A Psychobiography of Bruce Wayne

 

(this biography of Bruce Wayne is loosely based off the Bruce Wayne from the film, “Batman Begins”

Biography:

“From ages 0-8 Bruce Wayne was raised in the Wayne Manor by his parents Thomas and Martha Wayne. Martha raises Bruce full time while Thomas runs Wayne Enterprises while raising Bruce part time. Bruce has a happy and fulfilling childhood from ages 0-8 as his parents are extremely wealthy, he has everything he needs and more, and also two loving parents. He is also taken care of by his butler Alfred Pennyworth as well.

At age 8 Bruce falls down a cavern when playing with his childhood from Rachel Dawes. He survives the fall but experiences trauma as bats fly around him in a dark environment and it frightens him immensely. Bruce never receives therapy for this trauma, nor does he talk of the experience openly with his parents despite the opportunity to do so. The next month Bruce’s parents take him to go see an opera in which there is a frightening scene where acrobats dressed as bats climb all over the stage. This re-triggers Bruce’s trauma with the bats and he asks his parents to leave the opera in the middle of it. The parents oblige and take the back exit out of the opera theater.

As they exit into an alleyway a homeless man with a gun comes up to Bruce and his parents and says that he needs their wallet and jewels. Thomas obliges but as the homeless man violently reaches for Martha’s pearls, Thomas stands in front of him which catches the homeless man off guard, and he shoots Thomas. Martha screams and rushes towards Thomas but this also startles the homeless man, and he shoots Martha as well, ultimately killing them both. Bruce stood in shock as all of this happened and the homeless man did not harm him. The homeless man leaves with Thomas and Martha’s valuables. Martha is dead already, but Thomas is still alive with his last words to Bruce being, “Don’t be afraid,” right before he dies. This experience highly traumatizes Bruce and as he ages into adulthood, he seeks no therapy or treatment to deal with this wound. Bruce is then raised by his butler Alfred in place of his parents from ages 8 to 18.”

Theoretical Perspective:

I went with Erik Erikson’s psychosocial stages and for Bruce we will be specifically looking at the ages 5 to 12 years old which is the ‘Industry vs inferiority’ stage. This is the stage in a child’s life where they learn their value and also gain their self-confidence as well. I chose the psychosocial stages because the industry versus inferiority stage is a big phase in a kid’s life where their interests are either ‘fed’ or ‘starved’ by the guardians, familial figures, and acquaintances who may be influences in the child’s life.

Analysis:

When Bruce fell into the cavern it was because he had taken an arrowhead that had belonged to his friend Rachel. He was testing what he could get away with and ironically ended up in the cavern with the bats directly after he had stolen something. After the traumatic experience in the cavern, he gave the arrowhead back to Rachel which shows that he was building the belief that there were consequences for the actions that someone makes, and this new belief inspired him to give back what he had stolen.

Also, after Bruce’s parents were shot in the alleyway, he went into a stage of isolation from approximately ages 8 to 18, eventually traveled the world looking for purpose and meaning and ended up training with the ‘League of Shadows’ that taught him about rendering ‘justice’ with a final test of killing someone. Bruce refuses to kill the man and instead sets the facility on fire while freeing the man. He then escapes and yet saves his teacher ‘Ra’s al Ghul’ despite him trying to kill Bruce when he set the facility on fire.

These actions show that Bruce believes in ‘cause and effect’ as a consequence of him falling into the cavern of bats because he had stolen the arrowhead from Rachel. He also believes in justice as shown in returning the arrowhead to Rachel and that killing is bad, while saving someone even an enemy from death is good as seen with him saving his mentor turned enemy Ra’s al Ghul. As Bruce still has not received any therapy for the killing of his parents yet through his training with the League of Shadows he wants to overcome his fear of standing ‘shocked’ when something bad happens like he did when his parents were killed. He now wants to fight against the same type of evil that killed his parents instead of standing and watching it happen.

Therapy Recommendations:

A very loose version of exposure therapy was used in a hazardous manner while Bruce participated in the League of Shadows. They sprayed a toxin on him that made his fears manifest in front of him through hallucinations. Bruce hallucinated that he was surrounded by bats. At first this terrified him but through many sessions he not only did not fear the bats but in a sense, he became what he was fearful of by creating a new crime fighting identity called the ‘Batman.’ This is possibly a diagnosis of personality disorder as Bruce now wears a costume that looks like a bat as he prowls Gotham City at nighttime to fight against criminals in the city.

This process of ‘becoming the thing you fear’ looks like an over-correction and I recommend psychodynamic therapy so a therapist can walk Bruce through his past traumas to see how his adult life has been affected by them. The therapist would need to first build a trusting relationship with him because Bruce has not had any consistent positive authority figures in his life since his parents, he was raised by Alfred, but he was a rebellious child most likely due to not having ever sought therapy to deal with his past trauma. The therapist could set one of Bruce’s goals to finding a safe community he could be a part of as he spent a lot of time alone growing up. As the therapist grows closer with Bruce, this will allow Bruce to trust people in a community setting more as he realizes that he can be safe among them. The therapist can also recommend a psychologist to Bruce to deal with his possible diagnosis of personality disorder of him believing that he is Bruce Wayne and also Batman.

Critiques of Psychodynamic Therapy and Erik Erikson’s psychosocial stages:

One of the most common critiques of psychodynamic therapy is that the client can become too reliant on the therapist to solve their problems and may become less independent in doing so. Bruce also tends to spend time alone so if he ever felt ‘betrayed’ by his therapist he may not attend another session. Bruce is also rich from inheriting Wayne Enterprises from his late father and can definitely afford the therapy but due to his therapy form being a long-term therapy and the therapist knowing Bruce’s financial situation due to his fame and status as a public figure, it is a possibility that the therapist can possibly trick Bruce into thinking he needs to be in therapy longer than he needs to and to build the belief in Bruce that only the therapist can help him and no one else.

A critique of the psychosocial stages is that they do not always go in the same order. For example, Bruce chose isolation over intimacy before he was 18 years old when he was still a minor. He lost touch with Rachel and was mostly raised in an empty mansion alone aside from his butler. Also, the identity versus role confusion was experienced by Bruce after he entered the League of Shadows which was in his 20’s and that is when he changed his identity to Batman based out of his childhood trauma of being afraid of bats.