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1 results

  • Chapter 25 - Attachment-Linked Killers

  • from Part II - Biographical Sketches
  • Frederick Toates, The Open University, Milton Keynes, Olga Coschug-Toates
  • Book:
    Understanding Sexual Serial Killing
    Published online:
    26 May 2022
    Print publication:
    02 June 2022, pp 339-354

  • Summary

    A desire for belonging is a fundamental feature of humans. Securing and maintaining a bond is rewarding, whereas abandonment, jilting and loneliness trigger strongly aversive feelings. The chapter’s emphasis is upon belonging,and the theoretical basis of understanding Jeffrey Dahmer and Dennis Nilsen is different from those in the preceding chapters. They seem to be motivated by a combination of sexual desire and an abnormally powerful desire to avoid rejection and loneliness. This led them in a perverse direction whereby the need might even be met by a zombie partner. This raises the question of whether finding early on a conventional secure and compliant attachment could have prevented their killings. There is little or no evidence to suggest that they enjoyed killing or held sadistic desires. Dahmer suffered from neglect. Nilsen seemed to imprint upon the image of his dead grandfather.