Stephen King Biography

Stephen Edwin King was born September 21, 1947 in Portland, Maine.

Some people, such as journalists or professional health care workers, were traumatized through their work in war circumstances. The age range of the population fails between thirty and eighty years. Those in the so called second generation have not been in war-related life circumstances, but have grown up in a family with parents and/or older siblings who were traumatized, became seriously ill, or had died because of the war. When Stephen was 2 years old his parents began experiencing problems in their marriage. One-day Stephen's father went out to buy a pack of cigarettes and never returned. Stephen hasn't seen his father since. Nightmares and anxiety-filled dreams form a cluster of symptoms belonging to the diagnosis of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Such psychoneurotic symptoms occur if psychologically painful experiences like hurtful misunderstandings could leave the child's repression weak and can often manifest into dreams, sometimes even frightening nightmares.

King's novels are an escape from both life and death and personal fears. They are inspired not only by his fears, but from his nightmares. Horror fiction concentrates on subjective fantasies in which our worst fears and darkest desires are brought into tangible existence. King described himself as one of "the people's republic of paranoia". His fears include; fears of the dark, snakes, rats, spiders, squishy things, psychotherapy, deformity, closed-in spaces, death, being unable to write, flying-fill in the blank...and the list goes on. Writing is his way to block out his fears and in another way face them. The fear he has not had the courage to face is spiders.

Works Cited

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Freud, Sigmund. "Psychoanalysis." Encyclopedia of Knowledge. Vol. 15. P264

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Leafe, David. "Stephen King's Real Horror Story." Associated Newspapers LTD.

12 May (2009): Dailymail.co.uk Web. 25 Feb. 2012

Lisa, Rogak. Haunted Heart: The Life and Times of Stephen King.

Google Books.com, Jan 2009. Web. 25 Feb. 2012

Reeskamp, Herma.

"American Journal of Psychotherapy".Vol.60. Issue 1 (2006): p23-36.

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