Psychodynamic theories of offending
Freud's theory of the psyche
In Freud's psychodynamic theory personality (or the psyche) has three distinct components:
the ID, representing primitive desires and the need for gratification, the superego,
representing moral and social constraints, and the ego, representing reality and the ability to
delay gratification. Within this framework it is the role of the ego to strike a balance between
the demands of the id and the constraints imposed by the superego. This is primarily achieved
through the use of defence mechanisms that allow the id's desires to be satisfied in ways that
the superego finds acceptable. To a Freudian, then, behaviour that lies outside what society
regards as acceptable — be it 'abnormal' or 'criminal' — is the result of abnormal development
of the psyche. Since, in classical Freudian theory, the structure of the psyche is determined in
the first five years of life, it follows that the roots of offending are also to be found in this
period, especially in the relationship between the developing child and its parents. The
Freudian framework implies a number of possible causes for later criminal behaviour.
A weak superego
The superego is the moral regulator of behaviour. It develops at the end of the phallic stage
(about 5 years) as the child internalises its same-sex parent in order to resolve the Oedipus
complex. The superego continues to act as a parent within the psyche. It punishes the ego with
anxiety when an immoral act is contemplated and with guilt of the act is carried out. A weak
superego, developed as a result of abnormal relationships within the family, would result in a
person with few if any of the usual inhibitions against antisocial behaviour. They would act in
ways that gratified their id, regardless of the social restraints on doing so.
A deviant superego
Alternately, a child might develop a superego in the normal way, but the superego itself has
deviant values. The superego is an internalization of the same sex parent so as a moral
regulator it threatens and punishes those behaviours that the parent would find unacceptable.
Consequently, a son raised normally in a family with a criminal father might develop a
superego that does not react to criminal acts that the father would engage in.
A strong superego
It seems counterintuitive that a strong superego could increase a person's risk of offending
when the superego is the regulator of moral behaviour but there are at least two ways in which
this might happen. An excessively powerful superego would render a person anxious and guilty
much of the time, since every time they acted on the id's desires — however innocuously —
their superego would punish them for it. This could result in a person committing crimes in
order to get caught and punished to assuage the guilt imposed by their own superego.
Alternately, an excessively strong superego might prevent the person from expressing any of
the antisocial impulses that inevitably build up in their unconscious. Normally, they would
express these impulses harmlessly through defense mechanisms (e.g., by sublimating their
aggression into sport). If the superego prevents this from happening the aggression or sexual
desire could build up over time until it becomes strong enough to overwhelm the ego and is
expressed suddenly and violently as murder or rape.
, Megargee's 'overcontrolled' violent offender
Megargee (1966) documented a series of cases of violence carried out by people who
were regarded as passive and harmless. For example, an 11 year-old boy who stabbed
his brother 34 times with a steak knife was described as polite and softly spoken with no
history of aggression (Gross, 1996). Megargee argued that such cases represent a distinct
sub-group of violent offenders whose shared characteristic is an apparent inability to
express their anger in normal ways and who eventually 'explode' and release all their
anger and aggression at once, often in response to a seemingly trivial provocation.
Freudian formulations like Megargee's are unfashionable nowadays and more research
attention is given to the majority of violent offenders, whose problem is generally a lack
of inhibition of their anger, rather than too much inhibition. Nonetheless, there is
evidence that a subset of violent offenders follow the pattern described by Megargee.
Blackburn (1971), for example, found that people convicted of extremely violent assaults
tended to have fewer previous convictions and scored lower on measures of hostility
than those convicted of moderately violent assaults. However, the existence of such a
group does not in itself show that Megargee was correct about the underlying
mechanisms responsible. In particular, Megargee's approach does not adequately
distinguish whether such offenders do not experience anger normally (as the
psychodynamic approach would suggest) or whether they experience it but do not
express it
(Blackburn, 1993).
Freud's theory of the psyche
In Freud's psychodynamic theory personality (or the psyche) has three distinct components:
the ID, representing primitive desires and the need for gratification, the superego,
representing moral and social constraints, and the ego, representing reality and the ability to
delay gratification. Within this framework it is the role of the ego to strike a balance between
the demands of the id and the constraints imposed by the superego. This is primarily achieved
through the use of defence mechanisms that allow the id's desires to be satisfied in ways that
the superego finds acceptable. To a Freudian, then, behaviour that lies outside what society
regards as acceptable — be it 'abnormal' or 'criminal' — is the result of abnormal development
of the psyche. Since, in classical Freudian theory, the structure of the psyche is determined in
the first five years of life, it follows that the roots of offending are also to be found in this
period, especially in the relationship between the developing child and its parents. The
Freudian framework implies a number of possible causes for later criminal behaviour.
A weak superego
The superego is the moral regulator of behaviour. It develops at the end of the phallic stage
(about 5 years) as the child internalises its same-sex parent in order to resolve the Oedipus
complex. The superego continues to act as a parent within the psyche. It punishes the ego with
anxiety when an immoral act is contemplated and with guilt of the act is carried out. A weak
superego, developed as a result of abnormal relationships within the family, would result in a
person with few if any of the usual inhibitions against antisocial behaviour. They would act in
ways that gratified their id, regardless of the social restraints on doing so.
A deviant superego
Alternately, a child might develop a superego in the normal way, but the superego itself has
deviant values. The superego is an internalization of the same sex parent so as a moral
regulator it threatens and punishes those behaviours that the parent would find unacceptable.
Consequently, a son raised normally in a family with a criminal father might develop a
superego that does not react to criminal acts that the father would engage in.
A strong superego
It seems counterintuitive that a strong superego could increase a person's risk of offending
when the superego is the regulator of moral behaviour but there are at least two ways in which
this might happen. An excessively powerful superego would render a person anxious and guilty
much of the time, since every time they acted on the id's desires — however innocuously —
their superego would punish them for it. This could result in a person committing crimes in
order to get caught and punished to assuage the guilt imposed by their own superego.
Alternately, an excessively strong superego might prevent the person from expressing any of
the antisocial impulses that inevitably build up in their unconscious. Normally, they would
express these impulses harmlessly through defense mechanisms (e.g., by sublimating their
aggression into sport). If the superego prevents this from happening the aggression or sexual
desire could build up over time until it becomes strong enough to overwhelm the ego and is
expressed suddenly and violently as murder or rape.
, Megargee's 'overcontrolled' violent offender
Megargee (1966) documented a series of cases of violence carried out by people who
were regarded as passive and harmless. For example, an 11 year-old boy who stabbed
his brother 34 times with a steak knife was described as polite and softly spoken with no
history of aggression (Gross, 1996). Megargee argued that such cases represent a distinct
sub-group of violent offenders whose shared characteristic is an apparent inability to
express their anger in normal ways and who eventually 'explode' and release all their
anger and aggression at once, often in response to a seemingly trivial provocation.
Freudian formulations like Megargee's are unfashionable nowadays and more research
attention is given to the majority of violent offenders, whose problem is generally a lack
of inhibition of their anger, rather than too much inhibition. Nonetheless, there is
evidence that a subset of violent offenders follow the pattern described by Megargee.
Blackburn (1971), for example, found that people convicted of extremely violent assaults
tended to have fewer previous convictions and scored lower on measures of hostility
than those convicted of moderately violent assaults. However, the existence of such a
group does not in itself show that Megargee was correct about the underlying
mechanisms responsible. In particular, Megargee's approach does not adequately
distinguish whether such offenders do not experience anger normally (as the
psychodynamic approach would suggest) or whether they experience it but do not
express it
(Blackburn, 1993).
