Psychological Analysis of a Serial Killer: Jeffrey Dahmer’s Background, Motives and Hickey’s Trauma-Control Model

Assignment: Psychological analysis of a serial killer’s motives

You are a psychologist assigned to interview the serial killer of your choice to determine what motivated the individual to kill. Address the following:

• Give a historical background of the serial offender (childhood, early adulthood, etc.).
• Give specific details about the offender’s motives, planning and execution of his or her killing plan.
• Identify and thoroughly describe a theory that best describes the offender’s behaviors and motives, supported with solid research.
• Give specific examples of the offender’s behavior that are supported by your chosen theory.

Original example for study purposes (about 1,300 words). Facts about Dahmer are widely documented; confirm dates and details against your course sources.

The Need to Possess: A Psychological Analysis of Jeffrey Dahmer

Introduction

Jeffrey Dahmer is one of the most infamous serial killers in U.S. history. Between 1978 and 1991, he murdered 17 young men and boys, most of them in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Unlike offenders motivated mainly by profit or hatred, Dahmer repeatedly described a desire to keep his victims with him and to prevent them from leaving. As a psychologist preparing to interview him, I would focus on how early experiences of isolation and abandonment, combined with fantasies of control and heavy alcohol use, shaped a pattern of killing to possess. This paper reviews Dahmer’s background, motives and methods and applies Hickey’s trauma-control model, supported by attachment theory and research on childhood trauma in serial offenders.

Historical Background

Childhood. Dahmer was born on May 21, 1960, in Milwaukee and grew up mostly in Bath Township, Ohio. Accounts by his father and biographers describe a home marked by marital conflict and his mother’s health and emotional difficulties, with Dahmer becoming increasingly withdrawn as a child. After surgery for hernias at about age four, he was described as quieter and more passive. By adolescence, he was socially isolated, collected and dissected animal remains and began drinking heavily, sometimes during school. He later said he experienced intrusive fantasies combining sex, control and death during adolescence.

Early adulthood. In 1978, shortly after he graduated from high school and while his parents were divorcing, Dahmer was left largely alone in the family home. That June, he committed his first murder, killing Steven Hicks, a hitchhiker he had invited to the house who wanted to leave. He briefly attended Ohio State University and then served in the U.S. Army from 1979 until he was discharged in 1981 for alcohol abuse. He moved in with his grandmother in West Allis, Wisconsin, where he was arrested several times for public indecency. After nearly a decade without a known killing, he murdered again in 1987, and the killings accelerated after he moved into his own apartment in Milwaukee. In 1988, he was convicted of sexually assaulting a 13-year-old boy but received a sentence that allowed work release (Encyclopedia.com, n.d.).

Arrest and outcome. On July 22, 1991, Tracy Edwards escaped from Dahmer’s apartment and flagged down police, who discovered evidence of multiple murders. Earlier that year, police had returned a 14-year-old Laotian boy, Konerak Sinthasomphone, to Dahmer after the boy escaped, a failure that led to public outrage and the suspension of officers (Encyclopedia.com, n.d.). At trial in 1992, Dahmer pleaded guilty but insane; the jury found him sane, and he received 15 consecutive life sentences. He was killed by another inmate, Christopher Scarver, in November 1994.

Motives, Planning and Execution

Motive. Dahmer’s statements to investigators and mental health professionals consistently emphasized a fear of being left. He said his first killing occurred because Hicks wanted to leave, and he later described wanting companions who would never abandon him. He attempted to create compliant, permanent companions and kept remains as a way of keeping victims “with” him. These statements suggest that his primary motive was possession and control rather than profit or revenge, with sexual and paraphilic interests closely intertwined.

Planning. Dahmer’s crimes were planned and patterned. He typically met young men in bars, bus stations or shopping areas, offered money for photographs or invited them home for drinks and then gave them drinks laced with sedatives. He chose victims who were often marginalized and less likely to be quickly reported missing or believed by police. His apartment functioned as a controlled environment where he could carry out his crimes and conceal evidence.

Execution. Once victims were incapacitated, Dahmer killed them and attempted to retain parts of their bodies. His methods escalated over time, reflecting increasingly elaborate fantasies of permanent possession. His heavy drinking was present throughout, lowering inhibitions and helping him act on fantasies. The pattern of ritual and retention also illustrates how his crimes served a psychological purpose beyond the killings themselves.

Theory: Hickey’s Trauma-Control Model

Eric Hickey’s trauma-control model explains serial murder as the result of interacting predispositions, traumatic experiences and facilitators that lead to a cycle of fantasy and violence (Hickey, 2016). The model proposes that (a) individuals may have predispositional factors, biological, psychological or social, that make them vulnerable; (b) traumatic events in childhood, such as rejection, abandonment, abuse or unstable family life, produce feelings of inadequacy, humiliation and low self-esteem; (c) the person copes through dissociation and fantasy, often fantasies of control over others; (d) facilitators such as alcohol, drugs or pornography lower inhibitions and intensify fantasies; and (e) homicide becomes a way to regain control, which provides temporary relief but reinforces the cycle, leading to repetition and escalation. Hickey emphasizes that trauma alone does not cause murder; most traumatized people never become violent, so the combination and timing of factors matter.

Supporting research. Research supports the role of early adversity in many serial offenders. Mitchell and Aamodt (2005) reviewed the backgrounds of serial killers and found that they had substantially higher rates of physical, sexual and psychological abuse in childhood than the general population. Attachment theory also helps explain the specific meaning of abandonment in Dahmer’s case. Bowlby (1969) proposed that early relationships with caregivers form internal working models of whether others are reliable and whether the self is worthy of care. Insecure attachment can produce intense fear of abandonment, difficulty forming intimate relationships and attempts to control others to avoid loss. In Dahmer’s case, the model does not require childhood abuse; emotional neglect, parental conflict and the abrupt dissolution of the family can function as traumatic, destabilizing events.

Behaviors Explained by the Theory

• Trauma and abandonment: the family conflict, his mother’s absence and his parents’ divorce culminated in Dahmer being left alone in 1978, the setting of his first murder. His explanation that he killed Hicks because Hicks wanted to leave directly reflects the theory’s link between abandonment trauma and control.
• Fantasy and dissociation: his adolescent isolation and long-standing fantasies of control over a compliant partner fit the model’s stage of compensatory fantasy that develops in response to feelings of inadequacy.
• Facilitators: chronic alcohol use, beginning in adolescence and leading to his discharge from the army, lowered inhibitions; he drank before and during his crimes.
• Control: drugging victims and trying to keep them as permanent companions represent an extreme attempt to gain total control over others so they could not reject or leave him.
• Reinforcement and escalation: after the nine-year gap, the rapid acceleration of killings in 1990 and 1991 suggests that each murder provided only temporary relief, reinforcing the cycle described by Hickey.

Interview Considerations and Limitations

In an interview, I would explore Dahmer’s earliest memories of family life, his experiences of loneliness and rejection, the content and development of his fantasies, his use of alcohol and his own explanations for choosing particular victims. A limitation is that much of what we know comes from his self-report, which may be shaped by a desire to explain or minimize his behavior, and from retrospective accounts by family members. The trauma-control model also explains less about why he targeted marginalized men, which likely reflects opportunity and the perception that these victims were less likely to be protected, and should be combined with situational and victimology analysis.

Conclusion

Jeffrey Dahmer’s crimes appear to have been driven by a profound need to possess others and prevent abandonment. Hickey’s trauma-control model, supported by attachment theory and research on early adversity in serial offenders, explains how emotional neglect, family disruption, compensatory fantasies and alcohol combined into a cycle of escalating violence. Understanding these pathways does not excuse his crimes, but it can inform early intervention, investigative practice and greater attention to the vulnerable communities he targeted.

References

Bowlby, J. (1969). Attachment and loss: Vol. 1. Attachment. Basic Books.

Encyclopedia.com. (n.d.). Dahmer, Jeffrey Lionel. https://www.encyclopedia.com/humanities/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/dahmer-jeffrey-lionel

Hickey, E. W. (2016). Serial murderers and their victims (7th ed.). Cengage Learning.

Mitchell, H., & Aamodt, M. G. (2005). The incidence of child abuse in serial killers. Journal of Police and Criminal Psychology, 20(1), 40–47. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02806705

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