[kestrelx]

Just watching this series "Born to Kill" about Harold Shipman.

His mother was over bearing controlling and controlled his social life, stopping him from being friends with people she didn't think were good enough, hence he grew up being aloof etc - she died of cancer when he was 17 and the night, after she died he went out jogging all night. He often sat with her and watched as the GP administered Morphine in a syringe. One expert claims that is when he got the idea to start killing folk and it was only after his mother died did he tell friends he was going to be a Doctor even though he didn't have the right qualifications, but he worked to get them.

It's obvious that the relationship with his mother did have some bearing on what he did - in the time honoured way laid out by psychologist Freud, and illustrated in the film Psycho, in which the main character lives out his mothers commands long after she is dead. Though these days the trend is to blame "genetics!"