The Young and the Restless spoilers: Who is the real Alan, and is he behind Ashley’s mental health issues?

Like a few of The Young and the Restless fans, we’ve found ourselves being a bit suspicious of newcomer, Alan Laurent (Christopher Cousins).

He came to Genoa City as Ashley’s (Eileen Davidson) psychiatrist friend from Paris who she had been venting to offscreen about her failed marriage to Tucker (Trevor St. John). Although no one has ever heard of him in the decades she’s been a part of The Young and the Restless fold, Ashley and Alan have a strong bond, and he arrived to see her out of "concern."

Now Traci (Beth Maitland), Jack (Peter Bergman) and Tucker wasted no time bringing Alan up to speed on Ashley’s erratic behavior. The psychiatrist even got to meet her Belle and Ms. Abbott personas for himself, and he was quickly taken aback. Then in the episodes airing during the week of May 20, Alan pretty much shares his belief with Jack and Traci that Ashley is suffering from dissociative identity disorder. Although Billy (Jason Thompson) thought this was the case weeks ago, hearing it from Alan resonates differently with Ashley’s other two siblings.

Also in the episodes, Alan tries to determine what could have happened to cause Ashley’s mental health struggles. He’s under the firm belief that her different personalities arrived to protect her from processing some kind of trauma she experienced.

Alan is skeptical that the trauma stems from her breakup with Tucker. Considering Jack shares that Ashley spent some time alone in Paris right after ending things with Tucker and right before she returned to Genoa City, Alan deduces that whatever life-altering event happened to Ashley occurred during that time.

By the end of the episode airing on May 23, Alan suggests that Ashley return to Paris with him so they can properly treat her. Given she’s adamant she doesn’t want to check into a mental health facility in town, we think there’s a good chance she heads to France.

With all that being said, we can’t shake the feeling that there’s more than meets the eye with Alan. Again, we don’t know much about him and he seems a little too perfect at the moment.

Plus, when Ashley was in Paris, he was the alleged friend she was in contact with. If you’ll recall, when Ashley and Traci went to Paris to find out the true story behind her argument with Tucker at the cafe, after Ashley heard the truth, she ran off allegedly to get some "guidance" from her friend. Yet this friend obviously didn’t do much to help prevent her downward spiral.

What if Alan did something to Ashley in Paris that traumatized her that she currently can’t remember? Furthermore, what if he’s trying to lure her back to Paris to either make her completely forget what he did or he attempts to traumatize her further? All in all, could Ashley be in danger leaving with Alan?

We suspect that if our theory is correct, Tucker will wind up being her hero. At some point in the future, we imagine Tucker and Ashely reuniting romantically anyway, so what if his playing her hero finally lights the spark?

New episodes of The Young and the Restless air weekdays on CBS. Episodes become available to stream on Paramount Plus the next day.