Last year, I took a psychology class and it was undoubtedly one of my favorite classes I took in all of high school. Something that I am especially interested in is the psychology behind serial killers and those who do some of the ugliest things to others. Tom, is one of those people I am particularly interested in trying to dig up more about. Though he is undeniably a bad person, I think that there is a deeper complexity to him—a battle of nature versus nurture.
“The dispute over the relative contributions of hereditary and constitutional factors (nature) and environmental factors (nurture) to the development of an individual.”
American Psychological Association (APA)
Above is what the APA defines as the nature-nurture theory in psychology. Many psychologists agree that there is no set one in an individual, and it is typically a mix of both of these ideologies in many people.
As for Tom, I would like to think that there had been a deep rooted history of feeling inferior that likely stemmed from his parents when he was young. Being born into a wealthy family [it is typically shown] that you are often left with others to take care of you, and many things may take precedence over you (eg. special dinners, vacations, and events. Though we do not know this for sure, we can assume it through him not being a family oriented man with his wife, and especially child. He often seems to regress emotionally when situations do not go his way, like a child. Regression is the act of revering to a lower cognitive and emotional state of functioning (immature behaviors). In Sigmund’s psychosexual theory, this commonly means that individuals were not able to fully express/develop themselves in childhood for a variant of reasons, usually various trauma. Freud, did have some out there ideas, but I largely agree and am intrigued with the way that Tom seems to show some of his theories. For Tom, his coping mechanism of regression causes him hit, yell, and throw a tantrum like a child. These behaviors are not normal in adults, and especially ones of that high of a status, the sophisticated people.
Secondly, the most obvious aspect of Sigmund Freud’s psychosexual theory is Toms obsession with women, power, and sex. He outlined the id, ego, and superego. Tom is someone who seems to exclusively be ruled by the id, which controls the animalistic side of us—immediate pleasure. Though it is mainly sexual, it is immediate pleasure of eating, drinking, or emotional. The ego is what controls our id’s inappropriate thoughts, like wanting to leave work early to get a donut, or wanting to leave a class early because you do not want to be there anymore. For Mr. Buchanan, he seems entirely ruled by his need for instant gratification through the id that is on his shoulders.