In this documentary, we follow Dr. Dorothy Lewis who is a psychiatrist that works in studying the minds of serial killers/criminals trying to find out if there are certain factors or traits that brings someone to make these decisions of murder. One of the main mental disorders that were really focused on was dissociative identity disorder (DID), which is where one person claims to have a range of multiple different personalities. One of the first cases that Dr. Lewis talks about in the documentary is where she's questioning this girl named Marie for killing another girl in the bathroom and Marie tells Dr. Lewis that people have told her that she sometimes talk to them in a deep gruffy voice. Just when Dr. Lewis was about to exit the questioning room, Marie switches to that deep manly voice and comes to the conclusion that Marie suffers from DID and she's talking to one of her personalities that protect Marie in a sense. From what I know about DID is that it usually develops within someone who has experienced trauma or abuse growing up, whether it be at home or at school; basically childhood trauma. These different personalities that could range from ages 5-70 years old, are a way to cope when they're triggered by something or they could come out into the light when they want to take control. The personalities take on different roles like protector, caretaker, and much more roles that they could take on in order to protect "the main host". That was Dr. Lewis' first encounter with DID and she went on more cases of studying the minds of more criminals with the same mental illness to see what are some common factors that contributed to how they act. I watched this documentary with my roommate, who actually wants to have the same occupation as Dr. Lewis and we loved how interesting it was. It posed so many questions like, "is the term evil a religious belief", "is someone born or made a murderer", or the one we talked about during class a lot was "nurture vs nature".
Reading Reflections
Many of the readings brought up really good factors of what makes a murderer/criminal. The first article mentioned this "warrior gene" that is found in 30% of the male population that increases aggressive behavior as a response when provoked, but it's not deemed as one of the main factors to make a murderer because even though this gene is found in many convicted violent criminals; it's also found in regular people in society. What the articles all have in common is the way they talk about something happening in the brain that sets people apart from being labeled as a violent criminal, insane/crazy, or normal. I say that yes, scientifically the brain plays a major part of determining if you're a criminal or not because it makes decisions on how to deal with a problem that makes them angry. But I also think the environment you're surrounded by or the experiences you've experienced plays a major role for how your brain is rewired to think. Not every crazy person is immediately deemed a violent criminal and not all abused children become serial killers. For example, people think Kanye is crazy because of what he says in the media or what he posts but he's not out here committing crimes like serial killers. I just think it comes down to the person's conscience and their decision making on how they react/deal with a situation that they're faced with that makes them angry, sad, or happy.
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