Alexander Crain, 14 year old was charged as an adult for killing his own parents in their

Golden Gates Estates home on 9th December 2010. Alexander’s defense attorney, Brian

Bieber claims that the child is suffering from an unknown form of mental illness.

Alexander’s bail was set at $1 million but if his attorney’s claim is true Alexander’s bail

will be reduced or else he might face 30 years in prison. What was the motivation behind

Alexander killing his parents Thomas Crain, 40, and Kelly Crain, 39 is something

everyone wants to know. Many psychologists have been put to work to analyze

Alexander’s mental state and whether he is suffering from any kind of mental disease.

Conclusions bring out shocking amounts and Beiber states that the child suffered some

form of mental illness before the killing. Alexander’s remaining family supports him and

would like to be at his side all the time. They also agree with Beiber on the issue that

Alexander might be mentally ill and suffering from post traumatic stress syndrome.

However a few theories might shed some light on the case. Two of the psychologists

have commented on Alexander’s case and say that it could be several kinds of mental

disorders. These might include bipolar disorders, schizophrenia, domestic violence or

drug abuse. The psychologists also evaluate that such hatred that led to him killing his

parents did not happen in a day but must have been the result of a series of events that

triggered his behavior and made him do the act of killing his own parents. Several

psychological theories can be related to this. If we use Sigmund Freud’s theories on

psychoanalysis such as the theory of the conscious and unconscious mind, we learn that a

person can hold suppressed feelings in his subconscious mind and these can collect up

and lead to severe consequences. In such cases, the person might not even be aware of

what he or she is doing because it is their unconscious mind that acts which in
Alexander’s case can be a logical theory. Similarly we can also put Freud’s view of

Thanatos (death instincts) into consideration and by this we know that self destructive

behavior exists in all human beings but when it is outwardly expressed it turns in

violence and aggression which also could be something that Alexander suffered from.

Psychologist in his case also think that Alexander could have gone through mental or

physical abuse and not spoken up at all until he could not hold it in anymore and bought

it out on his parents in form of violence by killing them. Furthermore, psychologist

suggest other mental diseases as well that may have caused this, such as bipolar disorder

or schizophrenia. Alexander could have been going through a severe state of depression

and was not in his right mind. He might be hallucinating or having delusions which might

have caused a lot of mental trauma for him. If a psychological disorder is involved then it

could be of any sort that led to such an extreme situation. Also, if we look into William

McDougall’s theory called hormic psychology, it shows how human behavior is

motivated and what the purpose of it is. McDougall states that human beings have

inherited instincts which motivate them to do actions that are beyond their own

comprehension and a person’s unconscious mind would not always understand the reason

behind certain aims or goals. Nevertheless, Alexander’s reason to kill his parents could

be due to several issues and to understand these psychological theories play a very

important role. By such situations we come to know how vulnerable the human mind and

behaviorism is and we can act on certain things and not even know about it. To avoid

such situations by understanding how a human mind processes and what can be done to

not let this happen again because even the smallest problem such as depression could

bring out severe consequences. We do not know what Alexander suffers from or even if
he does but we know this that now he has no parents and might end up in prison for the

remaining of his life. It is important to understand the psychological aspect behind every

situation, without it there is no guarantee that there won’t be such cases in the future.
Works Cited:

Husty, Denes. “Mental illness possible in case of Collier County teen accused of killing
his parents.” News Press. 11 Mar 2010. Web. 28 Mar. 2010

“William McDougall” Wikipedia: the free encyclopedia. 2011. Web

“Sigmund Freud” Wikipedia: the free encyclopedia. 2011. Web