Film: Psycho (1960)
Screenplay by: Joseph Stefano
Directed by: Alfred Hitchcock
Starring: Anthony Perkins, Janet Leigh, John Gavin, Vera Miles
Dear Therapists and Social Workers and Psychology Majors and Those Who Have Taken Psychology Classes,
Are you able to make sense of violence? What do you describe as violence? What do you tell people when they share that they have committed acts of violence, or they want to commit acts of violence?
I am just wondering if Norman Bates, the character from the 1960 film Psycho, by Alfred Hitchcock, would have been healed and renewed if he’d had a good therapist helping him work on his mom issues.
Let’s go on this imaginative journey and think about what would happen if Norman Bates could take a little drive down the road to a nice, clean house—A Victorian?—with some rose bushes outside, and he walked in for his weekly appointment, and a nice older woman was there, who sat in a comfy chair, and listened to Norman complain, meander, express frustrations and sadness and fear, and even cry.
At the end of the hour, Norman would hand this person a check or a credit card (did those exist in 1960?) or a paper that disclosed an insurance plan with mental health coverage, and that person would take his compensation/payment/energy transfer, and Norman would walk out a bit relieved, and go back to managing his hotel.
Now, would this prevent Norman (or his mom, or his alter-egos) from psychotically killing people? Would this relieve Norman of his frustrations and anger about the lack of love he received from his rigid mom as a kid, who dared have a boyfriend, and who sometimes yelled at him and had expectations that were too great for Norman to bear?
I don’t know. You don’t know. We do the best we can, right? We can’t stop all of the violent people from doing violent things. We all have to do the best we can to be helpful, and let go of the outcome, and find some sort of sustenance and joy to keep going with whatever is our life’s purpose.
I’m just proposing a very valid question here, about whether someone truly psychotic, and prone to episodes of violence, is able to overcome their predilections and negations of truth and fact, and their imaginative story-telling, alter-ego-adapting coping mechanisms for life—with talk therapy.
Or do those people just need drugs and a room where they can be still? Where they can be watched? Where they can have as limited access to violent weapons and other human beings as possible?
Now, adding religion and God and salvation as a philosophical component to our mental meanderings…. Is Norman Bates a person who can be God-saved? Are people with violent tendencies able to be saved by the Grace of God and Jesus Christ, or any of his lovely friends, fellow prophets, and Hindu or Muslim cousins?
We need to consider this, because the news is full of people doing horrible things, and the leaders of countries, and religious groups and whatnot, also do violent things. When those leaders make decisions to hurt other people, based on stories they tell themselves (sometimes biblical, sometimes biblical), do we think they are psychotic? Or do we think they are just taking care of business? Doing what “needs to be done”?
What do we believe is power? Is power intertwined with a threat of violence? Or is power something bigger, bolder and more refreshing—and therefore, scarier?
There was this man who came to the planet. (We think he was a man, but who knows what private parts were underneath that robe. He wasn’t going around showing people his goods.) He spoke. He wandered. He taught. He raised the dead.
And then these people in his community decided he was too threatening to live, even though he had committed no acts of violence or crimes. Those people created stories about him and wanted him destroyed, purely because he threatened their ideas of right and wrong, and because a lot of poor people were listening. A lot of rich people were listening, too. He destabilized routine situations by presenting a deeper meaning, a deeper truth, a deeper reality than most people were aware of. And in his presence was a sense of peace and calm. That peace and calm part was extra disturbing to those who never felt it before.
Was the man who enacted no violence—just truth—the psycho? Or were the people who killed him the psychos? Keep in mind, those people wielded a lot of worldy authority and probably had nice kitchens with granite counter tops and wore nice jewelry. They ate well. No fast food for them.
Norman Bates, the main character in Psycho, has a weird issue with his mom. (Many people have issues with their moms.) He loves her and he hates her. She is too much to handle, and she never can do enough to satisfy his needs as a boy and a man. Even after her death, she wields a tremendous power to dictate his decisions and become a scapegoat for any wrongdoing on his part. He is never to blame. He never has to take full accountability for what he has done or not done. It all just gets outsourced to the mother wound and the mother.
All stories come from somewhere. We have a collective psychic imagination, as psychiatrist and psychologist Carl Jung has shared. We have myths, religious teachings, archetypes, dimensions that call to us and speak to us, and from this ethereal magical source emerges our sense-making of life. We create stories, narratives, and even art from both the individual and collective unconscious. We live within these stories and narratives, and any art that speaks to a wide audience, usually speaks to that audience because it has roots we recognize. When a film or book or play makes a lot of money, or it is deemed a classic and stands the test of time (like Hitchcock’s Psycho)—it has its power because an artist has tapped into something cultural. Often, it is a cultural wound that is still bleeding.
Some of us make choices from our wounds in life. We roam from one wound to another to another, because the wounds are so familiar to us. They feel like home.Others of us make choices from our strengths in life. We roam from one place of strength and vitality to another, because we have made a conscious choice to not let wounds and fear of pain dictate our decisions.
In what ways, then, can therapists and healers and friends, and those purporting to know what salvation is, redirect us from our wounds into our strengths—and keep us focused on these strengths inside of us?
This would mean we keep turning our heads, our attention, back to the strengths and The Strength. Strength is not synonymous with violence, though many have adopted that point of view because they’ve had some exposure to history and to movies and TV.
Inner strength is far superior, and it can—and does—coincide with peacefulness. This requires faith. The question one poses, then, is—Am I strong enough to face this energetically, and let my energy of peace dictate the direction of a room, and dictate decisions made in that room, rather than resort to tools of damage and destruction?
What if Norman Bates had called someone when he was having dark thoughts, and said, “I am having some difficult feelings and I want to do something bad,” and he’d had someone he could trust who would show up and hold him, or hug him, and listen without judgement—and have no interest in personal aims or agendas?
It would be even better if that person was free.
What if all Norman Bates needed—to avoid destructive, psychotic deeds—was one true friend?
Can we get some friends up in this joint? Let’s make some good, true friends.
Namaste,
Ms. Wonderful
For Philadelphia residents: The film Psycho is playing Tuesday July 22nd at Bryn Mawr Film Institute and otherwise streaming online.
My book, Letters to My Son, from Philadelphia, is available on Kindle and in print. It is one healthy mom guiding her son toward peace instead of pain, using the words of a very great Teacher, Healer, and Friend.
