April 11, 2017
The movie Psycho,
produced in 1960 by Alfred Hitchcock, is loosely based on the American serial
killer, Ed Gein, who lived in Wisconsin throughout the 1900’s. However, in more
resent years, cases such as the serial rapist from Ohio, Billy Milligan, who
had 27 different personalities, have more commonalities to the film. Best known
as Multiple Personality Disorder, this diagnosis has a complex history spanning
over several decades. Other names for the disorder are: Dissociative Identity
Disorder (DID), and Split Personality Disorder (SPD). The average movie goer
during the 1960’s was fascinated by thrillers and a sense of controversy. By
tapping into the controversial topics such as sex, murder, and stealing; Hitchcock
brought a different perspective of society to the American cinema. Hitchcock’s
film focuses around the main character Norman Bates (Anthony Perkins) who is
running a family owned and operated motel just off the main high way. This motel
that has a lurking manor which overshadows the guest rooms, is situated “back
off the high way, barely noticeable to any passer byes”. In the movie, a young
woman Lila Crane played by Vera Miles has stolen forty thousand dollars from
here job, and is now on the run. She stops at the Bates Motel, and purchases a
room for the evening. This turns out to be the most fatal of her mistakes. In
this paper, I will attempt to analyze the personality of Norman Bates based on
the infamous Hitchcock film. Using Freudian and Jungian psychology, which was
the main stream psychological standard for laymen of the 1950’s, I will critically
analysis both environmental and biological components to which we can accredit
Noman’s cumulative personality, and ultimately extracting what allowed his
personality to fragment to such an extreme that is was consumed entirely by
that of his mother complex.
The first component
of this problem which needs unraveling is the environmental aspect of the
developing personality of Norman Bates. As explained via the movie, we are told
that Norman was raised by his widowed mother. The young Norman took the death
of his father rather hard, and such a disastrous event in a child’s life often
creates a state of chaos in which a young child cannot navigate independently.
After the death occurred, his mother became controlling of Normans life and in her
grief, filled the archetypical roll of the father and lover with that of her
son. This is a key moment in the development of Normans personality, and he characterized
it in the film by stating, “A son is a poor substitute for a lover”. In today’s
world, this is still seen in clinical practices, and is incredibly devastating to
the developing child’s ability to proceed through the process of individualization. The process of
individualization is characterized by Jung and Freud as a person coming into their
own being, or the development of one’s own personality. After several years of just
Norman and his mother, a lover came into the equation. As the relationship
between the new lover and the mother increased, Norman began to feel as if his
mother was replacing him with this new partner. What can be said about this matter is that in
a way Norman’s grievance does hold a certain validity. In a time when young
Norman was existing in a state of chaos, the overbearing and misguided mother
lead him through the perilous psychological landscape protecting him from any
danger that could occur. This robbed the experience from the boy and from lack
of this experience Norman never began to individuate and develop his psychological
defense mechanisms which could have ultimately saved his ego and self from that of
his unconscious shadow.
The mother’s new infatuation
with her lover creates two problems in Norman’s life. The first, is that Norman’s
replacement and reassignment in the family hierarchal structure. And the second
being, as the family structure changes, the fixation by Norman’s mother on his
behavior and psychological state slowly erodes way. One would suppose that this
would be a good thing for an overbearing and ambivalent mother to do; however,
remember that the now older Norman has yet to develop any defensive
psychological tools, which will allow him to protect or cope with the physical
and psychological dangers of the world. These dangers in classical Freudian
terms would be known as anxieties. As the mother moved away from Norman and
began to focus on her new lover, Norman was unable to cope with the sudden
threat of the chaotic world around him. Without his coping mechanism (Mother’s
Protection) to resort to in times of tribulation, he foresaw no other option
that to return his environment back to the way it once was. This would only be
achieved by reinstating his role in the family model; therefore, the
elimination of the new lover was necessary and justifiable in the eyes of young
Norman. A quote I once read fits here rather nicely, even though I no longer
remember the author; “Is there not much one would not do to guaranty his own safety?”.
We are then lead to the conclusion that Norman also killed his mother, thereby
insuring that her leaving will not occur again. Trying to rationalize his
actions, he internalized the personality of his mother, and over time this alternate
personality split off all cognitive ties with that of Norman’s childlike personality.
Once all of this is considered, it becomes more clear to see just how an unbridled
chaotic environment could exploit an unprotected mind. But is this enough on
its own to create such a psychological state where Norman’s personality fragments
and loses its self-identity to such an extreme that serial murder could occur?
The answer is simply, no. Personality is also based on the biological makeup of
the individual, and this is what we shall examine next.
Here we begin to see the separation between the
work of Jung and Freud. Freudian theory has a heavy underpinning of sexuality, whereas
Jungian theory limits this element. When investigating the character Norman Bates,
one cannot remove the sexuality element of the story line nor say exactly to
what extent it permeates throughout the problem. In this since, we can
attribute much of Hitchcock’s character development to that of Freudian
psychology. When analyzing Norman Bates, through the lens of psychotherapy, we
see a young man who has not yet developed into his own being. He seems to be
unsure or conflicted about the actions he takes, and when questioned, becomes
defensive. What is also clear, to the trained eye, is that Norman has not progressed
through Freud’s Stages of Psychosexual Development. This leads to two major
understandings on the side of the psychologist. First, there is a fixation
occurring at some stage of development, and secondly, the Oedipus complex which
Freud first laid out in 1899, is not resolved. In Norman’s case, we see that he
has moved though the stages of oral and anal; however, is fixated in the Phallic
stage of development. This stage is represented by the development of one’s
sexual identity. The failure to develop past this stage may in fact be the
underlining trigger for why Norman’s psyche flips to the defensive “Mother” mechanism
whenever a sexualized event occurs. If a sexual action in Norman’s mind is
viewed as an anxiety ridden event. In addition, this explanation would give credence
to why when the mother complex arises from the unconscious, it does so in a
protective way acting against the things which could be viewed as anxieties and
removing them from the weaker personality’s perspective. What also provides evidence
of this analysis is that once the anxiety is removed, the weaker personality of
young Norman returns to the forefront as the loving and caring son, who is
willing to cover up the crimes of the mother. This self-feeding relationship
could be interpreted in another way as burning a wick from both sides
eventually consuming itself entirely.
Another aspect of
Norman’s biological presupposition is that he may in fact have homosexual tendencies
which, if viewed within the time frame of the 1950’s and 1960’s, was classified
as a mental disorder with roots in biological components. The fact that the
actor who was cast for the role of Norman Bates is also a homosexual man
provides even more depth to the character. In the video, when Lila Crane asks if “sending
off” his mother would be better, he makes a strong case about the “Madhouse”
and how judgmental society is to those who dwell outside of its norms. These
statements are expressed quite emotionally to Lila Crane, and gives the
impression that he may have been subjected to the “Madhouse” before or has experienced
an exceptional amount of stigmatization from the public. Reasons such as these
could explain why they live outside of town and rarely have guess. One explanation
of this is that because of his biological inheritance and environmental upbringing,
Norman was a homosexual man. Evidence for this can be viewed in a scene when as
Norman makes his way up the stairs in the main house, he moves in a rather flamboyant
manner. Also, per 1960’s psychological theory, this would once again be caused
by the identifying with the needs of the mother, and not being able to identify
with a male figure and mature through a standard sexual development. Being gay
in the 1960’s would be something that teaches the individual coping skills such
as repression, the only other defensive mechanism shown in the film, of one’s
biological and psychological desires. At the end, when things begin to close
around Norman, he hides the body of his mother underground in the cellar. This
is a physical acting out, show casing, the need to push things below the
surface, to repress the personality back into the subconscious part of his
mind. And just as Freud predicts, when the ego
and self does not have the psychic
strength to restrain the neurotic aspects of the mind, they will burst forth
from that part of the mind known as the unconscious.
Norman
Bate’s condition by the end of the movie is one which to this day still
perplexes leading scientist, doctors, and psychologist. The stronger
personality of the mother, overwhelms the boys and Norman’s ego is no longer
able to be found. Years of therapy are needed to work through these personalities,
and often the people are committed to hospitals for the remainder of their
lives never to achieve individualization or a congruency between their multiple
personalities. They dwell as multiple people unrecognizable even unto themselves.
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