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Journal Article

Citation

Easson WM, Steinhilber RM. Arch. Gen. Psychiatry 1961; 4(1): 27-35.

Copyright

(Copyright © 1961, American Medical Association)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

13725505

Abstract

VioLit summary:

OBJECTIVE:
The purpose of this study by Easson and Steinhilber was to explore the psychodynamics of homicidal behavior in children and adolescents.

METHODOLOGY:
The authors followed a non-experimental design in which case studies were conducted of seven boys who had made murderous assaults and one boy who had committed murder. The eight boys and their families were under psychiatric consultation at a clinic over a twelve-month period.

FINDINGS/DISCUSSION:
The authors began by describing four different types of psychotic states in which murder and suicide have been committed: paranoid schizophrenia, catatonia, mania, and depression. Conditions of the surrounding environment were also considered in terms of correlates of homicide and suicide rates. The authors claimed that when parental examples of morality are weak then the child is able to act out antisocial behavior without guilt. Previous studies of homicide have made the false claim that there are murderers who are psychologically normal. The subjects were described as all coming from socially acceptable normal family homes. In the first case the authors referred to the child's fascination with dolls, enuretic condition, poor school work, and the parents' unstable marriage. The child had made three murderous assaults on his younger brother prior to being seen by a psychiatrist. The authors commented that the child's behavior was a result of a combination of a cold family environment which concealed rage and hostility as well as inconsistent parental discipline and ambivalence. The subject in the second case was increasingly violent towards his parents and siblings in the year prior to his evaluation. The family environment was describes as seductive, permissive, and rejecting. In addition, the boy maintained a cache of guns and knives, which was supported by his parents. The authors argued that the parents expected the boy to act with hostility and violence. In the third case, enuresis was continuously mentioned, as well as the mother's disciplinary practices. The authors found that there was a great deal of hatred in the family and that the mother fostered the delinquent behavior in the child. The sixteen-year-old boy in the fourth case had been raised by his grandmother since his mother's suicide and his father's death in a mental institution. His violent attacks against his grandmother, teachers, classmates, and school property were blamed on the grandmother's actions towards the youth. The authors claimed that "she gained obvious pleasure from the boy's wanton destructiveness and sadism" (p. 31). In the fifth case the fifteen-year-old subject was being evaluated for repeated truancy and larceny. The authors suggested that the boy's behavior was a manifestation of his being raised in an environment where he was unwanted, beaten by his mother, and ridiculed by both his mother and his grandmother. The thirteen-year-old boy in the sixth case was described as coming from a background where his aggressive behavior was reinforced by inadequate punishment from his parents. In the seventh case, the thirteen-year-old boy was described as obese, enuretic, and having a fingernail biting habit. The authors pointed to his upbringing where he was infantilized and feminized from an early age. All seven cases were summarized by the authors as having many overlapping themes. Each boy had close emotional ties to their mother, the father was unavailable for healthy identification, they were in dependent relationships with their parents, they were provided parental examples of aggression and violence, they maintained collections of guns and knives, and they were expected by their parents to act aggressively and violently to the point of murder.
In the final case, the ten-year-old patient had committed murder and shared many of the same psychopathologic features as the other boys who had not murdered. The authors were unable to extract from the interviews with the patient or his family any psychodynamic factors behind the murder. They attributed this to the tragic circumstances under which the family was being interviewed. Both the mother and father were described, however, as lacking moral scruples in their parental roles. The authors concluded by noting that in all cases both parents had condoned murderous behavior in their children.

AUTHORS' RECOMMENDATIONS:
The authors suggested that future research might attempt to determine why one of the boys had committed murder while the others had not.

EVALUATION:
The authors presented the findings of case studies of eight murderous boys based on a psychiatric approach to violent behavior. Since the sample is small and non-random, it would not be appropriate to make inferences from this study to other populations. In addition, the authors' attempts at determining predictive variables of homicide were unsuccessful in terms of the similarity between the subjects who had not murdered and the subject who had. The authors fail to define many of the terms they employ to characterize the children's families, parents, and the boys themselves. However, this study does provide an important discussion of the role of the parents' behavior in determining their children's subsequent actions. (CSPV Abstract - Copyright © 1992-2007 by the Center for the Study and Prevention of Violence, Institute of Behavioral Science, Regents of the University of Colorado)

KW - Homicide Offender
KW - Juvenile Offender
KW - Juvenile Violence
KW - Juvenile Homicide
KW - Juvenile Male
KW - Male Offender
KW - Male Violence
KW - Child Male
KW - Child Violence
KW - Child Homicide
KW - Child Offender
KW - Violence Causes
KW - Case Studies
KW - Homicide Causes
KW - Offender Characteristics
KW - Late Childhood
KW - Late Adolescence
KW - Early Adolescence
KW - Psychological Factors


Language: en

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