Forensic Psychology For Dummies (95 page)

The nearby sidebar ‘Some personality disorders as listed in DSM’ contains a few labels given to different types of personality disorders in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM) of the American Psychiatric Association (which I describe in more detail in Chapter 9).

The type of personality disorder particularly relevant to criminality, and which has found its way into popular discourse and court use, is
psychopathic disorder
or
psychopathy.
People with this label are lucid and coherent with no signs of any learning disability or psychotic symptoms. Some of them can be superficially charming and are intelligent enough to be very plausible on first acquaintance. They don’t hear voices or think that they’re commanded by forces beyond their power. Yet over and over again, they abuse people, lie without any compunction or remorse, can be unpredictably violent and seem unable to relate effectively to others over any extended period.

Labels such as psychopath, psychopathy and antisocial personality disorder aren’t medical diagnoses that can be linked to a bacterium or even a very specific brain disorder – they’re summary descriptions of the person in question. Some experts have even commented that these labels are moral judgements masquerading as medical explanations. The labels ‘personality disorder’ and ‘psychopath’ are useful as condensed descriptions of some rather difficult, and often nasty, people.

Getting to grips with psychopathy

Instead of requiring the offender to fill in a questionnaire, psychologists use checklists when assessing a person’s level of
psychopathy
for the reason that a psychopath can be expected to lie. In addition, the person is interviewed and his associates also questioned, so that a number of pointers can be indicated on the special checklist in section ‘The psychopathy checklist’ later in this chapter. The scores the person gets are then used to decide whether an individual is a psychopath or not.

Various forms of criminality often reflect an aspect of psychopathic individuals’ lifestyles. If they commit crimes they understand what they’re doing and that it’s illegal. But these same aspects of their personality have been cited in court to claim that, although not mentally ill, they are mentally disturbed and that this should be taken into account during any legal proceedings.

The term
psychopath
itself is hotly debated. It is not part of any formal list of medical diagnoses. The DSM that I discuss in Chapter 9 prefers the term
anti-social personality disorder.
In the US some people prefer to talk about
sociopaths.
But it’s such a useful way of summarising particular bundles of characteristics that clinicians still like to use it, drawing on the psychopathy checklist that you can jump to later in the chapter.

The term
psychopathic disorder
isn’t a medical diagnosis, but a legal term under English and Welsh law that refers to a ‘persistent disorder or disability of the mind’, not that far removed from the McNaughton rule that first emerged over 150 years ago and which I discuss in Chapter 1. Thus, some debate exists as to which of the psychiatric diagnoses of personality disorder listed in the earlier sidebar ‘Some personality disorders as listed in DSM’ are closest to the legal definition of psychopathic disorder, and whether any of them relates to the popular conception of a psychopath.