Family came to me for advice on younger cousin

As stated in the title, my Mom recently sought my opinion on a younger cousin of mine who is no stranger to acting out. His name will be held confidential but I will reveal his age- 15. This cousin has always gotten into minor trouble and recently has been moved to a school for juvenielle delinquints for bringing a "weapon" to school. ( toy gun )

After this incident, his mom decided to take a look through his room for some piece of mind I guess. When searching his room she discovered empty whiskey and beer bottles along with bottles of urine and women's clothing/lingere. Obviously this caught her off guard and she is unsure how to handle the situation.

When she questioned him as to why he had women's clothing hidden in his room he told her that wearing the clothes made him feel better about himself and happier.

My aunt also asked my other cousin, also a psychology major for his opinion on the incident. He believes that because his parents had recently gone through a bad divorce and his father was never home that my cousin would wear the lingerie to express his feelings and emotions he could not share with the father he needed.

While I respect his analaysis of the behavior, it screams Freudian. In my opinion, there's more to the issue then repressed emotion being expressed through this deviant outlet. I have my own opinions but before I express them I would like to hear some of yours.

So, speak up members, offer your opinions and we can bounce theories off of eachother, also I am unsure how to handle this case because it involves a family member. It will surely require me to hold my tongue at times but I really would like to see him get some help.

So far I told my Mom that I simply don't have enough info on him/his upbringing to make any real analysis of his behavior and that I would get back to her on it. However,I'm not sure how much information I am comfortable revealing to her because she doesn't know much about psychology and loves to gossip. I'm afraid delivering my opinion would see too final to her as she does not realize the difficulty associated with analyzing and making a diagnosis based upon a behavior, in my opinion my diagnosis would be so narrow and people are so complex.

Anyway that's my rant, fire back... let me hear some opinions!

Thank you,
Mike

Hi Mike,

I'm sure you have good intentions and are trying to help your cousin and the rest of your family here. But why are you trying to analyse his behaviour like this? Whilst understanding you are a psych major, I imagine it is very difficult to correctly analyse someone with these scraps of secondhand information. And I think most teenagers hate being analysed and judged by adults!

There are probably lots of different threads on this site from males who like to wear women's clothes, and each probably has their own story and reasons. Similarly there will be lots of people who like to drink alcohol and carry weapons. I doubt there is one single reason that could explain your cousin's behaviour.

If a 15 year old male says he feels better about himself when wearing women's clothes, I'd have every reason to believe him. Why else would he say that? If anything, it seems like an honest and insightful response to me.

So rather than trying to analyse him, I would encourage you to suggest he gets someone independent of the family (preferably a counsellor/therapist) to talk to. I think having someone available to listen could be of real benefit to him. And then the pressure is off you to analyse his behaviour.

P.S. I've never studied psychology, so you probably know a hell of a lot more than me. This is just my opinion as someone who would have been upset if a family member had written a post like this about me when I was his age. Remember he’s your cousin – not a school science project.

I find it ironic that his mother found alcohol, urine, and women's clothing and she is most concerned about the clothing! Personally, I'd be more concerned about the storage of urine and surreptitious drinking.

Anyway, it usually means just that he is a trans: transgendered, a transvestite, or has transvestophilia. Maybe you should post it in the Paraphilias forum, but I think she should look into the drinking.

I agree with another poster that no good can come of trying to diagnose a family member. Even a psychiatrist or therapist would need a great deal more information in order to make a diagnosis.

The urine bottle might just be because he was too lazy to walk down the hall to the bathroom. The only serious issue is the alcohol, not a terribly surprising thing for a teen. Hopefully, he is getting some counseling in the program that he's in. If not, I would encourage the parents to hire someone as soon as he comes home.