The True Definition of Psychopath

The American Psychiatric Association estimates that psychopaths account for 3% of the male population. That translates to over 4 million psychopaths in the United States today. The psychopaths most people are familiar with are serial killers such as Ted Bundy, Gary Ridgway (the Green River killer), and Dennis Rader (the BTK killer) are the psychopaths that most of us are familiar with. That picture, however, needs further definition.

The field of psychology lists the symptoms for various disorders in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual for Mental Disorders (DSM-IV). That manual includes personality disorders as a category separate from mental illnesses, and the psychopath is considered a personality disorder. This disorder is defined as "a persistent pattern of thoughts, feelings, and behaviors that is significantly different from what is considered normal within the person's own culture." This definition shows that a psychopath from one culture may act and think in a way very different from one of another culture, and neither is always a killer.

This broad definition doesn't really fit with the characterization most commonly attached to psychopaths. Most people think psychopaths have no emotion. An example from contemporary pop culture is the character from Dexter, the television show starring a serial killer who admits his lack of emotion to the audience, explaining how he mimics what he sees around him in order to fit in. In fact, psychopaths might suffer from an abundance of emotion, particularly anger. Psychopaths are usually aggressive, impulsive and paranoid, traits that certainly can manifest themselves in uncontrollable anger that may create a killer. By definition, what psychopaths can't feel is remorse. They tend to blame others for their own mistakes because they simply don't care about other people's rights.

Psychopaths might be born, but no true biological cause has been established. Instead, it appears the psychopaths are made. Their backgrounds usually include an abusive childhood, for example.

While there is no cure for psychopaths, there is therapy. Counseling may be helpful for those who are diagnosed when they are very young, but older subjects are typically too resistant to such treatment. Instead, medications like antidepressants and mood stabilizers may be used to help psychopaths control their anger and tone down the paranoia. Although these medications may alleviate some of the symptoms, none offer a cure for psychopaths.

What makes psychopaths so frightening should not be the serial killer image portrayed so often in the media but the lack of research and understanding of the disorder. Finding a direct cause will help scientists discover more effective treatment or perhaps a cure for psychopaths. The public's clear understanding of the definition of a psychopath is the first step toward these changes.

References

"Antisocial Personality Disorder." Medicinenet.com.

"Antisocial Personality Disorder." Wikipedia.org.

Jennifer Copley. "Causes of Psychopathy." Personalitydisorders.suite101.com.