The first psychological issue is that dreams are a way for the unconscious mind to express suppressed thoughts. This is evident in the article where Nuray says he sister was “restless and unhappy”. This issue is supported by Freud’s work on the interpretation of dreams, saying that dreams illustrate the logic and suppression of the unconscious mind. The second issue is clear in the source where it describes the accused as sitting ‘impassively in the dock’. It assumes that the killer has a delayed moral development because he is not showing any emotion after killing his daughter.
This relates to Kohlberg’s research on moral development which states that criminal’s moral development is delayed. The third psychological issue is that the death of a family member is a stressful experience. The article states that Nuray ‘let out a long piercing howl of anguish’ This issue is supported by Homes and Rahe who developed the social re-adjustment scale which said that death of a family member is a stressful event. Freud’s theory begins with the concept of repression, a cognitive process through which we deny wishes, fears, and thoughts that are threatening to us (make us anxious).
Repression creates an unconscious, an aspect of us that is outside of our waking awareness. The repressed material does not remain static in the unconscious mind because there are no constraints in the unconscious mind, therefore this material can be a source of emotional or unwilled behaviour. The repressed thoughts and fears come forward when we sleep. In Nuray’s case this is her sister’s fear for her life when her father finds out about her love for an older man. This is evident in the article where it says ‘nervous and upset’ and ‘restless’.
The article assumes that that the killer has a delayed moral development because he sat “impassively” which assumes that they have no feelings and are lifeless. This strengthens the morality issue. Kohlberg developed a theory of moral development after conducting a longitudinal study on 75 boys from USA, Mexico, Yucatan, Taiwan and Turkey. It included 2 stages in which there were 6 sub stages. The 3 stages were pre-conventional, conventional and post conventional. The difference between these stages was the pre-conventional stage was associated with following the rules.
The conventional stage was associated with being good to please someone and the post conventional stage was more to do with self control and what the person wants to do to please them. He said that these stages are invariant so everybody goes through them however criminals have a lower development rate. It seems the murderers have a delayed moral development because they killed their family member due to a cultural reason which they didn’t even question. They carried out the act without any remorse and so their moral development is an issue which the article picked up on.