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Kip Kinkel. 20th of May. Fifteen year old student of Thurston High school killed both of
his parents. Next day he took his gun to school and shot 2 students and wounded 25. In
September 1998 pled guilty in 2 murders and 26 attempted murders. Kip was sentenced
to 111 years in prison, without the possibility of parole.
What made this at the first sight normal boy kill his parents? What made him start
shootings in school?
I wanted to look at two possible theories of his case, from the view of two psychological
schools: psychoanalytic and humanist/existentialist theory.
Kip Kinkel’s parents were both successful teachers at Springfield. And of course they
expected their children to be as intelligent, as successful as they were. Kip’s sister
fulfilled the expectations of her parents. She was cheerleader and one of the best students
of the school. While Kip had troubles learning. Studying was always hard for him, even
since the 1st grade, which he had to repeat.
That was a big reason of Kip’s behavior. He wanted to fulfill parents’ expectations. He
wanted them to be proud of him. But he could not do anything right at school. That made
him feel miserable and not successful – “looser”. After he was arrested at school for
bringing a gun, his father told him as they were eating together at Burger King: “You
disgust me” and left him eating alone. Kip told that his parents were always embarrassed
by him and his behavior. And they always said that to him. In conversation with
policeman after the murders Kip said:” My dad kept saying how my mom… how
embarrassed she was going to be and how horrible I was…” He repeated a lot of times
that he did not want his parents to be embarrassed by him, that that was the reason he
killed them. He was not successful at school for a long time. He felt he was alone and
rejected since he was a child because of his behavior and failure. He was sure everybody
thought he was a psycho.
So his past relationships with his parents even since he was a child, his antisocial behavior and feeling rejection from classmates, awareness to fail and regret that he always embarrasses his parents did not let him have healthy relationships. The shooting were some kind of exit from the present situation. The only way he found.
And there is also some genetic reasons, that prove his mental illness, as some psychoanalysts called it schizoaffective disorder (combination of schizophrenia and depression). There were found at least 30 mentally ill family members from his mother’s side. That includes Faith Kinkel (mother) herself, who suffered from depression. And 7 from father’s. Kip had several serious signs of the mental disorder. Like hearing voices and hallucinations. And also the scan of his brain showed some holes and damages.
So his childhood failures and disappointments, not healthy relationships, fears and genetic, biological inclinations were the reasons of his abnormal behavior from psychoanalytic theory.
Another school of psychology - humanist/existentialist theory tends to look for the reasons in the present behavior, in the mind of person and more on his/her own expectations and choices. That means that the reasons of Kip’s abnormal behavior were not biological or social, like psychoanalysts would think, but more on his own thoughts. That way we can probably assume that the outcome of his troubles and fears was Kip’s own choice and desire. In his journal Kip wrote: “The only reason I still alive is hope. Even though I am repulsive and few people know who I am, I still feel that things might, maybe, just a little bit, get better…It is clear that no one will help me. Oh God, I am so close to killing people. So close….I want you to feel this, be this, taste this, kill this. Kill me. Oh God, I don't want to live. Will I see it to the end? What kind of dad would I make?” His present situation on that moment was hopeless for him. He was arrested and expelled from school, the girl he liked turnes him down, his dad was even more embarrassed with him. He felt alone. That was the moment his hope was gone. He stopped taking medicine (Prozac) and his reality start to seem even worse for him. He wanted to be accepted but was not anymore and felt he could not change it.
This is normal human feeling and desire to be needed and successful, to have capacity to love. Which he did not find at that moment: “It is easier to hate than love. Because there is much more hate and misery in the world than there is love and peace”. Those days were some kind of crisis fro Kip. He did not have the realization of his personal dignity. So his choice was to change it. Or probably put an end of his fears and thoughts of failure.
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