If I had been sitting next to Sigmund Freud in the cinema when I went to see We Need to Talk About Kevin, I would have seen him stroking his beard and nodding his head in agreement; and possibly on occasion clapping his hands with glee and turning to me to say, “Zis is vat I’m saying all zees years”. He would have been a little off target though.
My fledgling years studying child psychology were rooted in two dominant lines of thought: Freud’s precept that the course of a child’s development is determined by elements of its sexuality; and the debate of nature versus nurture. I was a bit concerned that Freud had lost the plot a little, and I rejected a purely binary allocation of factors determining a child’s development. Surely, I thought, there must be a theory that links elements of both?
The film
In brief, We Need to Talk About Kevin tells the story of a mother, Eva, played by Tilda Swinton, dealing with the aftermath of a Columbine-style shooting committed by her teenage son, Kevin (played by Jasper Newell, and later Ezra Miller). The film’s narrative employs a jumble of flashbacks during which we are give snapshots of her struggle while raising Kevin.
It is clear to Eva early on that Kevin’s development is atypical. He refuses to be potty-trained and is reluctant to engage with her. These actions are displayed in the film not so much as Kevin’s failures in psychological development, as his wilful manipulation of his relationship with his mother. His relationship with his father, Franklin (John C. Reilly), is seemingly normal.This raises a central question: was Kevin born this way, or has his mother made him such? Or, put another way: what is the driver of his developing sociopathic behaviour; is it nature or nurture?
Epigenetic theory
Step up to the plate please, epigenetic theory. This is a theory championed by the noted developmental psychologist Erik Erikson. He was concerned with how personality is influenced after birth, especially during childhood; and he was especially interested in the role of experience. Thus, if he were positioned on any nature-nurture continuum, it would be towards the latter. However, he rejected the notion of tabula rasa (clean slate) – the belief that individuals are born without any predetermined mental content, and that experience is the sole determinant of personality.
Instead, Erikson incorporated into his thinking the concept of ‘epigenesis’, essentially in its original, more philosophical sense as introduced by Aristotle, meaning ‘pre-birth’, as opposed to its current focus, which is more biological around gene expression. Eriksen extended to the science of human personality development Aristotle’s belief that parts of the body are created in a nested hierarchical order. Today, we would generally consider that notion of pre-determinism in human development as being ‘genetic’.
Basing his theory on Freud’s stages of psychosexual development, Erikson believed all humans are scheduled to develop from birth to death through eight stages, and that the success or not of negotiating these stages was determined by social and environmental factors.
Each stage, according to Erikson, was characterised by a different personality ‘conflict’; and how the individual was encouraged or inhibited at that stage would determine the his rate and direction of development.
As an example, an infant has to develop trust without forgoing the capacity for mistrust. This trust-mistrust relationship is the conflict. Should the parents at this stage provide consistency and familiarity then the child will learn to trust them. At the same time, the child needs to trust her own body, and its associated biological urges. If this is done correctly then the child develops the virtue of hope.
Should the support of the parents be overly positive at this stage, then there is a ‘maladaptation’ and the child will grow up to trust people too easily. Should there be little or no support at this stage, then there is a ‘malignancy’ in development and the child develops a tendency not to trust others.
Stages that follow see a child deal with conflicts around such issues as autonomy versus shame and doubt, initiative versus guilt, and industry versus inferiority.
Not just for kids
And it doesn’t stop. Erikson’s stages of psychosocial development are stepping-stones all the way to old age. For example, between the ages of 20 and 30 we are expected to cultivate a proper degree of intimacy, as opposed to remaining in the more introspective condition of isolation developed as a teen.
There are no answers in the film We Need to Talk About Kevin as to how or why Kevin develops into the sociopath he becomes. There are clues along the way, but they are clues to more questions. Freud would have suggested answers and would have pointed to Kevin’s anal retention and other, later aberrant bathroom behaviour as evidence. But then Freud had his own issues to deal with.
If the film hints at any measure of causality, it is at how, directly after Kevin’s birth, Eva, a successful travel writer, abruptly comes to terms with the fact that her son has inhibited her opportunities to do what she clearly loves. Her falling pregnant with Kevin was unplanned, and therefore, it is suggested, unwanted at the time. Kevin’s sensitivity to this is shown later in the film when he destroys things Eva had collected during her travels.
But it’s the intensity of Kevin’s behaviour that suggests there is something deeper than simply a sensitivity to his mother’s regrets. This would point to the idea that he was somehow ‘marked’ or predisposed to sociopathic behaviour before he was even born – something epigenetic.
The epigenetic theory of psychosocial development is still an emerging theory. There’s a definite logic to the notion that the environment in which a child develops has a critical role to play in that child’s psychosocial development. But whether or not Erikson was right – that we are somehow genetically scheduled with set stages of development – is something we need to talk about.
Image used with permission: Artificial Eye
Outstanding MR Ilbury!!!