Read Online Bad Men Do What Good Men Dream: A Forensic Psychiatrist Illuminates the Darker Side of Human Behavior by Robert I. Simon - Free Book Online
Authors: Robert I. Simon
Tags: General, Medical, Psychology, Philosophy, Psychopaths, Mentally ill offenders, Psychopathology, Mental Illness, Good and Evil, Psychiatry, Shadow (Psychoanalysis), Forensic Psychology, Acting Out (Psychology), Good and Evil - Psychological Aspects, Forensic Psychiatry, Child & Adolescent, Good & Evil, Personality Disorders, Antisocial Personality Disorders
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majority of individuals who take personality tests that measure one’s degree of psychopathy do not score zero. Psychiatrically healthy people score within a certain numerical range well above zero but do not rise to the level of a psychopathic personality. In other words, normally functioning people possess some antisocial traits.
Who has not had the wish to take something that belongs to another, or to take harmful advantage of someone for one’s own benefit? Good men and women have such impulses but curb them. Bad men and women act them out. The mayhem and personal suffering that psychopaths inflict on society is enormous. Then too, over the course of their lives, psychopaths demand a disproportionate amount of time and financial expenditure, particularly from health care professionals. When they are children, psychopaths are usually delinquent and difficult to manage. As they get older, their predatory behavior usually costs individuals and society both suffering and money. If they become criminal, the costs of incarcerating them are high. So, too, are the costs to society for caring for their deserted and traumatized families.
Not all criminals are psychopaths; in fact, many are not. And not all psychopaths are criminals; in fact, again, many are not. Psychopaths exist at all levels of society, in all walks of life. No profession, however noble, is spared its cadre of them. We know them, if we know them at all, by their acts.
Originally, the term psychopath was used in psychiatry to refer to all personality disorders. Later, as we came to understand the spectrum of personality disorders, the definition narrowed. In 1941, in his classic book The Mask of Sanity , Dr. Hervey Cleckley gave the psychopathic personality a clinical definition. He described the psychopath as having the traits of guiltlessness, superficial charm, egocentricity (extreme self-centeredness), incapacity for love, an absence of shame or remorse, a lack of psychological insight, and an inability to learn from past experience. Antisocial personality disorder , the current official term for psychopathy, was the first personality disorder to be officially recognized within psychiatry and to be included in the earliest version of the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders , known to all mental health practitioners as DSM.
DSM-II, published in 1968, changed the term psychopath to sociopath , and more clearly refined it:
This term is reserved for individuals who are basically unsocialized and whose behavior pattern brings them repeatedly into conflict with society. They are incapable of significant loyalty to individuals, groups or social values. They are grossly selfish, callous, irresponsible, impulsive and unable to feel guilt or to learn from experience and punishment. Frustration tolerance is low. They tend to blame others or offer plausible rationalizations for their behavior. A mere history of repeated legal or social offenses is not sufficient to justify this diagnosis.
The current version, published in 1994 with text revisions in 2000 (DSM-IV-TR), emphasizes antisocial behavior, more than personality traits and their motivation, in the definition of antisocial personality disorder. The diagnostic criteria for the antisocial personality rely heavily on the research of Dr. Eli Robbins, work that has demonstrated that this disorder is stable and continuous, lasting from childhood through adulthood. This latest version of DSM stresses predisposing childhood factors, such as attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder and conduct disorder. It also emphasizes criminal behavior over the essential narcissistic features of the disorder. Although the latest DSM also lumps together all delinquents, it does give consideration to the social, economic, and cultural determinants of their delinquency.
Laypersons and some professionals use the term psychopath to pejoratively label people who engage in
Who has not had the wish to take something that belongs to another, or to take harmful advantage of someone for one’s own benefit? Good men and women have such impulses but curb them. Bad men and women act them out. The mayhem and personal suffering that psychopaths inflict on society is enormous. Then too, over the course of their lives, psychopaths demand a disproportionate amount of time and financial expenditure, particularly from health care professionals. When they are children, psychopaths are usually delinquent and difficult to manage. As they get older, their predatory behavior usually costs individuals and society both suffering and money. If they become criminal, the costs of incarcerating them are high. So, too, are the costs to society for caring for their deserted and traumatized families.
Not all criminals are psychopaths; in fact, many are not. And not all psychopaths are criminals; in fact, again, many are not. Psychopaths exist at all levels of society, in all walks of life. No profession, however noble, is spared its cadre of them. We know them, if we know them at all, by their acts.
Originally, the term psychopath was used in psychiatry to refer to all personality disorders. Later, as we came to understand the spectrum of personality disorders, the definition narrowed. In 1941, in his classic book The Mask of Sanity , Dr. Hervey Cleckley gave the psychopathic personality a clinical definition. He described the psychopath as having the traits of guiltlessness, superficial charm, egocentricity (extreme self-centeredness), incapacity for love, an absence of shame or remorse, a lack of psychological insight, and an inability to learn from past experience. Antisocial personality disorder , the current official term for psychopathy, was the first personality disorder to be officially recognized within psychiatry and to be included in the earliest version of the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders , known to all mental health practitioners as DSM.
DSM-II, published in 1968, changed the term psychopath to sociopath , and more clearly refined it:
This term is reserved for individuals who are basically unsocialized and whose behavior pattern brings them repeatedly into conflict with society. They are incapable of significant loyalty to individuals, groups or social values. They are grossly selfish, callous, irresponsible, impulsive and unable to feel guilt or to learn from experience and punishment. Frustration tolerance is low. They tend to blame others or offer plausible rationalizations for their behavior. A mere history of repeated legal or social offenses is not sufficient to justify this diagnosis.
The current version, published in 1994 with text revisions in 2000 (DSM-IV-TR), emphasizes antisocial behavior, more than personality traits and their motivation, in the definition of antisocial personality disorder. The diagnostic criteria for the antisocial personality rely heavily on the research of Dr. Eli Robbins, work that has demonstrated that this disorder is stable and continuous, lasting from childhood through adulthood. This latest version of DSM stresses predisposing childhood factors, such as attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder and conduct disorder. It also emphasizes criminal behavior over the essential narcissistic features of the disorder. Although the latest DSM also lumps together all delinquents, it does give consideration to the social, economic, and cultural determinants of their delinquency.
Laypersons and some professionals use the term psychopath to pejoratively label people who engage in
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