<Narcissism Archives> The Black Hole of the Mind--Serial Killer

China's Baiyin City Serial Murder Case

From June 1988 to February 2002, there were 9 homicide cases in Baiyin City. Kill the traitor. After the murderer kills, he must cut the organs or tissues of different parts of the victim's body and take them away. Since the beginning of the 21st century, the Baiyin police have successively launched the city-wide fingerprint checks, blood tests and DNA tests to investigate criminals, but they have not been able to find the real culprit, which has left the case unsolved and has become one of the few extremely unsolved cases in China. The murderer of this case, Gao Chengyong, was not caught until 28 years after the first case was committed because of new scientific case handling techniques.

From the background information searched on the Internet, it is not very clear to describe the causes of his serial killings. I analyzed some data that might be meaningful.

• Gao's family has eight children, five girls and three boys. Gao Chengyong is the youngest. One of his brothers fell into a river and died when he was a child. His mother died when he was young, and he was taken care of by his father. --The death of a loved one appears very early in his life, and death always brings a great sense of powerlessness and fear, especially to children. Serial killers often have a tendency to gain a sense of control by manipulating death. He still has obvious fear when he kills for the first time, but it disappears after that. Maybe the experience of killing for the first time makes him feel that he can control death and let him He then overcame it by killing when confronted with an inner sense of loss of control.
• Gao was a high school student in the class of 1984, but he didn't get into college. He repeated his studies for a year and finally failed. Another senior parent said that Gao Chengyong had participated in the pilot selection, but he was eventually defeated, which gave him a lot of blows. --He has been facing uncontrollable setbacks in his life, and the inexplicable anxiety before every murder may be a reflection of such anxiety. And after his son was successfully admitted to school, this incident seemed to improve his mental state to a great extent, and he did not commit the crime again after that.
• His classmates and neighbors described his introverted and silent personality; he was stabbed twice in a conflict with others, but he stood without changing his face until he fainted; he was calm and thoughtful during the crime, and he would cut off parts of the victim's body and take it away. --These all show the characteristics of "psychopathy", that is, psychopathy. His calm tone during the follow-up interrogation, as well as in the interview with the lawyer, "he pleaded guilty, but there is no remorse, no guilt. Only when he mentioned the eight-year-old girl who was killed in the power supply bureau, his expression and tone were different. Ups and downs, saying he thinks he's a villain, he's crazy" is also a typical psychopathic trait. He also likes to gamble, showing that he needs more direct and intense stimulation to be emotionally satisfied, which is also a common emotional deficit in psychopaths.

Closed narcissistic structures completely withdrawn from the outside world

Psychoanalytic theory holds that when the original narcissistic energy seeks out objects, if it encounters too much setback, it will lead to the withdrawal of narcissistic energy, excessive perfusion in itself, resulting in a closed state of narcissism. Such withdrawal often combines the most primitive instinctive forces, namely the two drives of "sex" and "attack". Such a combination may have been caused by the excitement of seeing sexual scenes or other events in the early days, or some experience of some more brutal aggressive behavior, which triggered the satisfaction of the attack, which just confronted his current lack. with a sense of vulnerability. These instinctual drives are trapped in closed narcissistic structures, unable to be sublimated and corrected in later development. Originally, if these instinctive powers can be corrected and presented in life, it will be a very powerful source of power; and closed narcissism prevents these instincts from appearing in other lives, resulting in the poverty and emptiness of these people's lives, which further Push them into closed narcissism.

The result of the closed "sexual drive" can be a voyeuristic fetish, or it can be a cruel and sadistic rapist; the result of the closed "aggressive drive" may show an inexplicable "destructive impulse". Serious It is the violent tendency of "sociopathic personality". Serial homicides are often a combination of the two, sexual assault, murder, and then destruction of corpses, presenting an extremely primitive instinctual form.

It is precisely because of this closed state that they become extremely difficult to understand and are reluctant to reveal their inner thoughts to others; it may also be because the real difficulties are suppressed deep into the subconscious, and they themselves cannot clearly realize it. . As a result, our understanding of them is very limited, and it is difficult to detect their difficulties and try to help them; we can only guess their possible psychological states based on the existing understanding of the early minds, and lack of sorting out the specific details.

Exactly what kind of events led to their killings is hard to grasp. But like some key "traumatic events" found in general psychotherapy, it's not just the event itself that causes difficulties, it's just a "landmark" that marks a long-term "scarcity" lurking in life , "Twisted" and "Lost".

A life rich enough to withstand trauma.

Is it possible to prevent it?

It is difficult to say exactly what to do to prevent such an event from happening. Like random killings, this is not just caused by some specific events, but a state of life that the outside world cannot respond to his life for a long time, and eventually erupts at a certain point in time. , to the point of no return.

In physics, the collapse of matter forms a "black hole", which continuously sucks in matter, but never fills it up; in the heart of a serial killer, it seems that such a "black hole" also exists.

These "black holes" cannot emit any light, nor can they be eliminated in any way. But just like the universe has black holes everywhere, and the universe still exists; there may be more or less "black holes" in everyone's heart. I believe that these "black holes" are not necessarily destructive, as long as the rest of their lives don't continually feel deprived and experience their own vulnerability. Just like the murderer in this case, after his son achieved certain achievements, he felt that there seemed to be "hope" and "continuation" of the existence of his own life, so he stopped killing. The truth may not be what I imagined, but I would rather be optimistic.

To me, this means that what we need to do is to build a society that is "inclusive", a society that respects the qualities of life and takes care of the disadvantaged. In such a society, the growth of narcissism does not need to be held back by "scarcity" and "distortion", and "vulnerability" can be adequately supported.