Earl Brooks is a highly respected businessman who resides in Portland, Oregon. He hides a terrible secret from his wife and his daughter. He is a serial killer known as the Thumbprint Killer and he targets young couples. When his daughter dropouts from college, she tells her dad that she is pregnant. He tries to stop his killings or keep it to a minimum, but his subpersonality Marshall, re-appears and pushed him to keep killing. A person who saw Mr. Brooks kill comes forward, who has photographic evidence. The only way he will keep it a secret is if Mr. Brooks takes the blackmailer to kill with him. He eventually finds out the real reason why his daughter came home. There was a murder at her college, her dad, Mr. Brooks believes his…show more content… Deviance refers to the idea that thoughts, emotions, and the behavior that people define as abnormal deviate from those deemed acceptable by society. Distress accounts for the negative feelings of individuals with psychological disorders. Dysfunction refers to maladaptive behavior or an impairment in the ability to perform everyday functions. Lastly, dangerous refers to violent behavior directed towards people. He was deviant since he chooses actions that were not seemed acceptable by society, such as having nightmares that his daughter is killing him. In the distress category, the blackmailer (who Mr. Brooks called Mr. Smith) looked at Brooks in a different light when he would talk to his subpersonality. For dysfunction, Earl Brooks had a separate house where he hid trophies on his killings. He was gone for long periods of time during the night and it impaired his ability to live a normal life with his family. Mr. Brooks was very dangerous because he would kill innocent people. He directed violent behavior toward people of his choosing. He would not stop until the job was done, he made sure everything was carefully planned out. He picked his victims out days before he would kill…show more content… According to an article, “Dissociative Identity Disorder has always been considered to be quite rare but it may be more common than previously thought and some estimate it to affect 1% of the population. This higher estimated prevalence may be due to the millions of now reported incidences of childhood abuse” (Croft, 2017, para. 2). From the movie it did not bring up Mr. Brooks childhood and if he was physically or sexually abused. His daughter is showing signs of what he has, but she was never abused as a child either. I believe that the development or cause of the disorder is a combination of the psychodynamic and behavioral view. For the psychodynamic view, “theorists believe that dissociative disorders are caused by repression, the most basic ego defense mechanism: people fight off anxiety by consciously preventing painful memories, throughts, or impulses from reaching awareness” (Comer, 2016, pg. 173). Mr. Brooks has had bad memories of his childhood and is trying to repress those memories, forming a subpersonality called Marshall. For the behavioral view, “dissociation grows from normal memory processes such as drifting from the mind or forgetting. People who experience a horrifying event may later find temporary relief when their mind drifts to other subjects” (Comer, 2016, pg. 173). Brooks mind drifts off when he starts to kill. Its like he is in a
