A Homicidal Triad
Can one's behaviour in childhood predict one's future?
Let's start with a true story. One of my son's primary school comrades, let's call him Z, was a couple of years ago - together with three other young men - imprisoned for a group rape of a teenage girl in a hotel room after a drug and alcohol party. (This was not his first offense.) The details of what happened are not the point of the story, rather what is important is Z's behaviour already in his early childhood. Already in primary school, he enjoyed sticking out eyes on golden fish, setting fires, and was suffering from bed-wetting.
A homicidal (Macdonald) triad
A homicidal (Macdonald) triad, proposed by John M. Macdonald in his article, The Threat to Kill of 1963, (1) is a set of three factors, namely: animal cruelty, arson, and bed-wetting in childhood, the presence of any two of the factors in a person considered to be predictive of serial violent offenses. The obvious question is, whether we can find any of those traits in young Freud. Fortunately, his writings and letters, are a good source of information about the early Freud.
Becoming a serial killer is a process, a malicious child gradually growing into the lethal adult role. Is there any indication in Freud's letters and writings that Freud was going to develop into a dangerous psychopath?
Freud mentions his early childhood in several works, in particular in The Interpretation of Dreams. He also describes his youth in the letters to his youthful friends, Silberstein, Knopfmacher, and Fluss, as well as to his fiancé, and his boyfriend, Wilhelm Fliess.
Most of the information about Freud's youth originates from the collection of his letters to Silberstein, although the reliability of the editorial work, supervised by Anna Freud, is in doubt. Nonetheless, even so, some of the content indicating Freud's real character managed to get through. After all, there's so much of it, that excluding all would make the publication impossible. In general, if the statement puts Freud in a bad light, then it is genuine, otherwise, it is a coin toss and anyone's guess.
Freud's early writings - since Anna, being not yet born, or being underage, wasn't consulted - weren't subjected to this kind of Draconian censorship as Freud's later publication, and thus better reflect Freud's true nature. Before Freud achieved some success, he was rather reckless in his writing, revealing more of his bizarre personality, as he pointed out, than he should. Thus, the most revealing material was published before the year 1910, when Freud, as yet, was a nobody and careless with his confessions.
Let's gather Freud's early statements to see whether they conform to the homicidal triad.
* MacDonald, John, The Threat to Kill, American Journal of Psychiatry,1963, Volume 120, Number 2.
Freud's early preference: flaying animals...
Animal cruelty
Freud started his career working as a laboratory assistant and dissecting animals. He described his duties on April 5, 1876, aged 20, in his letter to Silberstein, writing:
I serve the beast-killing science ... hands stained with the white and red blood of marine animals. *
There's no doubt that Freud wasn't opposed to killing animals, rather the opposite. And he wasn't squeamish when spilling blood.
For some reason, his sister Anna, in her recollections of My brother, Sigmund Freud (1940), falsely claimed that, although Freud, could not bear the sight of blood, he overcame this aversion and entered the field of medicine.
Would Freud, as she claimed, squeamish at the sight of blood, have chosen medicine as a field of study, and profession? It is hard to find a more absurd idea.
Freud's interest in cruelty, not only animal, is apparent from his letter to his friend, Wilhelm Knöpfmacher, on August 6, 1878, in which he stated: I have moved into another laboratory, where I am preparing myself for my real profession: flaying of animals or torturing of human beings. *
* Freud, Sigmund, The Letters of Sigmund Freud to Eduard Silberstein, 1871-1881, (1992, p. 142).
Torturing rabbits
So, already as a young man, aged 22, Freud had a clear idea in which direction he was heading.
Some years later, in a letter to his fiancé, Martha, on April 28, 1885, Freud, aged 29, reported in the same vein: now and again I torture the two rabbits which nibble away at turnips in the little room and make a mess of the floor. **
Taking into account Freud's interest in flaying animals, it is unlikely that Freud joked about torturing the poor rabbits. What was going to happen to the rabbits next? Would they be flayed by Freud?
There's something wrong with Freud's description of the idyllic laboratory scene. Experimental animals, including rabbits, are not running freely around the laboratory making a mess on the floor but are locked up in their cages awaiting their cruel fate.
The statement only makes sense, if we remove the second part of the sentence, most probably added by the editor, Freud's son, Ernst, supervised by his sister, Anna.
It wouldn't be a surprise, if all that Freud wrote was, now and again I torture the two rabbits, no doubt enjoying himself.
By the way, Freud's reference to now and again confirms this idea. This is not an experiment, but a repetitive animal torture Freud was talking about
** Freud, Sigmund, The Letters of Sigmund Freud, (1975, p. 7).
Lighting fires...
Arson
In his work, Some Character Types Met with in Psycho-Analytic Work, in the aptly titled chapter III, Criminals from a Sense of Guilt, (1916), Freud explained the relation of guilt to arson. Keeping in mind that Freud's works are, most of the time, his confessions, the following quote is very enlightening. Thus, Freud writes,
In telling me about their early youth, particularly before puberty, people who have afterwards often become very respectable [like Freud] have informed me of forbidden actions which they committed at that time - such as thefts, frauds and even arson. (1)
Although containing some truth, in other respects Freud's statement is odd. Even though small "thefts" are not uncommon in children, who at an early age don't understand the notion of ownership, real frauds at this age, except maybe for Freud, are out of the question. On the other hand, arson committed by children, even though infrequent, does happen.
Oddly, for some reason, his hatred in particular had been directed towards the Russian tsar family. Thus, incensed, Freud explained, In times like these one is tempted to turn into a petroleur. (2) [A fire-bomber]
Interestingly, no doubt, writing from his own experience - after all, psychoanalysis is a one-man science - in his article, The Acquisition of Power Over Fire, Freud proclaimed that there is a close connection between ideas of ambition, fire and urethral eroticism. (3)
Freud's connection of fire (arson?) and urination fits nicely into the homicidal triad. As usual, since he doesn't provide any proof of any research, Freud was basing this idea on his own experience, as the inclusion of the trait of ambition indicates. Freud was living proof, as he stated in his dream book, of pathological ambition.
(1) SE 14, p. 332.
(2) Freud, Sigmund, The Letters of Sigmund Freud to Eduard Silberstein, 1871-1881, (1990, p. 164).
(3) Freud, Sigmund. The acquisition of power over fire. Int. J. Psychoanalysis, 13, (1932, pp. 405-410).
(3) SE 4, p. 192.
Lifelong urinator...
Bedwetting and more...
This is how in his dream book Freud proudly described his wet affliction:
It appears that when I was two years old I still occasionally wetted the bed. *
Thus, Freud fulfilled yet another of the three pre-conditions for becoming a violent offender.
Insanely, unlike most people, Freud was happy to brag about his incontinence, bizarrely claiming that it was related to his megalomania.
As Freud revealed - even though he had grown quite a bit - his unhygienic habits continued.
Calls of nature
When I was seven or eight years old, he wrote, before going to sleep I ... obeyed the calls of nature in my parents’ bedroom while they were present. *
The euphemistic plural expression calls of nature, besides urination, denotes also defecation. Apparently, in this case, both activities were performed concurrently.
Why did Freud soil the parent's bedroom? Did he disrupt the parents' vigorous lovemaking, which made him - already at this early age - sexually excited? Or was he, just like animals, in this way, marking out his parents' bedroom as his territory?
N.B. Even though Freud's homicidal triad may not be proof of his criminality, it is yet another corroborating factor.
* SE 4, p. 216.