Ed Gein Social History

Name: Edward (Ed) Theodore Gein
Date: October 24th
Prepared by: Kari Kuss

Presenting Problem: Ed is a 51-year-old unmarried white male who is convicted with the murder of two women and possible five more. He has an abnormal attachment to his dead mother. He has memory deficits. He has issues with Transvestic fetishes. He is necrophilia as well with women whom look like his dead mother. He has dug up graves of women his mother’s age. The psychiatrist states that he is schizophrenic. The state has requested therapy. His mother wished him to be a girl so he might have gender issues.



Family of Origin: Mother Augusta, she was a religious tyrant, she verbally abused him and her husband. Ed put her on a pedestal. Augusta supported the family through a successful grocery Business. She despised George, felt he was worthless, and gave him no part in raising the two boys. Father George P. was an abusive alcoholic who worked periodically as a carpenter, a tanner, and a farmer that died of pneumonia. He had an older brother Henry that didn’t agree with his mother’s ways and Ed is suspected of killing him from criticizing her.



Birth and Childhood: August 27, 1906 in LaCrosse, WI. His mother wanted him to be a girl. He spent most of his time doing farm chores. Ed began school at Roche-a-Cri grade school, a tiny one-room building with 12 students. Ed was average at school, but an excellent reader. Ed was shunned and isolated at school because of his lazy eye and his shyness. Augusta severely punished Ed when he did attempt to make friends. Ed graduated the eighth grade and then dropped out of school.


Marriages and Significant Relationships: Never married no significant relationships


Current Living Arrangements: Living alone in Plainfield, WI



Education: He went to school to the 8th grade then dropped out.

Military Service: None
Ed was still eligible for the draft and had to travel to Milwaukee for a physical exam. He was rejected due to the growth on his left eyelid, which slightly impaired his vision. This was the farthest from home he had ever been and the only time in his life he would travel so far.

Employment History: He hung windows, patched roofs, painted houses, repaired fences. He babysat for children as he could relate to them better. He also worked for a road building contractor.


Medical History: A growth on his left eyelid caused Ed to have a “lazy” eye. He had a lesion on his tongue which caused his speech to sound weird. He is schizophrenic and a sexual psycho path.


Legal History: November 16, 1957 he was arrested for the murder of Bernice Warden. He confessed to the murder of Mary Hogan from December 8, 1954. He was suspected of five more.


Social and Recreational Interests: His mother prevented him from developing any friends. So he had poor social skills. He read books about which included head shrinking, grave robbing, and many books on human anatomy.

Religious Activities: He was brought up Lutheran and his mother was a religious fanatic. She drilled it into him that drinking was evil and that all women were whores. His mother read from the bible nightly.


Successes/Strengths and Resources:


Impressions and Recommendations: Ed is a 51-year old unmarried white male who is convicted with the murder of two women and possible five more. The murders started around the time after his mother passed away. He is functioning on a level that he is only admitting to committing two murders. He seems to have areas of memory loss and isn’t affected by the public’s reaction. He however has an insight on whether or not he dug up the graves of middle aged women. He believes at one point he has recovered his mental health and wants to be released. He is motivated to change. Client appears to have impaired mental and social functioning.
Recommendations for Ed are as follows: Recommend a mental health treatment and a psych evaluation for his schizophrenia and necrophilia issues and 12 counseling sessions to address why he had committed the crimes he was convicted of.

Week 12 Blog Post

You will have moments in your life when you feel like you have made a difference for another person. If this has already happened for you, tell me what that looked like. If it hasn't yet, tell me what you think it will be like.

I work with this lady Bonnie Lindow she is in her upper 50's and is not up on the technology as I am and I have helped her figure out just simple steps that have made her job a lot easier to do. To me its just simple stuff but to her it means a lot more having to do things a longer way. We have created a great friendship along the way as well. She has taught me administration stuff as I have never worked in an office setting before either so it has been a give take lasting relationship. I find you can learn something from anyone you meet usually at some point.

Week 11 Blog Post

How is it going? In field, in classes, just in general. I'm checking in to see how you are as we begin to wind down the term.

We get a new Executive Director on November 16th Raechel Sherfield. Bonnie finds out if the board will hire her on as a permanent administrator assistant this coming wk at their board meeting. She pretty much has been the glue to keep this place running smoothly. If she leaves I think they will struggle for awhile. She has put in her year's time awhile ago already from the program through the Senior Center. I have been making my decisions on what classes to take for my last semester and what to carry over for the summer. I think I will end up taking the rest online that are available just so I can make money at my new job. I started driving taxi on October 17th for the elderly and handicapped as that is pretty much most of my clientele. I really like it so far and the pay is pretty good for start out too. As I told you I was accepted into UW Oshkosh last week for their online leadership program. So hopefully when we get a new director I can get some of my assignments questions for field answered but yet I don't want to bombard her too much right away. This semester has been a lot easier than the summer which has been nice so who knows what the spring will bring me...

D.B. 9 Blog Prompt

1. How do you get feedback from your supervisor at your agency? I just ask Bonnie the administrator, Tara the Parent Educator or Carole the other Parent Educator. Tara's last day is November 4th and Tammy Dahl will be taking her place. As far as the circumstances to the comment left by you in the grading section. I just explained what really happened as she didn't know what had occurred between Linda & I. It's been 3 weeks since we haven't had a director and we are managing to get by but nobody can make any decisions on anything until we hire a new Director maybe a Rachel Loucks is a possibility but who knows.

2. Do you feel you are getting adequate feedback? If not, what can you do to get more feedback. Yes, for the circumstances that the Parent resource Center is going through with all the employee changes.

LP 7 Blog Prompt

What self-care activities did you do this week?
I got at least 6 hrs of sleep. I cranked the radio and sang along to it. I played some Mafia Wars and Sorority Life on facebook. I went out of town Saturday to get away from it all. I had a glass of wine with some relatives around a bonfire.

Is your resume and cover letter up to date? Remember, Job Seeking Skills Workshops are at NTC on Monday 1-2PM, Tuesday 3-4PM, and Thursday 8-9AM if you need help. Yes I needed it for my Field 2 application.

That lecture from Teri Jendusa Nicolai was very good about Domestic Violence Awareness. Well worth my time to travel over for it.

Round Robin Bringing Up Difficult Issues

The concept of the “I statements” were geared toward the clients understanding the situation. The confrontation scenarios put it into perspective of what the client needed to understand what was going on. I think you had to give some thought obvious to the questions and answers. The “I statements” were a lot easier to answer then the confrontation answers. There are proper rules though on how to confront someone. There may some discrepancies when you confront someone. The “I message is broken into four parts. You must be matter of fact on the subject. Yet be tentative and focus on tangible behavior or communication. You should take full responsibility for your observations. You should collaborate with the client to they feel there is teamwork. Make sure you don’t accuse the other person though so they feel put on the spot. You should not ever confront someone because you are angry. Don’t be judgmental on the client either they don’t want to feel in adequate. The client needs to come up with the solution on their own. Make sure you ask the clients permission to share ideas so you don’t offend them. They may not always agree with what you want to share from your point of view. You will want to make sure there are not interruptions when you are interviewing your client. Otherwise you may not get the needed information that can be crucial to the case. You don’t want to appear overbearing to them either. Nobody likes to hear a know it all. You may want to give your own point of view but it must be done cautiously and with considerable discretion. We want to introduce another perspective so they may have more than one idea to go from when deciding. We need to express our concern for the clients so they feel there is an understanding between us.

I think giving the other classmates what my thought would have been if they are any different doesn’t bother me because most are virtual strangers. I think what I wrote was adequate information on what I learned from this assignment on the two different kinds of scenarios. As I am not a practicing professional I only can go by what I have learned from a text book or scenarios that teachers have told us about as well. I think I give fairly well feedback on what knowledge I have on the subject as I am not the teacher and I only know so much. I think it’s important to know the difference on “I statements and confrontation skills as working with many different clients in the Human Service profession you will encounter many different scenarios that clients will have to deal with. I learned there is a right way to handle certain topics with care in touchy topics. We want to address to the client that there are other solutions to difficult problems but we still want them to make their best decision on the issue. We need to learn how to bring up difficult subject so the communication flows well when counseling clients.

Casemanager Interview Assignment

I interviewed Julie Clarkson from Taylor County Human Services Department in September at her office because she is a social worker that I know of that is what may interest me in a career down the road. They promote and encourage the well being, safety, independence, and self-sufficiency of all Taylor County individuals and families through the provision of supportive services. She is a social worker in the Children and Family Services Unit. She acquired the position by replying to an ad in the local newspaper. She works with abused and neglected children and their families doing case management. She monitors the safety of children, relative or foster care placements, providing appropriate services to the family and collaborating with all of the service providers to assure needs of the family are being met. Julie also works with Delinquent and Juvenile in Need of Protection and Services cases. She is the “go-to” person for our Wisacwis system. The issues her clients face are the same issues in all units (Mental Health, Long Term Support, Economic Assistance, Children and Family Services and Developmental Disabilities.) She had to learn how to read what the limitations and obligations were according to state statute. She learned training in safety, how the court process worked, and how to write court reports. Julie had to learn to trust her instincts and be very observant to time, place, facial and body gestures, words, inflection in voice, environment, pets, home exits and the mood of clients. She had to learn appropriate and thorough documentation of what she saw, heard and smelled. Her days start out “unknown.” Every day is different and there are always things that pop up to deal with that you aren’t expecting, such as a child taken into custody the night before, etc. She has days where she sits and does paperwork most of the day. She may have some home visits to clients’ houses or see kids at school. She has supportive co-workers that work cooperatively together and have flexible schedules.

In the agency, Managed Family Care is occurring over the next few years which will offer services to elderly and developmentally disabled clients. It may impact clients by offering different programs (better or worse). There are funding cuts, which make it even more difficult to provide needed programs to clients, such as in-home counseling and in-home parent education, AODA services for juveniles, respite care services for families, etc. The county is requiring them to take furlough days. This takes time away from the clients who can be very needy. This can lead to increased inpatient mental health placements, suicidal clients, placement in juvenile detention or foster care. She says their management is very supportive of the staff. Her co-workers can separate their personal feelings from work feelings. Ethical Dilemmas can be very straightforward at times and others can be open interpretation. Probably the most common that they run into is handling cases with people that they know personally. They try to avoid that if all possible. They may have to request an outside agency to do an investigation or supervision because of conflict of interest. It is a dilemma when a client needs something, like a couch and you may have one, but are not supposed to give it to them. Or they have a pet they are not taking care of and want to give it to you personally, but you cannot take it from them.

In the past ten years, staff turnover at the agency has been minimal, hiring maybe one person a year. Other agencies that she knows have approximately three people a year. Julie recommends a Bachelor or Master’s Degree because that is what most employers are looking for right now. She recommended that I do as much volunteering or field placement as I can in the area I want to practice. She said the average entry level wage is $18.55-$24.66 per hour. The higher is a Medical Assistance Certified MSW, which is their therapist. Positions within the agency start with union postings and then are advertised with the local newspaper and websites. The typical interview process is to interview with the Human Resource Manager, the Human Services Director and the direct Supervisor of the position. All three interview at once. She told me to run seriously. She would go into a different field or at least continue her education to get a MSW or PHD to do counseling. They don’t have enough psychologists in the area. She enjoys what she does for the most part and it is important work, but it is very taxing on a person to be disliked by the majority of the clients and not having resources to meet their needs.
I still am interested in this field even after hearing the negative side to this profession. The positive’s out way the negatives by giving back or helping some family, child, or adult receive the best care available to them. I will have to get my Bachelor’s degree for sure in this economy as jobs are hard to come by these days. The more education the better your chances are for a better qualified career in this field. I realize I may need to actually move as well. It is tough to find a job in a small community in this field. As they usually hire within and I think not knowing people that I know from my local community will be the best idea. The idea of moving somewhere new excites me but also kind of freaks me as well. I think anything new that gets someone out of their comfort zone will though. I look forward to finding a career in this profession down the road. I hope to make a small difference in someone’s life someway. In these struggling times the need for Human Services has risen in the past couple of years. So hopefully when I finish all of my schooling there will be some great jobs available for me. I am interested in the Psychology aspect of this field so far.

1. What is the purpose or mission of this agency and/or program?


2. What is your role and/or position within the agency and how did you acquire the position?

3. What are the major issues facing your clients that this agency serves? What did you need to learn more about after you were hired to be effective in your job?


4. What is the typical day like for you? How would you describe the work environment?

5. What changes do you expect will occur in this agency’s services or programs in the next few years (or what are the trends that will impact your clients in the future)?


6. What do you like most about working in this agency? What ethical dilemmas are common in working with the population this agency serves?

7. What recommendations (e.g. education, experience) would you have for someone who wants to be employed in this agency (or field)? What are the career prospects for individuals interested in this area?


8. What is the average salary range of an entry level position within this agency? [You are not asking for his or her salary.]

9. How are the positions within the agency typically advertised? What is the typical interview process for a position within this agency?


10. If you had your education and experience to do all over again, what would you do differently?