Rebel Without a Cause (6 page)

Harold’s mother is today as she seems always to have been a symbol of patient and unrequited motherhood, a person who invites sentiment. A beautiful and buxom girl when she married at an early age, she is now a worn and tired woman, a product of housewifely routine and the monotonous drudgery of feeding, caring and worrying for a family in slightly above marginal economic circumstances. Her loyalty to her children and especially to Harold is famous among her acquaintances, and social workers note her over-solicitous, over-protective nature. This she has rationalized by pointing out the social limitations and barriers faced by Harold because of his peculiar physical defect. She is lavish in her statements of affection for the boy and admits to having saved him from pitfalls on many occasions. By all accounts, she is a sensible, intelligent and industrious woman in all affairs but those dealing with her son. She is a voracious reader of cheap romances and an ardent movie-goer, readily moved to tears and easily imposed upon. Her attention has for so long been fixed solely upon her family that she has but few friends; these she visits and entertains regularly with coffee and gossip. Her own family, including her mother, two married sisters and a brother, is bound by ties of mutual dependence in their unrelenting borderland of impoverishment.

Two younger sisters complete the family group. The elder of these is a pert, vivacious girl of nineteen who works steadily at a factory job and who contributes her entire wages to the parents: the youngest is a schoolgirl, bright and lively, the pet and joy of the old folks.

The whole family, with the exception of Harold is well regarded by neighbors and friends. They practice the Roman-Catholic faith, own a car and are considered respectable additions to the neighborhood. The section in which they live is a crowded district of foreign-laborer families. They maintain a four-room apartment above a saloon in an old building with a few modern conveniences: rent is twelve dollars a month. The home is clean, modestly furnished in a comfortable if somewhat worn style. Beyond the youngest daughter’s school-books, the mother’s rental library romances, the eldest daughter’s movie-fan pulps, and the Polish language newspaper, there are no books or periodicals in the apartment. A radio and some religious chromos complete the cultural scene.

Those relatives visited by investigators were cut from the same pattern and along the same lines as Harold’s parents. The family history, so far as it can be traced, is negative for feeblemindedness or mental disorder of any variety, except for traces of alcoholism in the male members of the distaff branch.

The mother reports that Harold’s birth, assisted by a midwife, was entirely normal following a labor of six hours duration. The child was healthy and there were no abnormal pre- or post-natal circumstances. At the age of one or two, Harold suffered measles, and between two and six other childhood exanthems were experienced. Tonsillectomy and adenoidectomy were performed when he was twelve. Except for these and his eye condition, his health was normal.

As to the optic disorder, it was the recorded opinion of two physicians whom his mother consulted that the diagnosis was
Nystagmus Amblyopia
resulting from the measles: another consultant diagnosed
congenital defective retinae
incorrectable, with ten per cent normal vision in the right eye and fifteen per cent in the left. The mother reports visits to numerous specialists in order to obtain some kind of favorable treatment. In all cases, however, results were unsatisfactory.

Harold attended public school from the first to the fourth grades in the city to which the family moved soon after his birth. Records from these years cannot be located, but his mother reports regular attendance and satisfactory performance. The fourth to the seventh grades were spent at a parochial school. The nuns who were his teachers have stated that he was a fair student and conducted himself passably well. He left parochial school to become a pupil in a special class for students with defective vision. At fifteen he graduated to High School, which he quit after one year. Officials and High School instructors considered his conduct fair but regretted that he did not produce to the level of his capabilities. At sixteen he renounced all scholastic pursuits and from that time forward worked fitfully on a relative’s farm.

Harold’s recorded criminal history began at the age of twelve when in the company of other small boys he broke into a grocery store and made off with almost seventy-five dollars worth of candy and tobacco. He was apprehended and sent to a juvenile institution for examination by specialists; but while awaiting his turn he escaped custody by
leaping through a window. Again apprehended, he was placed on two year’s probation. At thirteen he was arrested for a trespassing offense and the Juvenile Court extended the probationary period.

After a two year respite Harold once more came into conflict with the law when he stole a sizable sum from a storekeeper. Probation was renewed. One month later, having made off with money from his mother’s purse, he purchased a rifle and with it attempted to rob a couple in an automobile on a deserted city street. Tricked by his clever victim, he was held for the police who hailed him into Juvenile Court, where he was again probated for five years. Minor charges for trespassing, breaking and entering and vandalism were lodged during the following year. On one occasion he received a short sentence to a correctional institution; on another, a light jail term. Several similar charges and warrants were pending when he was arrested for the offense for which he is now serving. The details of this offense cannot, unfortunately, be revealed here, but it was a crime serious enough to carry a heavy penalty.

Many psychologists and psychiatrists have interviewed, examined and tested Harold. While they disagree on the causative factors in his case, all are in accord on the diagnosis of psychopathic personality complicated by social difficulties arising from the condition of the boy’s eyes. One psychiatrist stressed the avoidance by other children which Harold probably experienced, stating that they undoubtedly considered him a freak and this, as a consequence, forced his mother’s indulgence. Another specialist reported a need for productive occupation, and asociality and egocentricity as the leading factors in the clinical picture. Still another stated that Harold evinced pronounced feelings of inferiority in respect of his place in the family group, adding that he found the boy to be cowardly, unreliable and a schemer. This specialist also reported the presence of “subconscious jealousy of the father and a mother fixation.” The last examiner’s report closes with the statement: “… unless someone is able to psychoanalyze and reconstruct his personality from about three years of age on, the boy will continue on his career of crime and, because of his violent impulses, will become a more and more dangerous criminal.” A final expert found Harold honest in his statements and fairly intelligent; and, questioning him closely on his sex habits, obtained an admission of masturbation and sexual relations with girls in the neighborhood.

On his arrival in the institution where the writer made his acquaintance, Harold showed a Mental Age of sixteen years and one month; an Intelligence Quotient of one-hundred and seven. He was found to be free of disease; serology was negative; weight 150 lb.; height 5 ft. 8 in.; ophthalmological diagnosis was
Nystagmus, Strabismus, Ptosis
; psychiatric diagnosis was
Psychopathic Personality.
The psychiatric initial summary revealed: “… a recidivist whose attitude toward officials and fellows is poor.… Since childhood he has had practically no respectable occupation or regular employment and it is evident he has matured without benefit of proper parental discipline.… During interview he presents the picture of a sullen, resentful, weak-willed, gullible, fidgety youth … lacks insight and judgment … enjoys using the language of the underworld and frequently lapses into gangland lingo when describing his escapades.… Prognosis for institutional adjustment and rehabilitation is guarded.”

On a spring morning some time ago a prisoner sat apprehensively on a chair in the anteroom of the writer’s office. He had been sent for at the urging of a clinical assistant who felt that at least some of the symptoms which the young man showed should be studied and treated. Since the inmate had no inkling of the reason for his call, he was filled with that nervous anticipation and foreboding of personal danger that only petitioners and clients of professional people can know. Several times he rose from his chair and paced the room with the curious litheness and agility common among psychopaths.

He was a moderately tall, sparingly built boy, wide-shouldered and narrow-hipped. The cast of his face would have evoked an impression of ‘intelligent’ from the layman; and there was a suggestion of competence in his large-knuckled hands. The one feature that attracted immediate attention was his heavy-lidded, continually fluttering eyes. These lent his appearance the almost mask-like quality of the totally blind, until the observer noted the restless, shifting play of the pupils and the quick winking of the lids.

During the interview and examination, Harold maintained a sneering sullenness modified by the abject disinterest such individuals often demonstrate in the presence of prison or hospital officials. He stated apathetically that he could foresee no benefits from any kind of treatment; that he had been dancing attendance on all varieties of medical specialists without reward; but that he would be willing to
allow an examination and experiment with a new therapy. Accordingly, he was subjected to a complete physical check and another examination by a competent ophthalmologist. There was no change from his admission status.

A chance remark passed by Harold during the initial examination determined the writer first upon a therapeutic program based on post-hypnotic suggestion. In response to the question, “Would you rather be blind than get so that you can keep your eyes open for longer periods?” Harold answered, “I’d rather be blind than to see some of the things I have seen.” The presence and verbalization of so peculiar a remark, with its undertones suggestive of a pathological solution of conflict, settled the immediate initiation of a course of hypnotic therapy.

Harold entered the trance state rapidly and easily, obeying each instruction as it was issued. Various tests, ranging from hand-levitation to catelepsy to the production of anesthetic areas, were consummated successfully. Then, in response to the suggestion that his lids would open and remain fixed and steady while a strong light from an ophthalmoscope was directed into his eyes, Harold—who had never looked into daylight with open eyes and for whom an electric light was only a stimulus to rapid blinking—opened his eyes and stared directly before him as the sharp shaft played over his eyeballs. This convinced the writer that he had here to do with a condition which, although it was essentially physical, perhaps had been initiated by a traumatic assault on the organism at a crucial stage in its development. A course of treatment was begun and carried out faithfully for about two weeks. Each session concentrated on the lengthening of the post-hypnotic period during which Harold’s eyes were to remain widely open and impervious to light. Results were not only highly satisfactory in respect of Harold’s ability to control the mobility of his lids, but the writer noted the development of an increasingly favorable rapport.

All this time the author was keenly aware that he was attacking
symptoms
rather than
causes.
This, coupled with the temptation to capitalize on the rare, excellent rapport with a psychopath, (which was not understood at the time) prompted a resolve to attempt an analysis which, it was hoped, would for the first time ferret out the psychological factors responsible for the psychopathic pattern. The
nature of the undertaking was described to Harold and he assented to being hypnoanalyzed.

It occurred to the writer that it would be invaluable to have a permanent and complete record of the entire transaction for the light it promised to throw on crime and psychopathy. A microphone was therefore concealed in the couch on which Harold was to lie during the sessions. Connection with a loudspeaker in another room was made, and there a competent stenographer of the writer’s staff took down and subsequently transcribed the proceedings verbatim. This material, edited only to eliminate tiresome and meaningless repetitions and redundancies, is herewith made available to the reader.

But before we examine the transcript of the hypnoanalysis, a word needs to be said here concerning the peculiar ethical problems which beset the psychiatrist or psychologist practicing in a penal institution. Because of the fact that he is, to those of the inmates who consult him, someone who is unselfishly interested in their welfare, he is often made privy to information which his duty to the State or Government urges him to communicate to law-enforcement agencies, but which his sense of obligation to his patient and to his professional standards compels him to keep to himself. In the present instance, this insistent dilemma was happily resolved by the patient himself during the period of re-education which followed the hypnoanalysis. Not only did he grant permission to the writer to publish this material, he actually urged its publication: this because he had come to a genuine and sincere realization of the social importance and the dangerous significance of his condition …

There is a lot of rain now. Showers all the time. For the last two years we’ve had no showers. We’ve had dry summers and drought. There will be plenty of water for showers this year, not like the past two years. It got so hot and dry here even the corn died. Many of the plants were not even growing. It was so hot that they all
shriveled up and died. This is a funny country. One year dry, the next year wet.

In the night when I can’t sleep because it’s so hot I lie on my bed and think.