mother and whore seems clearer, so I'd like to consider the masculine aspects of Mother which I think lead Jack to impotent rage.

I see JTR's image of mother/whore as powerful, masculine, phallic. And in turn I see his butcherings, his cutting off of noses and (nearly)heads as his attempts to castrate the POTENT Mother image that renders him powerless. He wants to unite with the female pure Mommy, so he kills/castrates the "whores." He excises the dirty and the potent.

Hmm I wonder if this could go back to what I was thinking. Perhaps Jack lost his father at an early age? Who knows, but then his mother might take on even more of a masculine role. Especially if she was promiscuous in any way and took to the spirits. I too see his butcherings as his attempts to castrate and "clean" them up. Almost as if he was very ....angry that he lost out on something very safe. Trying to get back.

[paul emmett]

Trying to "get inside Jack's head" might actually be useful, but if we think that invoking Freud's specious framework somehow "legitimises" the exercise we're deluding ourselves.

Hi Sam. I know we have danced this one before, but while Freud's framework clearly isn't specious, I agree that its use to legitimatize would be wrong. And you will find no id/ego/SE in my latest post. And very little Freud. Indeed, I think F is most important when he teaches us to look closely, to suspect hidden motives, and when he suggests how the unconscious functions. And this seems valuable for JTR.

On the other hand, I do think that when theories regarding, say, rage appear opperative in JTR killings, then those theories, be they psychoanalytic, psychological or sociological can, in turn, help us get inside Jack's head.

[paul emmett]

He may never have known her. If he did then he may have got on really well with her, or it may have been a bad relationship.

Sam,
I'm a very slow typer. He doesn't have to have known her. It's about his image of mother that could have come from his Aunt, and/or his nurse, and/or various women who looked like Nichols, Chapman, or Tabram.

BlackKat, frequently when there is a weak or absent father, the mother does become ALL POWERFUL. And then isn't the child's problem compounded by the fact that with noone to sperate her/him from mother the bond between the two, a' la PSYCHO, becomes both too close and too lethal.

[Sam Flynn]

Hi Paul,

On the other hand, I do think that when theories regarding, say, rage appear opperative in JTR killings, then those theories, be they psychoanalytic, psychological or sociological can, in turn, help us get inside Jack's head.

My point was that we can't possibly know what Jack's relationship with his mother was like, therefore to muse upon it is fruitless. We know that simply because violent behaviour can be exhibited by those who had a good mother/son relationship, bad mother/son relationships or from those who never knew their mothers at all.

In each case, it's possible that the defining factors that lay at the root of Jack's pathology might not have derived from maternal sources anyway, but from some later life event, that may (or may not) have had a "relationship" dynamic about it at all.

Whilst there were no references to Id/SE/Ego in your last post, you alluded to at least three even less well-attested blunt instruments from the Freudian toolbox: one can't get much better than the Oedipus Complex, phallicism and castration Seductive though these ideas are, they cannot be anything more than very loose metaphors - as opposed, note, to determinants - for a person's behaviour.

More prosaically, it's likely that Jack had an organic mental illness that caused him to do what he did, alternatively he may simply have acquired a bizarre need to kill and mutilate, either of which may have had little to do with the way he was brought up.

[Blackkat]

Exactly right Sam, could have been an organic mental illness, we'll never know. Could have been his upbringing, or his mother, or both. We'll never know.

Although I think that going through all the possibilities isn't fruitless. If it were fruitless to stop and think of what may cause a person to do things, then we wouldn't have treatments for some of the most common mental illnesses today. Be it that they are genetic or brought on by abuse or neglect of some kind.

[Sam Flynn]

Hi Paul,

Sam, He doesn't have to have known her. It's about his image of mother that could have come from his Aunt, and/or his nurse, and/or various women who looked like Nichols, Chapman, or Tabram.

What I'm saying is that it may have had nothing to do with his "image" of his mother, or women in general, at all. We just can't know, and as there are so many different possible events that might have sent him off the rails it's futile speculating. If he did have a bad image of women, then for all we know it might have been because he was traumatised when his Aunt Nelly, dressed as a pantomime cow, sidled up to his bed and mooed in his face.

[Blackkat]

Dude, Mooed LOL HAHAHHAHAH -

Seriously we may never get an ANSWER, but I don't think it's a bad idea to go over the possibilities. Especially since it isn't going to potentially harm anything out there that is substantial on Jack the Ripper anyway.

We just can't know, and as there are so many different possible events that might have sent him off the rails it's futile speculating.

Futile means having no useful result. I have a question, something that I have wanted to ask and was going to but the board/forum went down. If we are not trying to find any definitive answer. If we aren't trying to find "for sure" what caused Jack's behavior, then why is this discussion futile? It's simply a discussion because it's interesting, not because we are trying to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt what did cause his behavior. We are merely going over some of the things that could have caused it. IF we were trying to find a clean cut, well defined, specific reason, then yes it would be in vain, futile and worthless. We can never and will never know what motivated his actions. Why then is brainstorming about what could have provoked him such a pointless conversation?

I feel that's its an area where some are interested and some aren't. If those that aren't interested feel it's a silly thing to do, then why the need to down another's interest?

[paul emmett]

Hi Paul,


Whilst there were no references to Id/SE/Ego in your last post, you alluded to at least three even less well-attested blunt instruments from the Freudian toolbox: one can't get much better than the Oedipus Complex, phallicism and castration Seductive though these ideas are, they cannot be anything more than very loose metaphors - as opposed, note, to determinants - for a person's behaviour.

More prosaically, it's likely that Jack had an organic mental illness that caused him to do what he did, alternatively he may simply have acquired a bizarre need to kill and mutilate, either of which may have had little to do with the way he was brought up.

Hi, Sam. I Disagree. With it all! All except Aunt Nelly and the pantomime cow.

Let me just try a few. I never mentioned and/or alluded to the Oedipus, my concept of the son castrating the phallic mother is clearly something Freud never "dreamed" of, let alone ever discussed, and I'm not even sure what phallicism is--I thought it was a belief like Existentialism. Also, from the "Inadequate thread" and our discussion of Neuroscience, you know that I feel that the mind is implicated in most organic brain illnesses. And I certianly do not believe one can simply aquire a(as you seem to imply, MOTIVELESS) bizarre need to kill and mutilate. Finally, if JTR's killings have nothing to do with his image of women, which I feel comes from his IMAGE of mother, then we might as well close shop cuz we can't know nothin'.

Regarding the futility issue, would we say that trying to establish JTR's identity is futile? Trying to deduce why Hamlet waits so long to kill the king, futile?