Netflix’s Monster: The Ed Gein Story offers more than horror—it reveals the unbearable bind between love, dependency, and annihilation. This piece examines the series’ portrayal of Gein through a psychodynamic lens, tracing how engulfment, idealization, and identification turned filial devotion into true crime’s most haunting pathology.

We imagine the “good” therapy session as smooth, calm, and comforting. But what if the moments that feel hardest — when tension rises, when connection falters — are the ones that hold the greatest power to transform?

Real healing doesn’t come from avoiding the hard places—it comes from entering them with care and courage. We descend not to stay there, but to return changed. We descend to ascend.