How Does Arousal Theory Relate to the Serial Killer Jeffery Dahmer - Assignment Example

Putting this into context, Jeffery Dahmer’s murderous acts are explained thoroughly based on his psychological behavior that stimulated his search for optimal arousal in various ways. After attaining optimal arousal, he then engaged in sexual activities through which he murdered people in cold blood (Purcell & Arrigo, 2006). To begin with, Jeffery Dahmer suffered from mental disorders that forced him to leave in a somewhat abnormal style. As a kid at school, he did not enjoy the privilege of parental care and love.

He grew up distressed, isolated from other kids, and had no interest in schoolwork or even play. This psychological discomfort drove him to seek some arousal so that he could have a zeal for life. Actually, Jeffery’s symptoms revealed that he was psychotic. What aroused him to kill and engage in molestation was anger and aggressiveness. Taking this back a bit, Jeffery was a sadist maniac. He held on to the thought that he could have been the cause for his mother’s sickness. While desolate, his thinking about himself as the cause of pain aroused him into the inhumane behavior.

The anger within him aroused him into killing people as a way of dealing with his mental challenge (Reisenzein, 2004). Besides this, Jeffery Dahmer’s childhood is quite surprising when used to bear evidence that the forms of arousal that he sought were very unnatural. Surprisingly, Dahmer showed zero interest in social life and school work but was fascinated by science. His imagination and intrigue were more ignited by science and the experiments that opened into the existence of life.

As a child, he experimented on insects, skinned them alive and dead to see what was on the inside. As if this was not enough, he dissected animals, buried them ceremoniously. In this light, he was more aroused by such activities that involved cutting of flesh and examining it. He grew up devoting time and directing his emotional discomfort in surprising creatures. Given that this is what aroused his interest, taking into the murder as he grows up could have replaced the killing of animals (Purcell & Arrigo, 2006).

Seeing human life, he related it with the anger in his soul and therefore resorted to killing as he had done in his childhood. Adding to the list of vicissitudes in Dahmer’s childhood, he was sexually abused at a tender age.  Since the parents were quite busy with their jobs, Dahmer was vulnerable and fell into the painful trap of a sexual offender. This predicament overwhelmed him, he could not handle any of it. He turned into irresponsible drinking just to forget the problems. However, this drinking had an enormous impact on him; positive and negative.

During the high moments after drinking he felt in charge of his life and the hard times he was going through. However, the drinking heavily stimulated his thinking, he had hallucinations and huge fantasies that pushed him into murder (Ellis, 2007).  He fantasized about killing people and held on to the thought that murder could help him fill the emptiness in him. At this vague moment when he was under the influence, he lacked the emotional conciseness to stop him from irrational thought.

Violence was all he could think of. The drinking aroused him to act against his frustration and feelings of neglect. At an interrogation after one of his first murders, Jeffery strangled the life out of his friend after they had drunk heavily, had sex, and when the friend insisted that they wanted to leave. Dahmer explained that the only reason he strangled his buddy was that he did not want to be left alone. Going by this case, all the conditions and factors that aroused him were much presented.

Alcohol, sex, and then the fear of isolation. Arousal was an enabler of his actions (Reisenzein, 2004). The psychological profile established under investigations of Dahmer’s murders intricately links the arousal theory with the serial murder that Dahmer was. He suffered from psychological torture since childhood all the way as he grew up. The triggers of the murders behavior are quite clear and specific. Jeffery targeted black males, mostly homosexuals and the murders showed some routine operation mode.

Putting these observations together, there is reason to believe that certain emotions aroused him into action. Specific memories triggered murderous thoughts either to revenge or relieve himself the anger that resided within. He had to go through a series of preliminaries to reach the optimum arousal for him to murder people (Ellis, 2007).  This would be supported by the acts of drinking, then sexual assault then finally leading to murder. In light of this, the arousal theory, to a large extent explains Jeffery Dahmer as a serial killer.