Ted Bundy’s Life Problems

A look into the mind of Ted Bundy the best known for being the most notorious criminal in the late 20th century. He was known for killing at least 36 women in the 70s. He was born on November 24, 1946 but with his mom’s parents being very religious and were ashamed due to him being an illegitimate they adopted him as their own. Therefore, his mother became his sister. Eleanor, Ted’s mother went on to marry Johnnie Bundy and taking Ted with her and having Ted take johnnie’s last name. They lived as a working-class family but at a young age Ted started to show interest in more than kid friendly things. Family and friends always stated that growing up he was a bright child but was very shy and never got along with his peers. As he hit got older more of a darker side of him started to emerge, as he would show up in other people’s widows. He was very smart growing up which showed by the time he got into college in 1972 he graduated from the University of Washington with his degree in psychology. He will have soon be accepted to law school but never got his degree. However, while attending Washington Ted Bundy met and fell in love with a very pretty women that was from California. Diane was wealthy, had class, and the influence of people however after their breakup we will start to see his following victims would start to resemble her. After this we see a very big change within Bundy we see him start to get more involved in political and social matters as well as becoming more confident in the situation that he was put in. While we are unaware of the exact time frame when he stated to kill the authorities have said his rampage started around 1974. After studying we have discovered that he often lured these young females by being cunning, charming, charismatic and most times acting like he was injured. He prayed on the kindness of these females.

Ted Bundy was diagnosed with many personality disorders towards the end before he was executed. A group of psychologists in 2007 sat down and almost all agreed that he had antisocial personality disorder (ASPD). Many of them decided that he was the perfect example of antisocial personality disorder, as he checked off all of the criteria’s outlined in the Diagnostic and Statistical manual of mental disorder. Ted Bundy Witty and charming, good at flattery and manipulating other people’s emotions, often arrogant, and breaks laws repeatedly. The definition of ASPD is “Antisocial personality disorder is a mental condition in which a person has a long-term pattern of manipulating, exploiting, or violating the rights of others without any remorse. This behavior may cause problems in relationships or at work and is often criminal.”

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A good example as to why victims so willing to go up to Bundy he was charming and had the ability to build relationships but did have the inability to sustain them. He would only use women for the public eye so females would admire him for the sole factor that he had an attractive woman by his side. But once the woman would attempt to build their relationship farther along emotionally Bundy would immediately leave. Another example is Bundy was a very good-looking man and very charming he used this to lure his victims He would often wear a sling and ask women for their help. Another example was when they did eventually arrest him the authorities said he was not working with them and was talking in third person. This allowed him to be able to manipulate the jail system and eventually escaping twice.

Ted Bundy as a child never fit in with his classmates or the children around his age. He was always very awkward around them. He would dress up and wear make-up to fit in the crowd. But during summer camps he also would build ground traps and wait for someone to fall in and would never show remorse.

From the text book it is found that “As in Freud’s theory, we often rely on defenses to keep the information from entering awareness.” Maslow stated “Freud supplied to us the sick half of psychology,” Which is why Ted Bundy is a great example of this. Freud focuses on the unhealthy part of psychology but that is not a bad thing because we see a lot of good examples when we use his theories for Bundy.

Freudians Concepts of psychanalytic theory on personalities when we add his concept we get a new outlook on things. Freudians early childhood experiences explains how Ted Bundy’s unconscious mind that stored his issues that were not resolved and that happiness would not be found until all his problems were solved. Bundy had a hard time processing the truth that his mother was also his sister and that his very rich and very beautiful girlfriend had broken up with him due to the fact that she thought he had no future. Ted was very capable of listening to his Id this would explain why he was addicted to aggressive pornography and raping and killing the women.

Freud’s defense mechanisms explain the reaction formation that occurs when your feelings are shameful and or unacceptable and you have to convince yourself that you feel the opposite. Bundy knew that he was wrong but he killed and kept killing. He had convinced himself that he wouldn’t change. Displacements, is when it takes place when you redirect unwanted undesirable aggressive or sexual urges to another person, rather than confronting the actual person. Ted Bundy took his pent-up anger out on the women he took and raping them.

Ted Bundy was organized and did not know how to deal with his past issues there for he could not be happy if we are going off Freuds theory. He also knew what he was doing yet had no remorse towards the victims or their family.

When we talk about Ted Bundy when it comes to the social/behavioral. When we define social psychology the branch of psychology that deals with social interactions, including their origins and their effects on the individual. And when we define behavioral s a theory of learning based on the idea that all behaviors are acquired through conditioning.

We look at examples according to Bundy he had an uneventful, normal childhood. His family and friends usually back those statements up. But if you look closer it shows that his childhood was awkward who from time to time crossed the lines of propriety, legality, and morality. Because he thought his mom was his sister for so long and that his grandparents were his parents. We start to see some weird behavior that could have been the reason behind his future.

When Ted Bundy was a child and would go to the summer camps with all the other children’s he would go off by himself and make ground traps and wait for the other children to fall in. There was an incident where a little girl was running and fell in the whole. In the whole was a huge stick with nails she fell on her side in there and was severely injured. “In Conversations with a Killer: The Ted Bundy Tapes, Sandi Holt, who grew up with Bundy, shared that he was teased for having a speech impediment and that he couldn't keep up with his fellow Boy Scouts.” He also did not get along with his step dad. “Jealous of his mother's new relationship, Bundy had a deliberate public tantrum at Sears, wetting his pants as part of the display.”

It was also stated that “Though Bundy wasn't a bad athlete, he didn't make his school basketball or baseball teams, a failure that was difficult for him to deal with. In high school, he was a loner who went on only one date. He later explained, 'It wasn’t that I disliked women or were afraid of them, it was just that I didn’t seem to have an inkling as to what to do about them.'”

Ted Bundy was many things but was very lost and had a lot of confusions from the start of his life to when he was executed on January 24th, 1989. His life was thrown out for everyone to know about and people waited outside of the prison and shot of fireworks when he had finally been killed. Ted Bundy will forever be one of the most studied serial killer that we will study.

References

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3. Ted Bundy. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://serial-killing.weebly.com/ted-bundy.html.
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8. Kettler, S. (2019, July 30). Inside Ted Bundy's Troubled and Disturbing Childhood. Retrieved from https://www.biography.com/news/ted-bundy-childhood.