The teenager who killed four people in a drunk-driving incident escaped jail for a second time and was sent to a rehabilitation center. His defense used the ‘affluenza’ strategy, insisting his privileged upbringing made the teen reckless.
‘Affluenza’, commonly viewed as selfish, immature behavior caused by a consumerist upbringing, is not recognized by the American Psychiatric Association as an official illness or diagnosis. The term – a portmanteau of ‘affluence’ and’ influenza’ – was coined in the 1970s and once again garnered attention in the mid-noughties, with psychologist Oliver James releasing a book on the subject.
At the first hearings held in December, sixteen-year-old Ethan Couch’s defense called in a psychologist as a witness. The psychologist testified that Couch’s parents used him as a weapon against each other and that the teen’s emotional age was close to 12.
“He never learned that sometimes you don’t get your way,” psychologist Gary Miller claimed at that stage. “He had the cars and he had the money. He had freedoms that no young man would be able to handle.”
Crazy light sentence for Norman man who molested autistic boy
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Originally Posted by BBatesokc
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