We Need to Talk About Kevin
I just finished viewing the film We Have to Talk About Kevin. I watched the film primarily out of obligation as we are about to host a seminar on it. I knew nothing about it, other than Dan Ross was moved by it and wanted to lead a seminar about “the Predator.” I was absolutely blown away by the film and sit here in a stunned state.
I don’t write many blog’s for the Asheville Jung Center. In fact I haven’t written any prior to this; but I sit here so stunned that I feel I have no choice.
I’m a psychiatrist and have been practicing some 20 years now. I’ve seen many wonderful patients over the years and been delighted by their dreams and stories. I’ve also, however, had a handful of patients that make my hair stand on end and keep me up at night. I’ve run into patients that seem to have no conscious at all; that have no remorse for any act. I’ve had rageful patients, incredibly abusive spouses and even one that shot his wife and his two children execution style. I’ve been haunted by these encounters and never truly known what to do with them. This film brought these feelings and memories into Technicolor and left me stranded on a desolate reef.
What is a sociopath? How are they formed? Is it nature, nurture, or a cruel act of fate? How can anyone sink to the level of random murder?
Anyone who has been horrified by Columbine or any mass killing or even the sociopathic car salesman talking you into the wrong vehicle must see this film. Be prepared to lose your grounding of what you thought was typical humanity and be left in a disturbing paralysis.
Regardless of whether you can make our seminar next week or not, do see this movie. It hits the absolute bowels of our society, but you will not regret it.
Steven Buser, MD
Founder, Asheville Jung Center
You might be interested in a 2002 book I co-authored in which I do a psychological profile of the infamous Zodiac serial killer (who was never caught.” I try to bring a depth psychological approach to my analysis. The book is This Is The Zodiac Speaking: Into The Mind of A Serial Killer.
David Van Nuys, Ph.D.
Prof. Emeritus, Sonoma State University
Host,
Shrink Rap Radio
I would urge you to read the book, because both the mother and the son have more human dimension to them. I suggested the book to my book group several years ago and the mothers had a tough time imagining that any mother could have negative feelings about her child. So the book is not for anyone who cannot see the shadow of mothering.
Steve, Thanks for this e-mail.
Years ago I studied all the works of Dr. Robert Hare (Canadian who contributed the profile of Psychopath to the first DSM) I suggest you study him thoroughly, especially his later works concerning the sub-clinical psychopath., To me the sub-clinical psychopath is even scarier. I say this because on an intuitive level there is always something about a psychopath that reveals his/her nature. (7% of psychopaths are women). That is not true of the sub clinical ones.
I am in Chicago, upon my return to Florida in Oct. I will glad do a presentation on Dr. Hare and the sub-clinical psychopath for the Center as I have done so often in the past in Chicago. Let me know.
I will watch the movie.
I also would urge people to read the book. I saw the movie and immediately went and purchased the book and couldn’t put it down. The shadow side of motherhood is an interesting subject to ponder, especially when one takes into account the complicated relationships many parents and children have. I have two sons, the older one has been a constant challenge and we have an interesting relationship. The younger one was such an easy going relationship that I have spent a lot of time pondering the nature of my relationship with my older son. I found this book fascinating and very real and human.
I thank you for opening this true Pandora’s box of analysis and awareness in relationship with the Inner Predator. Through the last 30 years of working with clients’ and my own “Dream Serial Killers” I have been learning the importance of engaging directly, assertively and fearlessly (if possible) with the inner archetypes of the socio-psychopath. We live in a world of Narcissim, violence, stimulation-seeking and atrocities toward women, children, animals and the Natural body of our planet, just to mention a few felonies. When I began documenting the “organized, intentional and highly-creative serial killer” in both adults’ and childrens’ dreams 3 decades ago, I also began experiencing my own archetypal predator dreams. Currently, through what I experience in dream-state as a my psychic self-defense, I have learned to transform many of these personal, terrifying and galvanizing dreamscapes into lucid, interactive dreams. Sometimes I am able to confront the Stalker and truly see “His” impenetrable lack of conscience. In these moments, I know that I will not “change Him,” but may manage to pause the dream long enough to recognize the psychic implications and become clear that “this is only a dream.” Of course, this does not ameliorate the horror. I am also aware in this dream-state that the kind of terrorism and coldly cruel and conscienceless creativity of this Predator, does, truly exist in ordinary reality in this moment of my dream, in terrible expression,all over the world. I am developing some limited empathy for this Inner Figure, which as a young psychotherapist I would never have thought possible.I believe, in part, that I am dreaming this Inner Figurein order to expand my empathy and my fierceness with intrapersonal boundaries. This, I am aware, may assist me in supporting my clients who are often overwhelmed by the media, childhood memories and their own guilt and shame inculcated from suppressed memories and unexpressed rage.I am still, after 30 years in practice, unable to accept that there is such a thing as a “bad seed”–a born-into, nature-only influenced, anti-social monster. More interpersonal neurobiology brain imaging results and attachment theory study my disprove my position. With my clients, whose dream predator archetypes continue in a chronic and disturbing series, I utilize a specific somatic, empathic releasing modality which I have developed over the past 25 years. Psycho-dynamic work accompanies this relaxing,releasing process which seems to allow the Right Hemisphere to relieve the flooding, frozen pain of cellular memories of the dream horrors and fears. Through this combined implicit and somatic process we may more mercifully and perhaps, safely, visit the situational re-stimulation of unconscious material.
Some great comments on the film and the book. I agree the book provides a larger landscape for the author, Lionel Shriver, to explore the collective shadow of mothering in the 21st century. I believe Marcie was moving in the direction I have regarding the predator. It seems to draw power and autonomy from our unconscious attitude towards it and contrarily loses power as we confront it, recognize it, ponder its existence in us all. I am interested in its unshakeable stalking of the naive, the weak amonst us or the naive aspects of ourselves as if the one requires the other and the balance of power shifts intrapsychically away from the predator and the naive aspects of ourselves are transmuted into a wizer self. Marcie wrote, “I am developing some limited empathy for this Inner Figure, which as a young psychotherapist I would never have thought possible.I believe, in part, that I am dreaming this Inner Figure in order to expand my empathy and my fierceness with intrapersonal boundaries”. There seems to be the potential for an expansion of consciousness and one’s emapthic range when one successfully encounters this inner figure. It is in the outer world the predator can take on flesh and blood and we must sharpen our instincts to see it when it is within striking distance, stare it down and show our fierceness, as Marcie suggests.
Touched by your response, Steve. I also urge reading the book – the narrative point of view is much subtler in prose and the mother’s voice is thrilling and transgressive. Some women I know hated the book so much they wouldn’t talk about it. But I found it a meditation on being real rather than good and how being honest with herself allows the mother to make some connection with her son to be acknowledged.
But I think you also raise a deeper point: how to deal with the real darkness that we meet in life, something more than shadow dynamics perhaps?
It is interesting to run across this conversation as I have just finished listening to the recorded version of “Most Evil” by Steve Hodel. This author believes that his brilliant father, Dr. George Hill Hodel, was the Black Dahlia killer, the Zodiac killer, and a serial killer in the Phillepines, as well as being responsible for many other less publicized murders. As with many exhaustive examinations of evil, it become numbing at some levels.
As a private-practice therapist I worked with a boy who played out sadistic violence for almost three years. I held fast to the belief that in time this would follow the lines of Kalshed’s theory on a multipart self-care system. Sadly, the child left treatment because his guardian aunt refused to believe that the child was anything but a victim of bullies. While working with the child I felt that he left me pierced with shards of ice week after week. He may make an incredible breakthrough; otherwise he will be making horrific headlines. Perhaps this an example of a subclinical sociopath with whom the clinician holds excrusiating ambivalence.
One sociopathic murderer graduated from U of Michigan Medical School in1884. The alias Dr Henry Howard Holmes opened a hotel during the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair, with murder in mind he designed and built a hotel for himself. While he later confessed to 27 murders, actually four were confirmed of the supposed 200. Numerous victims were from the World’s Fair while less than two miles away from his “World’s Fair” hotel. Actually Herman Mudgett, his father was a violent alcoholic, his mother was a devout Methodist. The child classmates discovering his fear of the local doctor next forced him to view and touch a human skeleton, it was reported. The bullies brought him around to scare him, but instead he was fascinated as he became death obsessed. This material reveals Americas’s early serial killer who lured his victims to their deaths in his elaborately constructed “Murder Castle”. While reading through these thought filled responses re TOUCHING the UNSPEAKABLE NIGHTMARE, I recalled The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair That Changed America. The 2003 non-fiction novel by Erik Larson was since purchased for film rights by producer Leonardo DiCaprio in 2010.
Wow. Thank you all for such stimulating ideas and dialogue! I must indeed read the book as it sounds even more moving. The “subclinical Psychopath” does fit in some ways the picture of the patients that have disturbed me most. I must ponder this and research the idea more….
In the film (“We have to talk about Kevin”) the mother’s portrayal was so masterfully done. You really feel the trap of how do you love your child despite the level of aggression and hate he/she is showing? You know you need to love him, but somehow can’t genuinely find it within. A shadowy spot that very few of us would want to touch. While I feel very loving and connected to my children, there are certainly times that it is hard to fully be so…
Found and read the (captivating) blog yesterday and, as I am in the process of finishing “We Need to Talk about Kevin,” felt compelled to say a few words about my impressions of the film vs. the book. For me, admittedly neither an analyst nor a parent, the characters were not as compelling as you found them and the ending of the film fell flat (or rather, hollow). One thing the film doesn’t capture is the irony and humor of the text, which to a great extent, in my opinion, allow the narrative to work. I heartily recommend the book — as a sound piece of literature, if not as an exploration of the origins of sociopathy, which is beyond my ken. (As the Extras to the film explain, the author did feel the need to explore her decision not to be a mother at the age of eight, but I don’t think her intention was to explore sociopathy per se. She had no quarrel with the film director’s interpretation of her work.) Now, today, the horror of the Aurora, Colorado, massacre is unfolding…
I read your blog earlier today and have been thinking about it ever since. I finally got on-line to say so and found this stream of evocative responses. Thank you for starting the reflection. Tonight watching the news it was as though the nature of the Predator was amplified in everything I saw – from political posturing to wipe out an “opponent”, to intrusive coverage of the very private pain in people’s lives given up to advance a career or make a buck, even my own thoughts (maybe judgments)came under the lens of this scrutiny. Though there are obvious extremes, it seems that none of us are exempt or separate. This is a potent and important subject for inquiry and reflection. Again, thank you.
I will no doubt watch this film. I am one of those unlucky people who know sociopaths all too well. I was raised by one, knew a couple here and there (an ex- who has the same basic personality as Nicolai Carpathia, a molesting pastor, a few clients…), and then in my late life, I managed to get a professional stalker attached to me for a little more than 4 years. It seems that once one takes over, it leaves a person open to attract more. It’s been a nightmare.
Listening to these comments, I find myself afraid/ very hesitant to read the book or see the movie. Why would I want to give power to this phenomenon? Why would I want the images and the information in my head? I learned this after watching The Exorcist many years ago.
I am not talking about naively moving through the world but rather the energetic ‘stimulation’ if you will, that should not be handed over to such.
Jung talked about the time that the German analysts came to Switzerland pre WWII or around that time. He indicated that ‘Woton’ was in the room: the god of War/ destruction.
When I visited Dachau, the Concentration Camp, many years ago, witnessing the skeletal structure to the entrance to the camp and feeling the mercurial-nature of the ground (“nothing will ever grow here again”), that was as close/ familiar as I ever want to get to this kind of phenomenon.
This being said, it is extremely important to always speak truth to power and this is the way I try and handle these matters in my life as witnessed by my blog on the travesty of NC mental health: http://madame-defarge.blogspot.com/
That is my Luke Skywalker light saber. It may just be words, but they can be extremely potent.
I may be wrong, but I don’t think that one has to engage or even become intimately familiar with dark knowledge or heavy knowledge in order to understand its ability to shape events or people. Yes, one is a witness and in this witnessing, the darkness loses it ability to ride roughshod over everything.
Rather sitting in a place of light, community, and engagement is the antidote.
Marsha Hammond PhD
i guess one need not be bitten by red ants to believe in them.
I watched the DVD “We need to talk about Kevin” last night and was deeply moved by it. For reasons that never become clear, Eva was not able to bond with Kevin. Psychoneurobiological research (summarise by Shore, et al)has unequivocally shown that if empathic attunement and lack of relatedness to the infant does not occur by at least ONE caregiver in the crucial early weeks and months of life while the right brain continues to develop, sociopathy is the likely end result. In the film, Eva appears to be suffering from post-partum depression (that severely impedes the bonding process)that is not recognised by her or her ineffectual husband and no treatment is sought. A vicious cycle is set up: the baby screams, desperate for empathically related comfort from the mother, she is unable to respond – and sinks deeper into a shut down depressed state. He never gives up but eventually resorts to acting out negatively – and sure enough, that gets her attention: “bad air is better than no air at all!” What is portrayed so well is that in spite of this being a “middle class” educated family, they do NOT seek help – except from a paediatrician that assures Eva that there is nothing wrong with Kevin! Had the mother and the family sought appropriate treatment early, the awful tragedy could possibly have been averted. Throughout the film, Eva, like Lady Macbeth, is attempting rather ineffectually to get rid of the red paint/blood splashed over the front of her house (“Out, out damned spot!”). She appears to be trapped in a dreadful masochistic complex remaining in a community that continues to brutalise her – her inner predator had her firmly in its grip! Eva does not appear to gain insight ot understanding by the end of the film. In the last scene, she asks Kevin while visiting him in prison: “Why…why did you do it?” In one of the most poignant moments of the film, he replies: “I thought I knew…but I’m not so sure anymore…”
John, Your references to Schore are appreciated and the film, as well as the book, clearly draw out Eva’s ambivalence and inability to connect with her son. I do think the book allows us a look into Eva’s cynical view of the world and her dissociation during and after her pregancy. Schore writes that the first 18 months is key in that maternal connection and even a prenatal portion in which emotional resonance takes place. I think brilliantly looking at the causal connection between the affective dysregulation between mother and infant feeds into the author’s premise that mother’s contributing to psychopathy of their children is exactly the rage that Eva is trying to unleash. That is only the causal perspective. From a psychoanalytic perspective Kevin seems more archetypal and the personification of Eva’a unaddressed cynical stance with the world including her view of motherhood. It is as if her complex was made flesh and became her cross to bear.
One more comment John. The ending with Kevin’s statement about Kevin’s ambivalence or at least confusion is followed by what I though was the poignant gesture. Eva puts her arms around Kevin as though all the scraping of red paint on her house and all the cleansing that that symbolized allowed her an empathic moment as a separate person who no longer felt responsible for creating a monster and was no longer at risk for falling under his power.
Thanks for your interesting response to my comments, Daniel. I have not read the book and perhaps the author allows more insight into Eva’s cynical stance towards the world and motherhood. I am therefore not entirely in agreement with your interpretation that Kevin is an archetypal manifestation of her cynical stance. The aspect of the Self/mother archetype that Eva mediated and humanised for him was unrelated, disconnected, unempathic, unattuned, cruel and brutal – without any limits being imposed at all. She was utterly incapable of seeing the little boy for who he was – she saw him only as the enemy, and that was most certainly a projection of her destructive sadistic punitive shadow aspect that he then concretised and incarnated. However, she appreared to do much better with her second child, Cilie. Her cynicism did not come through there at all. What does become clear is her utter incapacity to set any boundaries or to teach Kevin the link between cause and effect of his sadistic behaviour towards Celie (or towards her). This, together with the useless father who also could not set limits or intervene approapriately, created a tyrannical monster child/adolescent who was terrified of his own omnipotence and therefore committed the final heinous crime to be contained. As we know archetypal energy is impersonal and it simply used him as a conduit to manifest aspects of the terrifying dark destructive aspects unattenuated by any appropraite ego control that neither of his parents had helped him develop.
John,
I agree with you if we look at Kevin as an autonomous person and Kevin then emerges from a projective identification with the Eva’s shadow but I tend to see the film as one would a fairy tale in which the chararcters are all components of one psyche.
A very interesting perspective, Daniel – and one that would result in a very different interpretation from what I had suggested.
There is an article in the New York Times about psychopathic/sociopathic children and whether that diagnosis would help or hinder the problem. I will refer to it in the seminar. I look forward to our discussion. The article is called. “Can You Call a 9-Year Old a Psychopath?”. Here is the link:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/13/magazine/can-you-call-a-9-year-old-a-psychopath.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all
Daniel
Daniel, after posting my comments, I read the article that you posted. Indeed, based on Guggenbuhl-Craig’s “definition” of a psychopath, this strangely aligns with what he states in his book, The Emptied Soul. Thank you for passing this along. Lynn
I watched “We Need to Talk About Kevin” last night and have carried the deep feelings of confusion, violence, and sadness with me as a result. What immediately came to mind was a book by Guggenbuhl-Craig entitled The Emptied Soul: On the Nature of the Psychopath (1980). His vision of psychopathy is that it is not so much a deficiency of morality, but of crippled Eros. Guggenbuhl-Craig suggests that perhaps these dark, psychopathic tendencies lurk in each of us. In the violent world today, sometimes “we are all invalids as far as Eros is concerned, something to which we must adjust” (p. 111). Jung and von Franz recognized that Eros was in need of rehabilitation and observed how this deficiency was expressed in symptoms of violence and war.
As it relates specifically to the film, I recalled something Guggenbuhl-Craig stated on p. 54: “Psychopaths have a negative influence from the beginning on their environment, even though the reverse may seem to hold true. As children, psychopaths can relate to their mothers only to a limited extent and may, for this reason, be rejected by her.” He goes on to say that they are not psychopaths because their mothers reject them, but the other way around…they are rejected because they are psychopaths “and something in their character repels their”
Lynn M. Hynes
Ph.D. Candidate, Depth Psychology
Our book club read the Kevin book last year. I could hardly get through it, and having read the book, don’t think I can bear to see the movie. Such very interesting questions you raise.
Pat
This Psychic Predator topic we view evokes deep soul searching, so apparent in our best viewer remarks. The named concept here places a handle on the lurking mystery that unsettles us. The presented demon spirits amiss seam a link with our fairy tale archetypes for predator. Whenever the musings sounded vague and rationalizing, I trust this to the nature of “brainstorming”.
I watched the first half of the recording three times before viewing the whole presentation. So watching late in the evening, I fell asleep before all three endings. The problem with Vimeo here is that it cannot be backed-up nor does it fast foreword; maybe this weakness can be improved?
Here with my impressions finally, I now recall film flashbacks for the …KEVIN… movie as predicating the events that followed! As such, the film waffles out symbolic images of pulsating public crowds splashing in red fluid that covers our Eva as well, then a red house is scoured of negative red fluids while Eva next intercepts an onlooker’s gaze – not successful and likely hostile. The evocative emotions lead me to fetal embryos of pregnancy, a moist and critical time in development that I remember intuitively and with common sense. Illusions amid change are hung on the cross right here where bittersweet pain allows grace and joy at the time of birth, the transformation.
Do put this lost love case onto the woman as that is where it rests, although modified by him near in proximity. Dynamically the masculine feminine yoke fosters, hopefully with dedication and recommitment as there are shadows that cloud along the way. If you mess or miss a layer of developments, the problem noise pops up later even if not for a sociopath killer type. Thus an alternate square foundation might succeed like a five point star as the child with parents evolve.
The movies are well done. Also, I am presently sorry for the family with their Colorado/SanDiego son, not totally unlike Kevin.
This is a deeply touching/troubling story and alerts us to a situation that could happen anywhere in the world. The shadow concept is truly eye-opening in the strength to which it affects our relationships. I treated that concept on my blog this week, in fact: http://rememberingfrankenstein.authorsxpress.com/2012/07/30/heal-the-monster-within-you/