1. Which level of psychological analysis is the most convincing to you? Explain why.
With family comes responsibility. Andrea Yates, from an unstable and unsupportive family, drowned all her five children due to disillusionment and mental insanity. In the debate of nature versus nurture, I believe nurture took the better hand in the case of Andrea Yates. The amount of nurture one receives takes precedence over the nature of his or her mental condition. Therefore, I find the psychological analysis level of behavioral and social-cultural perspective most convincing.Andrea Yates lacked a stable support system from the lack of her in-laws' help to the resistance of her husband's care to the children. Amongst my family, I always learned that the relationships within family should last forever because an unstable family will result in feelings of depression and melancholy. Nevertheless, Mr. Yates went to the extent of impregnating Yates with a fifth child after her physician declared her irresponsible for the care of any more children. Childcare creates an overwhelming amount of stress that, especially with five children and little to no assistance, can depress any person already declared mentally unstable. With a different attitude from her husband, Yates and her children might have suffered a less unfortunate fate.
Anna,
ReplyDeleteI find myself agreeing that Yates' unstable family life played a huge role in this case. I, too, know how family strife can damage a person. If you cannot count on your family, who can you count on? For this, I pity Yates. However, I also believe that she must pay for her crime. Ultimately, she made the decision to kill her children, regardless of what drove her to do it.
Anna,
ReplyDeleteI agree with you on how family relationships are the most important. The fact that her husband knew she was unfit to handle another child yet still impregnated her is ridiculous to me. How does the husband not get any of the blame for Andrea's crime? He seems as if he did not help her at all with her stress (pretty much just made it worse). The environment that Andrea was in had a severe impact on her decisions.
Anna,
ReplyDeleteI too believe that Ms. Yates' horrible family situation of have no support as her slow, painful slide into mental instability allowed Yates to worsen over time. It becomes truly saddening that one's environment can impact the mind so greatly. While I personally have always had a bit of a humanistic belief that man can craft his own in the world, to see such travesties like this occur due to our environment, along with a force multiplier like an unstable mind to drive a person crazy, is truly a darkened stain on the humanistic belief. It's the things like this if we are even given free will at all.
Anna,
ReplyDeleteI really likes how you incorporated your own beliefs in your blog. Although Andrea should have tried to receive more help from her family and friends, her husband should not have forced her to do things she did not want to do especially knowing she had a serious mental illness. Could her mental illness discouraged her from refusing to have another child?
Although I do agree Andrea Yates’ problems are partially sociocultural do you believe it was just because of the lack of support from her husband? I know my papa never had to change my dad’s diapers but that was just the social norm back then…. Needless to say no one was murdered. By stating with that bearing children causes anxiety were you alluding to postpartum depression? – Obviously such depression could have hit Andrea after each one of her pregnancies, causing severe mood/ behavioral shifts, therefore definitely strengthening your sociocultural/behavioral stance
ReplyDeleteAnna, I completely see where you are coming from when you discuss the downfalls of having a family that does not support eachother; however, if she really was so miserable then why did she not do anything to change that? We have no idea if she even tried to stand up for her unhappiness to her husband and maybe if she had demanded her husband's help or refused to allow him to impregenate her again things would have turned out differently. It gets to a point where a person should only allow their surroundings to get to them so much and then they need to take responsibility for their unhappiness, although I do understand that clearly her mental stability was lacking so therefore that is easier said than done.
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