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Antisocial Personality Disorder: A Sociopath's Brain Essay example

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A good looking man in an expensive suite walks past a woman on the subway whistling a catchy tune. Many thoughts begin to run through her head, “He’s an important business man on his way to his next meeting.” Or “He’s a father on the way home from work.” As he stops she watches him read a news paper thinking how attractive and self composed he is. In the back of her head she’s wishing that he would speak to her. As she sits and hopes it seems that her wish is going to be answered. The young, attractive gentleman gets up and strides over taking the seat next to her. He introduces himself as Mr. Cromer and engages her in a charming conversation, sweeping her off her feet. In her head everything is going great, she has met the perfect man, …show more content…

This paper explores articles and information that describe, assess and offer theories and treatments regarding antisocial personality disorder. The concept of psychopathy originated in the 1800s to describe individuals that consistently failed to conform to societal norms and exhibited antisocial behavior that did not fit the concept of mental illness of the time period. While, psychopathy was a common term used to describe individuals suffering from this disorder other descriptions were coined such as “Pinel’s term “manie sans delvie” meaning mania without delirium in the 1700s, to describe patents whose ‘affective faculties were disordered’” or Pritchard’s term “moral insanity” (Ogloff 520). In the 1930’s Partridge argued that psychopathy was a social rather than a mental disorder and proposed that the concept of sociopathy be introduced as a more accurate description. The American Psychological Association adopted Partridge’s term for their Diagnostic and Statistical Manuel in 1952. However, in 1968 the American Psychological Association changed the diagnostic label from sociopath to “personality disorder, antisocial” for the Diagnostic and Statistical Manuel – II that continued through to the DSM - III in 1980 and the DSM - III-R in 1987 and the DSM - IV in 1994. Today the Diagnostic and Statistical Manuel categorizes antisocial personality disorder as a personality disorder and it is named as such. Unfortunately, not much research has been conducted

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