Thawing the Iceman: A Look at Richard Kuklinski

By Nathaniel B. Broyles

PSY 438 Theories of Personality Prof. Daniel Aaron, Ph.D., LCSW June 30, 2011

When one thinks of the Iceman, most of us would probably immediately the Marvel Comics universe and a young man by the name of Bobby Drake with the ability to create and control ice. Prior to the creation of Professor X s band of heroes, however, there was another Iceman. His name was Richard Kuklinski and he was a real person who committed very real crimes. He murdered so many people before he was incarcerated that even he is unsure of the exact number, except to say that he is sure that the number is greater than two hundred. In July 2002, Kuklinski consented to a taped interview by Dr. Clark Dietz wherein he spoke candidly about his actions, motivations, and feelings regarding his crimes. It was by turns a fascinating and horrifying look into the mind of one of the most prolific serial killers in modern history.

Questions abound as to what made Kuklinski the way he is today and there are a number of theories that can be applied in an attempt at explaining the man. Aside from what is probably a biological predisposition towards fearlessness, perhaps the most important factor to consider is the childhood and adolescence that Kuklinski experienced. As a child, Kuklinski was repeatedly physically abused by both his mother and father. As would be expected, this caused a tremendous amount of anger and resentment to build up towards his parents. Since he was a child at the time, he was unable to release his frustrations at his mistreatment on the source and so he turned to other means of appeasing his demons. He began to torture and kill small animals as a way of regaining control and establishing himself in a position of strength. The ongoing cycle of abuse, leading to anger, leading to violent outbursts, leading to establishing himself as strong and in control is a classic case of operation conditioning. According to B. F. Skinner, the instances of abuse by his parents (positive reinforcers) would lead to an increased likelihood of violent outbursts (operants) by Kuklinski. Such being the case, according to Skinner, Kuklinski would be predisposed to violent responses whenever he felt like he was being placed in a weak or unfavorable position.

The theory put forth by Carl R. Rogers, actualization, supports the conclusion gained from looking at Kuklinski through the lens of Skinner s theory. Rogers agrees with other theorists, notably Horney, that childhood experiences play a large role in the development of the adult personality. In this case, Kuklinski s parents failed to provide him with conditional positive regard for behaving in a manner in which they approved. By all available accounts, Kuklinski could do no right and was treated as a whipping boy for the frustrations of the parents. Since there was no chance for him to develop conditional positive self-regard, Kuklinski never internalized the concept that causing pain to others in

an attempt to make one s self feel better was not proper or acceptable behavior. The self-actualization of Kuklinski then was that there was nothing wrong and nothing to feel bad about with regard to harming other people or animals. His self-concept is completely wrapped up in unhappiness and apathy and is unable to allow himself to feel anything except negative emotions in front of others.

As was previously mentioned, Kuklinski s childhood experiences played a major role in the person that he became as an adolescent and then adult. Alfred Bandura s social-cognitive theory takes those experiences into account but also weighs more heavily on the concept of self-reinforcement rather than Skinner s emphasis on outside factors reinforcing behavior. According to Bandura, in order for behavior to be reinforced, a person must first be aware of the reinforcement before it is effective. A person will, therefore, gauge their behavior on whether it will have a positive or negative effect on them. For Kuklinski, this means that, since the negative behavior patterns exhibited by his parents never had adverse consequences for them (with regard to people outside of the family at least), their behavior was to be emulated so that he, too, would be strong. He himself never got in serious trouble for his behavior as a teenager. In fact, the interview with Kuklinski mentions that he killed a young man in a fight at a pool hall but there was never any mention of police involvement with the incident. Since there were never any negative social consequences experienced by Kuklinski for emulating the behavior of his parents, and eventually taking such behavior ten steps further, he self-reinforced his violent actions as being acceptable behavior for him to engage in.

At the late stage in life that Kuklinski is at during the interview with Dr. Dietz, there may have been little for him to gain from participating in therapy, even if he were willing to actively participate in such an endeavor. The interview showed clearly that he understood that he was broken in some way and that he simply was unable to muster up the feelings of guilt and remorse for his prior actions that he knew intellectually that he should be feeling. It was also quite clear that he loved his wife and family and demonstrated that in the best way that he knew how, although he was truly sorry for the domestic violence that he put them through. Perhaps the most useful ability that Kuklinski could learn would be to learn to suppress the automatic instinct towards violence whenever he feels that somebody or something is challenging him or treating him with disrespect. At that point in his life, behind bars, Kuklinski was able to suppress some of those urges when he knew that he was in a position where acting on them would bring swift and painful consequences. In the past, those instincts would have been

immediately acted upon with little regard for consequences. Age, however, can bring wisdom, or at least an understanding of cause and effect.

The best way to help Kuklinski retrain himself would have been to use Bandura s modeling technique. Therapy would begin by explaining the desired outcome of the sessions, namely to allow Kuklinski to deal with perceived challenges in what would be considered a safe and appropriate manner. Movies with scenes depicting non-violent conflict resolution would then be shown to Kuklinski. It would then be appropriate to bring in actors who would portray various scenes that would have, in the past, caused Kuklinski to violently lash out if he were one of the participants. The actors would demonstrate what the past behavior would have been while the therapist pointed out why such behavior was undesirable. The scene would then be replayed with the actors demonstrating a non-violent resolution to the conflict. With the therapist explaining why the latter solution was the preferred response, the hope is that Kuklinski would be able to start internalizing and learning appropriate conflict resolution skills. Eventually, the therapist would be able to put Kuklinski himself into pretend conflict resolution situations and help guide him through the appropriate steps to resolving them. Since Kuklinski seems eager to be more normal, and recognizes that there is something different about him, it seems likely that he would be able to engage in therapy and actively participate in achieving the stated goal of learning more effective conflict resolution skills.

The interview session with Dr. Dietz, in contrast, was not about therapeutic intervention. Instead, its sole purpose was to elicit honest and complete answers on his crimes and motivations from Kuklinski. Taking place over a period of four days, Dr. Dietz was able to gain Kuklinski s trust enough that he was willing to talk honestly about his life from childhood to his incarceration. There was only one point in the interview were Dr. Dietz made a slight error and made a comment that challenged Kuklinski s right to take the lives of three young men who had been harassing him in their vehicle. That challenge made Kuklinski visibly upset but Dr. Dietz was able to skillfully turn the situation back to his own advantage and to point out to Kuklinsky that the feeling that he was being challenged or criticized in some way would have been the trigger for his violent outbursts in the past. This brought the conservation back around to Kuklinski s childhood and his interactions with his father, allowing Dr. Dietz to illustrate to Kuklinsky that much of his adult personality was formed by his childhood interactions with his parents.

In the end, it is difficult not to feel a modicum of remorse for Richard Kuklinski. His many crimes were heinous in nature and he certainly would deserve the death penalty if ever there was a criminal who deserved such a fate. The person whom he grew up to be, however, was shaped by factors outside of his control. He learned from an early age that he would not get the love and positive reinforcement that he needed from his parents and so he grew up to be the embodiment of the saying: Only the strong survive. Weakness could not be tolerated for Richard Kuklinski because to be weak was to leave one s self vulnerable to being hurt. Emotions were a weakness that could be used against him and so he would not feel. To be challenged meant that a swift and violent response was needed so that there was no question as to his strength. In a different time, a different place, and with a different set of circumstances, Richard Kuklinski could have been a firefighter or a police officer. Instead, he found himself on the other side of the coin, an outlaw who looked out for his own interests above all others and with no regard for the idea of right and wrong, only what is good for me and bad for me.