Werewolf psychology

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Kelly Jones
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Werewolf psychology

Post by Kelly Jones » Fri Aug 18, 2006 10:29 pm

An interesting analysis of lycanthropy, by a forensic psychologist Paul Britton:




Werewolves aren't only found in horror films and fantasy books. They exist in real life. Known as lycanthropy, it is a condition in which a patient believes himself to be both a man and a wild beast. Under certain external conditions, the man 'becomes' the beast, or 'takes on' its true nature.

Although the werewolf is the best known, there are many far less common human-beast combinations. I've heard of were-bears, were-bats, and were-badgers. I've also come across a man who believed that he changed into a panther; and a woman who thought she became a cat. There is undoubtedly a cultural symbolism and significance in the choice of animal. In the past some tended to be gender specific, but with greater female equality werewolves have become evenly distributed....[and likewise] there are fewer patients nowadays who persist in believing that they are Jesus Christ.

Why do people choose to be animals? There is always some unique underpinning rationale behind the change..... Look at what they become. They don't turn into geckos or budgies or hamsters. Instead they become strong, predatory, liberated, fearless, frightening animals of one sort or another. This is because often these people need to have some for of expression and sense of power that their own background has never allowed them to develop in the ordinary way. They find a feeling of achievement and independence that is lacking in their normal lives. The surging internal wave of physical exhilaration at being a powerful and fearsome beast compensates for their sense of resentment and failure.

The notion of the werewolf has long been embedded in folklore. Ghouls and vampires occupy distinct but similar niches in our cultural history in the sense that they elicit the same fears of physical and/or spiritual destruction.

Towards the close of the twentieth century we recognised the existence of certain abnormal people who gain pleasure, satisfaction or retribution from controlling, mutilating and killing others. These people have been labelled predatory serial killers. As each year passes and new examples emerge, we are learning more about how they develop, how they find their victims, what they do to them, and mercifully how to catch them.

I have been asked many times if serial and predatory sexual killers are a modern phenomenon. Of course they're not, they've been with us from the beginnings of civilisation; they just weren't understood then as we understand them today. In the past we called them werewolves, ghouls or vampires.

Today we make films that glamorize our serial killers and we give them exotic names such as the 'Gay Slayer' and the 'Midlands Ripper'. Some, like the 'Black Panther' are echoes from the past.

Certain elements are needed to create such myths - great strength, animal ferocity, an attractive victim and the disappearance of the killer. Soon you have a central character that grows stronger and more brutal with each telling of the story. We add gloss and charisma to creatures that we fear because they fascinate us.

When seemingly ordinary people are arrested for these crimes, I susect that they struggle to explain their actions. It is far simpler for them to say, 'Something inside of me took over,' or 'I became a beast,' So the legend grows.

Over time we forget the poor victims and focus on the 'shape-shifter' - a far more potent figure. He, too, is partially portrayed as a victim, one whose condition inspires fear and respect. This confirms his unsought isolation and justifies his anger and self-pity......


A man describing how he became a werewolf for the first time:

"Something inside of me snapped.....I just sort of started trembling. It was like looking out from the first crack in a cocoon. I thought, this must be how it feels to be a grub starting to emerge from that horrible little prison - about to become a glorious creature.....

"Inside me there was a great triumphant howl. Please look at me, I thought..... I was different now - more alive than I'd ever been. I could see all those people and they couldn't touch me at all, it was as if they were sheep. They were nothing compared to me.....

"A part of me knew it wasn't right, but it was so good while it lasted.....

"Maybe someone pisses me off - some macho hero strutting around the office, showing off and opening his big mouth. I think about really hurting him. I want to rip out his heart....

"I go somewhere quiet and masturbate while I think about killing him."


Britton continues:

"Like a twig floating down a stream, [the man dissociating as a werewolf] was carried along by a current over which he had little control.....He had been so emotionally mangled, it wasn't enough to speak to his intellect. I had to take him back into his childhood and let him express his feelings about his mother and father.....

"Instrumental rock music had always been a great comfort to him and something that he associated with the most desirable mythical qualities of the wolf. Instead of listening to such music, I gave him relaxation tapes and taught him deep relaxation techniques......Whenever he felt under stress, or angrily aroused, his mental images of taking bloody retribution were replaced by gentler, less destructive pictures...

"It wasn't a case of becoming a wolf less often - instead the episodes became less intense. At the same time the confidence and sense of self-worth that had been unquestionably part of the wolf became increasingly apparent in the man."

Steven Coyle

Post by Steven Coyle » Sat Aug 19, 2006 6:41 am

Tale from the crypt:

A few days ago, Mum, brother and I were down by the creek bed. The division of brother vs. brother was in the air, as Mum was tending to her "favorite son." The blind chasm between brothers was breached, upon her unconscious utterance: "Looks like werewolf tracks in the mud..." It seems that even unconscious behavior has it's purpose.

The werewolf complex is more often a result of an extreme attachment to the mother's approval -- especially in light of an absent, or wholly unideal father figure. Which is symbolically referenced in the transisent nature of the illness - an offshoot of the unconscious mother's wavering mentality.

Why does silver eradicate the symptoms of lycanthropy?

The alchemical basis of silver, as opposed to the universal salvatory properties of gold (or even the "philosopher's stone"), ties in with the fluctuating nature of the lunar cycles. Silver, as well as its potent symbolism, cures lycanthropy due to its ability to free its victim from the constant cycle of revolution. It would appear that once the victim is freed, no longer would they be confined to the moon's (also mother's) gravitational pull - instead, they could once again be able to evolve with the earth's natural ebb and flow.

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sschaula
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Post by sschaula » Sat Aug 19, 2006 11:13 am

Very strange, Steven. I will have to consider what you've said for a long time.
- Scott

Steven Coyle

Post by Steven Coyle » Sat Aug 19, 2006 11:31 am

Thank ya, thank ya.

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Kelly Jones
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Post by Kelly Jones » Sat Aug 19, 2006 3:41 pm

Steven Coyle wrote:The werewolf complex is more often a result of an extreme attachment to the mother's approval -- especially in light of an absent, or wholly unideal father figure.
Lack of healthy parental care is only part of it. I think it's more likely that a child who experiences extreme stress learns to enjoy a private fantasy world to escape stress, and as an adult finds out that acting violently can regain the privacy that they so enjoy. Most people suppress were-bestial urges, because such states of arousal are hard on the body.


Silver, as well as its potent symbolism, cures lycanthropy due to its ability to free its victim from the constant cycle of revolution.
Well, this could either mean shooting a person dead, or becoming very wealthy. Both will stop a person from feeling unable to cope with stress. Neither truly free a person from lycanthropic urges, which are basically anger.

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Wild Fox Zen
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Post by Wild Fox Zen » Mon Sep 04, 2006 9:28 pm

There seems to be some fundamental tension here between the way one is and the way one would like to be (or wouldn't like to be, in many cases) that's largely the cause of this.

To put it in freudian trinary: you have the super-ego (the judgement of the percieved other), which makes the ego (the percieved subject/learned personality) feel like shit, and the ego which, unknowingly, represses the id (the natural impulses/sub/unconscious mind/the spirit) with its sense of low self-worth. When most people think of id repression, they think of willfully rejecting unfavorable feelings, but you can also repress or aggravate the id by fixating on unfavorable feelings.

If the super-ego trains the ego in its lack of worth, then that creates a tension between the ego and the id, because the id is all things, but the ego is only a certain "person."

So, for example, the super-ego tells the ego it's an emasculated nerd, a loser, a failure, whatever -- the ego fixates on that and uses it as reference points for itself and it runs that like a feedback loop -- limiting itself, and even killing itself, if it can't/won't associate a positive element with those words. The id is all things (it takes in everything), but it will manifest unconsciously with the most aggravation as that which one most *wants* or *doesn't want* to be. Depending on how you think of youself -- whatever ideal you set up for yourself, the antithesis will be at your heels looking to emerge. The id really just wants to integrate -- it wants union -- it wants to be both one and the other -- literally. That also means reconciling "(not) loser" and "(not) winner" in the same entity simultaneously without freaking out. Becuase, if you think you were a loser, but now you are a winner, all you did was reverse the perception of your neuroticisms.

The guy who described his change into a werewolf was describing that latent strength emerging; the strength he thought wasn't his. That repressed strength naturally emerged via the most natural* archetype: a predatory entity. That archetype is carved into our bodies -- the eyes we see with are eyes that were honed for millenia by experienced hunters who were constantly relating themselves to animals. When someone gets in the habit of associating their sense of self with weakness, they're really just restricting the natural flow of their energies.

It's important to explain why these 'alienated wieners' turn into psychos without attaching some snide tone or judgement value, as that's merely indicative of our own sense of shame, which we refuse to face up to by dumping it all on the one who happens to be manifesting it.

*i.e. the one that exists on the far end of the spectrum of the archetype his ego was already largely manifesting as.

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