Provide a 7 pages analysis while answering the following question: Ted Bundy and Alfred Adler’s Theory. Prepare this assignment according to the guidelines found in the APA Style Guide. An abstract is required.
Provide a 7 pages analysis while answering the following question: Ted Bundy and Alfred Adler’s Theory. Prepare this assignment according to the guidelines found in the APA Style Guide. An abstract is required. This paper will study Ted Bundy through the theory of Alfred Adler. It is not enough to study him only through the birth order part of Adler’s theory because his family situation was complex and complicated. He fits many pieces of Adler’s theory that is more relevant than birth order. In fact, Adler himself said that the birth order theory was a “heuristic idea” that was part of an answer to understanding people but it should not be taken too seriously (Boeree, 2006).
Ted Bundy was an only child who grew up within a second family. His mother raised him as her “brother” in his grandparent’s house. He was to refer to his mother as his “sister” and to his grandparents as his “parents.” (Rule, 2000, p. 8) Bundy described his early childhood as a good one and said that his grandfather was loving, but a psychiatrist at one of his trials said that the grandfather was “an abusive brute and worse” (Michaud and Aynesworth, 2000, p. 18). The reason for this charade was that Bundy was an illegitimate child. In 1946 in any town in any state, this was a taboo subject. His mother had become pregnant by a sailor who was never involved with Ted’s life and in her seventh month, she went to an unwed mothers home to have him. Ted was born November 14, 1946, and the lies began. Her parents helped her keep up the lies but as he grew older the lies became more complicated and many people in the town by now knew what had happened. His mother/older sister decided that the town knew too much and it was time to take Ted to another place so she and he could start over. They had family in Tacoma, Washington so everyone felt this would be a good place to go. At that time his mother changed his name to Theodore Robert Nelson to keep him from being stigmatized by other children and to give him anonymity. Ted was four years old when they moved (Rule, p. 9). While in Washington, his mother joined the Methodist church and attended .regularly.