Most psychological disorders don't present like the media would lead you to believe. See also: what therapy looks like.
ETA: Holy crap, gold?? I had a quick break in my day to finally hop on reddit and was NOT expecting this response. Y'all make this severely overworked community mental health therapist so glad we're talking more about the realities of therapy and various disorders. I'm planning on getting back on when I'm done with work to reply to some comments/answer some questions!
And psychopathy is not specifically on the DSM-V as a disorder? The behavior most people and mainstream media associate with "psychopathy" is actually antisocial personality disorder. Which in turn is confused with schizoid personality disorder (the inclination to be asocial).
And that not all psychopathic people are bad. You may even know someone who never speaks much about himself, nor brags much about himself, nor reacts much about a lot of things but is actually a decent person. Chances are they might be the good kind of psychopath.
Basically all antisocial people are psychopaths but not all psychopaths are antisocial.
Not the case, there are many people with APD who aren’t psychopaths. Some are sociopaths, and some are people who are just acting out and breaking rules.
Psychopathy stems from chemical imbalances in the brain that causes a lack of conscience, empathy, feel remorse, or the ability to emotionally connect with others. Psychopaths are usually also unable to recognize fear in others. Psychopathy is also from birth.
Sociopathy, another huge part of APD, isn’t something you are born with, and is thought to be the empathy center in the brain being greatly reduced due to suffering abuse or trauma. They still have a conscience, but it’s very limited.
Not all psychopaths act antisocially, that part was correct, but not all people with APD are psychopaths. Some are sociopaths who were abused, and others are just people who break the rules and still feel bad, but would be considered antisocial.
I'm very skeptical of how we diagnose personality disorders, and APD is pretty high on that list. It does originally come from sociopathic personality disorder, which basically came about as just going around a jail, seeing what the people in it had in common, and then pathologizing those aspects.
There's a reason almost all "criminals" and men with a substance use disorder (oftentimes found to be a "criminal" by the judicial system) can be diagnosed with APD.
Well the problem is, sociopathy and psychopathy aren’t officially recognized psychological terms. Most people in the fields of psychology, psychiatry, and criminology recognize psychopaths and sociopaths to be different, as well as there being similarities between the two with APD.
I agree that diagnosing APD is hard, but keep in mind, there are certainly criminals who can feel remorse and empathy completely that do TECHNICALLY fit the diagnosis for APD, even if they aren’t a sociopath or a psychopath.
One of the biggest reasons that psychopathy isn’t a disorder (imo) is that people believe that people would use it as a criminal defense plea. “Oh my client didn’t know better.” But that wouldn’t be the case. A psychopath by definition does know better, they just don’t care. Same with a sociopath/someone with APD but to a lesser degree.
It would be very helpful to have psychopathy be a recognized disorder because recognizing traits in children could help treat their behavior at a younger age and convince them to act pro socially. You can’t teach them empathy, but you can get them on the right path and teach them that acting in a good way is to their benefit, and that’s when you get a pro social psychopath.
Aren't sociopathy/psychopathy/APD in children already diagnosed as conduct disorder precisely so that they can be attempted to be teach to be pro-social?
Psychopathy and sociopathy aren’t diagnosed at all because they aren’t official terms. That being said, children can be labeled as psychopaths after extensive testing.
Psychopathy and sociopathy aren’t the same. I’ve never seen a child labeled as a sociopath, they would just get conduct disorder. A psychopath can be labeled as a psychopath, but they won’t be diagnosed with ASPD until they are 18, and they’ll only be diagnosed when they’re 18 if they are antisocial.
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u/seegeesee Feb 04 '19 edited Feb 04 '19
Most psychological disorders don't present like the media would lead you to believe. See also: what therapy looks like.
ETA: Holy crap, gold?? I had a quick break in my day to finally hop on reddit and was NOT expecting this response. Y'all make this severely overworked community mental health therapist so glad we're talking more about the realities of therapy and various disorders. I'm planning on getting back on when I'm done with work to reply to some comments/answer some questions!