Silence Of The Lambs And Antisocial Personality Disorder Essay

Antisocial personality disorder is a very common mental disease around the U.S that can be treated, but not cured. In the play, The Crucible, by Arthur Miller, a young girl named Abigail Williams was a seventeen year old “Strikingly beautiful girl, an orphan, with and endless capacity for dissembling.” (Miller 1130). Throughout the play, Abigail’s personality has been very mean and unpleasant, which has made her full of nothing but worry, apprehension, and propriety (Miller 1130). Her personality change relates to a well-known disorder called Antisocial personality disorder, also known as APD. APD is a mental condition where a person’s “ways of thinking, perceiving situations, and relating to others are dysfunctional--and destructive”(Mayo Staff). Symptoms of this disorder are triggered during early childhood years and are “fully evident for most people during their 20’s and 30’s”(Mayo Staff). APD is a disorder that has symptoms that apply to Abigail because she often lies to people, she has had a hard life at home, and she intimidated people into doing what she wanted them to do.

Antisocial personality disorder is “a pervasive pattern of disregard for, and violation of, the rights of others that begins in childhood or early adolescence and continues into adulthood.” (National Institute of Mental Health, 2007). It is often characterized by blatant inattention to social norms and laws, pathological lying, putting others at risk for personal benefit, and an obvious lack of remorse (NIMH, 2007). One of the most notorious people with this disorder is Jeffrey Dahmer, a serial killer and necrophiliac whose sexual nature and gruesome offenses captured the nation’s attention (Talbott, n.d.). This paper will attempt to provide an overview of Dahmer’s life, as well as explain how both nature and nurture played roles in not only the production of a criminal, but also in the personality of all people.

     While there have been no outwardly successful treatments for Antisocial Personality Disorder, many of the disorders’ individuals never seek treatment alone, as they see no reason to conform to the rules of society with which they find no satisfaction. Instead, the individual will be prompted by his family or friends, or will be forced by a court system to seek treatment, and then will usually comply, and will consent to treatment. Much of the recent treatment for Antisocial Personality Disorder has been behavioral, and has not been based around biological or medicinal findings.

Antisocial personality disorder is a mental illness that is characterized by a lack of remorse and guilt they also . More specifically sociopaths are people that have a lack of conscience and sometimes characterized by violent behaviors. According to the DSM-5 5 people with antisocial personality disorder “may engage in behaviors which skirt the edges of the law, or manipulate and hurt others in non-criminal ways which are widely regarded as unethical, immoral, irresponsible, or in violation of social norms and expectations.” (dsm 5) Studies show that in the United States about .6% of the have an antisocial personality disorder. Many situations in this story lead to the conclusion that hamlet is a sociopath many of these situations involved violence and hamlet having a lack of empathy towards others.

Antisocial personality disorder (ASPD), opposition defiant disorder (ODD), and conduct disorder (CD) are three distinct disorders based upon their respective diagnostic criteria in the DSM-5. If ODD and CD were mild forms of ASPD, then there would need to be causal relationship between the childhood manifestations of ODD and CD and the adult manifestation of ASPD. There is evidence of comorbidity between ODD and CD, and also evidence to suggest that children diagnosed with these disorders may go on to develop ASPD later in life; however, correlation does not equal causation. The three disorders have subtle but important differences in their associated behaviors, underlying causes, treatment outcomes, and neurological signs.

Psychos Personality disorders are some of the most disturbing yet fascinating deviations from societal norms humanity has to offer. Ranging from the erratic schizophrenics to the commonly depressed, patients diagnosed with personality disorders typically do not align themselves with the commonly accepted behavioral trends of society. These altered behaviors tend to have negative consequences; for example, the unfortunate death of Hamlet in Shakespeare’s tragic play Hamlet, or Teddy Daniels’ eventual lobotomy in Dennis Lehane’s, Shutter Island. These disorders produce general dissension and create detachment for the patients from society and often produce frightening results. Bipolar disorder, a common personality disorder also known as

The second category, “People who Show Signs of Antisocial Personality Disorder” (Antisocial), included 15 men and 1 woman. Finally, the third and last category, seen as the control group, “People who are Normal” (Normal), included 15 men and 6 women. Of the 108 volunteers, Yang and Raine takes, only 49 of them as participants in the USC study. Specifically, Raine looks for inconsistencies in the participants’ stories. For example, Raine considers inconsistencies such as, occupation, education, crimes, and family

Undoubtedly, the first question asked by many upon the gruesome discovery of a murder victim is, “Who could commit such a heinous crime?” Newspaper journalists, broadcast reporters, and the public alike, have asked the question, “What kind of person is capable of taking another person’s life?” A person with Antisocial Personality Disorder (APD) is capable of just that and much more. Common careers of people diagnosed with Antisocial Personality Disorder include, sales, management, and business professionals, as well as con artists. This is not an exhaustive list of careers for the antisocial person, as it is common practice for an antisocial person to be a career criminal, and in the most severe cases a serial killer.

In Oscar Wilde’s novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray, the main character presents many behaviors which modern-day society recognizes as characteristics of mental illness. However, in 1890 when the novel first becomes available to the public, people do not have the extensive medical and psychological knowledge seen in the world today. Throughout the novel, Dorian Gray’s behavior exhibits many symptoms of Antisocial Personality Disorder, or ASPD. ASPD is a psychological disorder “in which a person consistently shows no regard for right and wrong and ignores the rights and feelings of others (Antisocial Personality Disorder, mayoclinic.org).” Today, psychologists classify people suffering from this mental disorder as either psychopaths or sociopaths,

Per a post made by Cindy Davis, FBI Expert and Profiler, John Douglas explained that the Buffalo Bill character was a composite of three real- life killers rolled into one. American serial killer and rapist Ted Bundy was one of the most notorious criminals of the late 20th century. He was also an inspiration for The Silence of the Lambs. In the 1970s, he raped and murdered young women in several states. Bundy, was connected to at least thirty-six murders, but some thought he had committed one hundred or more.

The same study shows a high prevalence of personality disorder but since a key element of the definition of personality disorder is aggressive or anti- social behavior it seems to add little to our understanding of the problem. In much of the literature the terms mental illness are used reflecting a medical model perspective which is problematic for explanations of offending behavior since the literature largely supports a social learning explanation (Farrington, 2005; Smith & Farrington, 2004; Mack et al., 2007). In order to take a stance on this the current author prefers to use the terms psychological distress.

Using a serial killer a cannibal with a doctorate, actually to help catch another serial killer is as bare bones as you can get with this Best Picture Oscar winner. It’s the scariest movie ever made built around psychology and deduction used as both crime-solving tools and murder weapons. Yes, blame this movie all you want for your friend's bad Hannibal Lecter impersonation that never seems to get better, but it gave us one of the screen's all-time iconic villains and Anthony Hopkins the role of his

There are several ideas and findings around trait theories, psychodynamic theories, cognitive theories of personality, mental disorders and offending and the connection that these theories have with a person’s antisocial behaviour. The most common theories were

Antisocial Personality Disorder (APD) is a crippling personality disorder that causes distress for those with the diagnosis, along with others surrounding them. Characterized by a chronic tendency to break laws, social norms, and violate rights of others extending across a variety of environments and carrying into adulthood from a prior history of Conduct Disorder, APD places those affected and others at a severe risk for loss of life, property, and health. There is a commonly documented portrayal of the destruction and chaos that such a disorder can cause in Stanley Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange (1987), As Alex, a young man displaying symptoms of the disorder carries out a lifestyle with complete disregard for others to great dismay. Although APD is a serious mental disorder with steep criteria, often involving violent actions, there are treatment options with varying degrees of success outcomes that may alleviate the individual distress and distress in others resulting from APD. The full diagnostic criteria for APD can be found in Appendix B. APD is a persistent and often pervasive disorder requiring two qualifications before it’s specific impairment qualifications: first and foremost, an impairment of personality functioning, along with the presence of pathological personality traits to meet the definition of a Personality Disorder (Appendix A). Second, the individual must be over 18 years of age, and often has a prior history of Conduct Disorder (although the requirements

Silence of the Lambs is viewed as one of the greatest horror-thriller films, as it has won Academy Awards in all the top five categories: Best Picture, Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Director, and Adapted Screenplay. Some of the people in our ART 105 class might not even want to see this movie due to its realism of such a dark and painful story, as well as some of the graphic material shown. This movie, however, is one of the best horror films of the century, in my humble opinion. I enjoy this movie thoroughly and often watch it in my spare time, so I have plenty of opinions on every aspect of this movie.