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Abnormal Psychology Research Paper

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Stephanie Quinn
April 2, 2012
Abnormal Psychology
Dr. Azar Dickens
Diagnostic Evaluation

Jeffrey Lionel Dahmer
Born on May 21, 1960
Date of evaluation: 1992 sometime before the trial

Background Information: Jeffrey Dahmer was a sex offender and serial killer mainly between the years 1978 and 1991. He is well known for his severely atypical behaviors. Among his outward manners that are recognized as abnormal are paraphilia-specifically necrophilia and sexual sadism. Jeffrey Dahmer’s victims, whom were boys and men, suffered from rape, violence, dismemberment and finally their murders. Dahmer’s slow progression of killings soon turned into an obsession, which would later land him in prison with a sentence …show more content…

Jeffrey was arrested in the same year, 1988, for sexually fondling and drugging a young teenage boy (age thirteen); for this, he was put on probation for five years and for one year he was assigned to a work release camp where he was registered as a sex offender from the incident with the thirteen year old boy. Due to good behavior and a built up trust with the authorities, Dahmer was paroled from his work release camp two months early. Jeffrey Dahmer began killing at age eighteen, which was during the summer of 1978. Since this was after his parent’s divorce, Dahmer’s mother no longer lived at the same house and his father was away for business duties. Jeffrey had brought a man over to the house offering to drink alcohol with him, and when the man tried to leave, Jeffrey beat him to death with a ten-pound weight to the head. Dahmer did not murder again until nine years later where he killed a man randomly after picking him up; Dahmer said he could not recollect anything about this murder. After the second murder, Jeffrey Dahmer’s killings increased dramatically adding two more to the same year (1989), five the following year (1990), and several after that. On July 22, 1991 Jeffrey Dahmer was arrested for the alleged 17 murders (which would later be reduced to 15).

Clinical Diagnosis: classification by symptoms or signs of all five axes: DSM-IV Axis I All diagnostic categories except personality 1. Asperger’s disorder 2. Paraphilia,

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