Psychopathy And Sociopathy : A Personality Disorder

My sociopath that I choose to do my research on is Edmund Kemper III aka “ The Co-Ed Killer”. Edmund Kemper was born on December 18, 1948, in Burbank, California by Clarnell Stage and Edmund Kemper Jr .Kemper was a very intelligent person with an IQ of 136 but choose a darker side of life and became a psychopathic serial killer and necrophile who killed 10 people including his mother, and his grandparents. Edmund childhood wasn 't the greatest with his violent alcoholic parents who separated at the age of nine. Ed was then forced to live with his mother because his father wouldn 't accept him as his son. Kemper mother who suffered from Borderline Personality Disorder would constantly disrespect,humiliate, and

When most people hear the word psychopath their mind forms a picture of a wild-eyed, rambling, lunatic who is often restrained in a straitjacket. The media has helped this belief along the way with slasher horror films and grisly CSI episodes depict these strange humans. However, the average psychopath is much harder to spot than most people believe. In fact, most of them are extremely difficult to distinguish from ordinary humans. They outwardly appear normal and many do not find it difficult to blend into common society. They can interact with others, hold successful jobs, and effectively keep themselves out of trouble. Most are not the sadistic killers many people think they are. Psychopaths are people born with problems (Bartol 105) or

What is a sociopath? According to R. (2012) “There are people in the world who don't care about love, and who feel no remorse, empathy or emotional attachment to others. They don't even know what these feeling are. These people are called sociopaths.” (It Wasn"t a Relationship – It Was a Robbery!!, 2013) explains, “The sociopath makes a career living off others. They feed off your energy, your wealth, your social life, your friends and family, your body, everything, and if you have material possessions, they will take those too.” According to Andersen (n.d.) “[Sic] Sociopathy is not a mental illness; it is a personality disorder. The condition is highly genetic.” These days most people find their mate on an online dating sites. Most of

Definition of psychopath is someone who with a sociopathic personality; a person with an antisocial personality disorder.

Sociopaths are successful in leadership because they lack the trait of human compassion, instead they see others as objects which can become possessions that are discarded at will. Doesn’t sound very friendly does it? They have the ability to put others interests to the side so as to make a decision which one would normally struggle to make. I mean could you make the tough decisions that revolve around our highest

We have all heard the terms psychopath and sociopath, but how closely have we examined these words? Does the lay person even know what the true meaning of these words? Let us delve into the meaning of these words for a minute.

To the naked eye, a sociopath could not stand out from a crowd. While the sociopath is unable to fully understand the emotions of others, they are capable but rather highly adept at mimicking them and might appear to be charming and normal at first. Yet beneath the surface there is a lack of remorse of guilt.. Sociopaths are usually defined as people displaying antisocial behavior which is mainly characterized by lack of empathy towards others that is coupled with display of abnormal moral conduct and inability to conform with the norms of the society. People suffering from antisocial personality disorder are often referred to as sociopaths. Some of the other characteristics that sociopaths may display are stealing, lying, lack of remorse for others and towards living beings, irresponsible behavior, impulsive behavior, drug or alcohol abuse, problems with the law, violating

The first step in diagnosing someone as a sociopath is to create a standard of sociopathic behavior. Formally, sociopathy is referred to as Antisocial Personality Disorder or ASPD. The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders defines ASPD as “A mental health condition in which a person has a long-term pattern of manipulating, exploiting, or violating the rights of others"(Sociopathic Traits 1) and lists seven identifying traits. It is important to understand that ASPD is a condition of varying degrees. To be considered a sociopath, one does not have to display all seven traits. In fact, there is much debate about what level of sociopathic behavior deserves a diagnosis of ASPD. Possibly the most widely accepted scale is the Hare PCL-R, which ranks sociopathic tendencies. Even though Hare is the most commonly accepted standard, it is still somewhat disputed. The professional agreement, it seems, is that ASPD can vary in intensity. Therefore, even though he does not display the

Every day you walk down the street, and unknown to you, 3% of the people you pass suffer from some sort of sociopathy. According to Webster’s Dictionary, a sociopath can be defined as a person with a psychopathic personality whose behavior is antisocial, often criminal, and who lacks a sense of moral responsibility or social conscience. The majority of sociopathic behavior begins in adolescence, normally due to a traumatic event and manifests itself into adulthood.

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

Of all the psychiatric disorders, none are more chilling to the world then the psychopaths and sociopaths. These two disorders, categorized as antisocial personality disorders, bring about the absolute worse people and killers that the world has ever known. The infamous serial killers, the people who do the unimaginable, were all psychopaths. The ability of these people to do what they do and know that what they are doing is wrong, is perhaps one of the most chilling and shocking characteristic of these people. Psychopaths and sociopaths are very often thought by most to be the same disorder, yet they are different when classified by many psychiatric researchers. The people classified as psychopaths and sociopaths are separated by one main difference, and that is if they were born with a lack of the ability to empathize or if they were affected as children in a traumatic environment. Although both of these horrible disorders derive from a different area, the reality is that they are unpredictable, undetectable and most importantly, they can be very dangerous.

This author uses the definition provided by the Oxford Dictionaries Online for psychopath: a person suffering from a chronic mental condition with abnormal or violent social behavior. This author has chosen to use the criteria provided by Dr. Hervey M. Cleckley, an American psychiatrist and pioneer in the field of psychopathy. His book, The Mask of Sanity published in 1941, details his research into the realm of psychopathy, his assertion that psychopaths are capable of providing a charming and benevolent face to the world while hiding a mental disorder, and the criteria by which he (Hervey) determines the psychopathy. Cleckley’s book became a seminal work on the subject, and his criterion is still used today. Cleckley’s list includes: Superficial charm and good intelligence; Absence of delusions and other signs of irrational thinking; Absence of nervousness or psychoneurotic manifestations; Unreliability; Untruthfulness and insincerity; Lack of remorse and shame; Inadequately motivated antisocial behavior; Poor judgment and failure to learn by experience; Pathologic egocentricity

When you hear the words sociopath or psychopath you usually know right away that the person with that disorder is a killer and needs to be put away in jail. But have you ever wondered where that disorder comes from. Research shows that psychopath tends to be the result of genetics. Studies have shown that a psychopath usually has an underdeveloped brain that is responsible for impulse control and emotions. Sociopathy tends to come from a childhood trauma or some type of physical, emotional abuse, which is why sociopath is more of an environment disorder. When a sociopath commits a murder, it is usually a disorganized event or its rather spontaneous than planned. A sociopath can be really attached to a group or an individual which makes them dangerous because they have no regard for society or its rules. When it comes to the crimes of a psychopath they tend to be planned and they always have a contingency plan in place. Another major difference between a sociopath and a psychopath is that a psychopath is always cool and calm unlike a sociopath. This allows a psychopath to leave few clues when it comes to authorities investigating the crimes. When it comes to society psychopaths are more dangerous than sociopath. The reason for that is that psychopaths have no guilt when it comes to them committing their crimes. When committing a crime, they suffer no emotional repercussions and that allows them to continue with murdering people.

Sociopaths do share certain similarities with psychopaths, such as superficially charming, manipulative, and they are both pathological liars. But the there are still distinctively significant differences between the two. While psychopaths have control over their behaviors, sociopaths tend to be more erratic due to rage and anger. When it comes to emotions, sociopaths will manage with with whatever they have, however little there might be, causing people to think that they are disruptive. Psychopaths, on the other hand, tend to mimic emotions despite the fact that they don’t actually feel any, and thusly appear to be normal to other people.

Even children are diagnosed this young, as little as 5 weeks old. 20% of children are diagnosed of antisocial personality and a learning disabilities, like ADD. (“Antisocial Personality - Part 1” 4) Identical twins have a 50% better chance at being sociopathic than fraternal twins since of their genetic makeup being identical. Some professions you can find these guys, violent or nonviolent, are cult leaders, swindlers, corrupt businessmen, demagogic politicians, hitmen, armed robbers, and gangsters. (“Antisocial Personality - Part 1” 2) The term they tend to associate with sociopath is antisocial personality, rather than psychopathy as to personality disorder.