Charles Manson's Personality Based on Sigmund Freud and Karen Horney's Theories

Introduction

Charles Manson is a well known serial killer with an terrifying background. In other words, he could be referred to as a psychopath. A psychopath relates to an individual suffering from chronic mental disorders and showing violent behavior. They are dangerous individuals who show no emotion for their victims while they harm them and fail to pick out that whatever they are doing is criminal. Charles Manson was born in the early nineties, precisely on November 12 in the year 1934. He was born in Ohio to a sixteen-year-old girl with the name Kathleen Maddox. She was hugely involved in promiscuity, alcoholism, and crime. Charles Manson had a difficult childhood, a factor which is highly deemed to have contributed towards his character (Atchison & Heide, 2010). He is known to have orchestrated series of murders during his time. He had a lot of undue influence on people that he managed to form a cult that he coerced into brutally killing people on his behalf. In 1940, when Manson was at the age of 6, she was convicted and sent to jail for armed robbery. When Manson was born, his mother did not even deem it right to name him (Atchison & Heide, 2010). His birth certificate is reported to have been registered as 'Charles Milles Maddox.' Later on, she briefly got married to a transient laborer with the name William Manson. This marriage earned her son the Manson name which he is known for to date. His mother was released on parole after spending three years in prison.

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The theory of personality by Sigmund Freud lays out the argument that human behavior comes about from interactions of components of the mind, namely the id, ego, and superego. Further, it points out that unconscious psychological conflicts influence behavior and personality. Also, parents are seen to play a huge and crucial role in personality shaping and emotional well being of their children (De Sousa, 2011). He introduced the idea that parents could shape their children's view of themselves and the world at large by influencing their unconscious. It is through parental actions that a child's permanent personality could be shaped for better or for worse. The environment in which children have been raised in influences the better part of their lives. Children are wired to emulate the people they have access to, that is, the people around them. Charles did not have a present father figure in his life and did not even meet his biological father. His childhood is seen to be littered with bitterness and lack of love. The only happy memory linked to Charles in his childhood is when his mother returned home from prison and hugged him. At this point, his mother even tried getting him into foster care when he was 12. On release from prison, her then-boyfriend presented an ultimatum of her choosing between him and her son. Kathleen decided to give up her son (Atchison & Heide, 2010).

Charles was occasionally left under the supervision of his relatives when his mother went to jail. His grandmother forced him into strict religious standards while an uncle had him dressed femininely on his first day of school claiming he acted too feminine. Also, another uncle committed suicide while Manson was under his auspices. This shows that the varied ways in which he was brought up influenced his thinking and perception of life and was carried on to his dysfunctional lifestyle.

In addition, Manson's mother played a role in his unbecoming behavior in many ways. He grew up with an absentee for a father and a mother who portrayed her dislike for him. His childhood was filled with abandonment and neglect. She once traded him with a waitress who had no children in exchange for beer. He was mistreated and degraded by the family members, people who were supposed to protect and nurture him. He must have developed resentment towards family and towards Wilson who bailed out after he had promised him music career (De Sousa, 2011). These disappointments made it difficult for him to trust and rely on others. From the reform institutions, he developed a fierce spirit and became a fighter as a defense mechanism. While in jail, he learned scientology, a weapon that aided in his killing spree (Linder, 2007). His lack of love as a child made him develop feelings of worthlessness and his apparent anger towards authority. Moreover, his participation in crime would have been a way to seek his mother's approval. By emulating her criminal tendencies, he probably thought that it would earn him his mother's love (De Sousa, 2011). His psychological issues came from the things he unconsciously desired the most, for instance, mother's love.

On another perspective, Manson's issues in life were brought about by his sexuality. Manson must have developed the Oedipus complex brought about by the hatred he had for his mother's partners who had all her attention and love. His mother's partners were mostly involved in crime. Charles Manson's involvement in crime at a young age was a way of seeking his mother's attention (De Sousa, 2011). He unconsciously intended to imitate the people his mother loved so that she would show him love as well. His feminine behaviors could be explained as a way of automatically imitating his mother. A psychiatrist's examination indicated that Manson's sense of inferiority regarding his mother was so strong that he regularly had to hold back thinking about her. Manson's childhood was so sad and messed up that he once begged to stay locked up claiming that he could not cope with life outside prison walls (De Sousa, 2011). He had made peace with imprisonment and developed a home there. His request was turned down, and two years after his release, he began executing mass murders (Linder, 2007). Psychological tests in prison proved that he was illiterate, having spent four years in boy schools. It was established that he was often trying to impress and seek attention from other boys due to his lack of parental love. This led him to create his own commune based cult at a ranch in 1954. Charles Manson was an avid reader of the Bible. His family practiced religious ceremonies and would accompany their leader whenever he went to preach where they would listen to him. To them, he represented a spiritual leader whose commands they diligently followed. Like many cults, this family partook of drugs such as marijuana and LSD (Atchison & Heide, 2010). Whenever crimes were not committed to his taste, he usually took the family to a new home where they would commit a fresh murder.Sexual and physical harassment in school accelerated his psychological scars and violence. It fueled his wave of crimes. Feelings of abandonment and lack of an immediate family led to the creation of a cult. He needed a place he could call home, a place where people loved him. Most of the cult members, like him, were from broken homes, in search of a place where they could fit in (De Sousa, 2011). The search for emotional comfort leads people to reach out to things that reduce their fears and anxiety. This explains why people are attracted to cults. Cult leaders take advantage of these insecurities and create an environment that promises peace, financial security, issues that are lacking in these individual's lives. They coerce members into becoming wholly reliant on the cults. These are some of the tactics that Manson applied to recruit members of his new family.

Sigmund Freud stated that religion was an institution set up to comfort and enable believers to live past their insecurities. It offers emotional comfort to individuals, an element common to cults. While highlighting the negativity involved with religion, he failed to acknowledge that pure relaxation brought about life satisfaction (De Sousa, 2011). The members of the family needed to feel a sense of belonging and Charles Manson provided just that. In his quest for a real family, he ended up getting a group of people who looked up to him. They made him feel important, a feeling he hardly experienced during his childhood. After his release from prison in 1967, efforts in developing a cult called Manson Family materialized. Owing to the manipulative tendencies in his childhood, he had mastered the art of enticing and coercing individuals into the cult. Manson developed an interest in music, but unluckily, his dreams were shattered by a producer who failed to honor his end of the bargain. His crushed dreams fueled his hate for people he envied. Manson developed the theory that in future, an apocalyptic race brought about by blacks would break out and this would lead to Manson and his family as leaders to the new world. To Mansion as well as his followers, he was the human Jesus while his followers were the disciples (Atchison & Heide, 2010). In person, Manson never really committed the crimes. It was his cult members who perpetrated the murders on his behalf. The family had its values and behavioral patterns. They had been brainwashed into being loyal individuals who idolized Charles Manson.

Whenever one of the members tended to betray their loyalty towards the family and their leader, Charles Manson would instruct the rest of the members to deal with them accordingly. For instance, Barbara Holt managed to flee the family before they were nailed for their murders. She posed a threat to the family when she later appeared in court as a witness for the prosecution of the family. As was the norm, other family members tried to kill her so that she could not testify against their leader (Atchison & Heide, 2010). Most murders were believed to have been committed by the memebers of the family 'but it never' made it to trial because 'they' lacked sufficient information. The family, under the influence of Charles Manson, invaded Hollywood area homesteads and murdered seven people by torturing them with cooking sticks and knives (Linder, 2007). They are reported to have written words on their blood after that.

Karen Horney developed a theory that was in sync with that one of Freud. On the contrary, she criticizes the Freudian approach based on its lack of flexibility towards new ideas and its skewed feminine perspective (Horney, 2013). Her psychoanalytic social theory states that society and culture had a powerful effect on personality especially during the early years of one's life. She underwent psychoanalysis which aided her in understanding her inner self and behavior (McCarthy, 2014). She established that children who were brought up with love and parental care grew up into individuals who could appropriately interact with others. She added that all children needed to be familiar with the feelings of security and safety which would only be gained by growing up in an environment where there existed genuine parental love. On the other hand, individuals who lacked love and attention during their formative years developed hostility towards their parents, which grew into feelings of insecurity and a sense of fear called anxiety. These children then came up with ways of dealing with the said anxiety.

Charles Manson dealt with anxiety through engagement in criminal activities. His first sentence was as a result of driving a stolen car. Because Manson could not get into the foster care system, he lived on his own and began participating in heinous crimes as a means for survival. He was sent to the Gibault Home in Indiana. He broke out of this institution twice, each time being brought back. Manson cited sexual assault at the Indiana School for boys claiming consistent beatings and rape over the period of three years that he was there. Most of his teenage years were spent in and out of reform institutions some of which he was kicked out. He engaged in stealing cars as well as other forms of robbery to fend for himself,...