Antisocial Personality Disorder Essay

Antisocial personality disorder is a disregard for others rights and violating theses rights. This disorder starts as a child to people who carry this disorder portray the characteristics of irritability, aggressiveness, lack of remorse, and irresponsibility. A psychopath falls under the umbrella of antisocial personality disorders. A psychopath is a person with a personality disorders which is inherited from their parents at birth. Flashes of these inherited factors show and happen in the child upbringing this includes torture animals at a young age, playing weird dark games as a kid, or ripping heads of toys. A perfect example of a Psychopath is Edmund Kemper. A man who showed his psychopath tendencies at a young age that grew into to him becoming a serial killer.

Individuals with antisocial personality disorder frequently commit illegal acts like destroying property, stealing, and harassing others. They often employ manipulation and deceit to obtain profit or pleasure. The criterion of impulsivity is often seen in a lack of planning. In other words, these individuals live in the present, not thinking about the past or future. This is often seen in numerous and sudden job changes, homes, or significant others. They tend to repeatedly fight with others and commit physical assault. A reckless disregard for one’s safety and that of others is often shown by unsafe driving behavior like drunk driving, drug abuse, or high risk sex. Those diagnosed are irresponsible. For example, it is not uncommon to see erratic work history, large gaps in employment (even when employment was readily available), departing a job with no plan to get another, and repeated unexcused absences

The crucial characteristic of antisocial personality disorder is repeated lack of concern for and violation of the rights of others. Other core features of this disorder are manipulation and deceit. The antisocial person feels no remorse for hurting others. They may become irritable and aggressive. People with antisocial personality disorder lack responsibility and fail to plan ahead.

Antisocial personality disorders are immense, and psychopaths and sociopaths are just two of the various personality disorders. An antisocial personality disorders is defined as, “a type of chronic mental condition in which a person's ways of thinking, perceiving situations and relating to others are dysfunctional — and destructive.” (Mayo Clinic Staff). Sociopaths are a direct correlation to antisocial personality

Antisocial personality disorder is a disorder of the brain that cause one to disregard other people’s rights by violating them, they lack empathy and are very malicious towards others, they enjoy the suffering of individuals whether it be an animal or human being and it usually occurs during child/teen hood and worsens as the child ages. With this disorder comes a hatred toward society due to lack of knowledge of the real world “Many of the children grow up shy, lonely, highly sensitive, with feelings of being rejected, unloved and neglected by family and/or society”(Miller, 2014, p.13). Isolation at young ages causes children to not know how to interact with others in the real world they think that it is okay to violate personal space because they were never taught what that was. With the isolation and feelings of oddity in the child, they begin to manifest fantasies within their own mind (Miller, 2014, p.14). Many times the child starts out with violent sexual fantasies that they would like to act out but do not have an execution plan so they experiment on inanimate objects or even themselves or family members who will not tell such as younger siblings. This quickly escalates to the things they do to strangers in society starting with smaller steps such as stalking, peeping tom, or abduction. With such successes, they begin their reign of terror

This paper explores articles and information that describe, assess and offer theories and treatments regarding antisocial personality disorder.

Every few years there are disturbing, yet fascinating headlines: “BTK killer: Hiding in plain sight” or “Police discover at least 10 victims at Anthony Sowell's home”; but what would allow an individual to commit the crimes they did? In cases like these there is usually a common link: Antisocial Personality disorder. It is an unknown disorder to most of the population which is why there are so many questions to be answered, the main ones being what is antisocial personality disorder and how does it effect patient and society as a whole? To answer these questions one needs an accurate background picture of the disorder.

The respondent Hansen’s personal background does exhibits some symptoms found in the antisocial personality disorder. Antisocial Personality Disorder (APD) refers to the prevalent disregard and violation of oneself or others which can be predicted before the age 15 by conduct disorder. The DSM-IV TR Diagnostic Criteria for Antisocial Personality Disorder state that the individual must display three or more of following symptoms to be diagnosed with APD. These symptoms include unlawful behavior, deceitfulness, impulsivity, irritability or aggression, reckless disregard for safety of self and others, consistent irresponsibility, and lack of remorse for others. Respondent Hansen displays more than three symptoms of APD which are unlawful behavior,

Furthermore, psychopathy was considered during the twentieth century, the most widely used term to describe antisocial behavior (Reed, 1996). In the 1980s, the committee who devised the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual for the American Psychiatric Association recommended the term antisocial personality syndrome to be changed to antisocial personality disorder (Ellis & Walsh, 2000). Antisocial Personality Disorder Hare & McPherson (1984), were successful in pushing the idea that there is a significant correspondence between violent and persistent delinquent and criminal histories and antisocial personality disorder diagnosis. Acute persistent child conduct disorder behavior symptoms, also known as conduct disorder, have been directly linked to serious criminality and antisocial personality disorder (Ellis & Walsh, 2000). Although criminality and antisocial personality disorder ought not be equated, they should be seen as closely linked behavioral phenomena (Ellis & Walsh, 2000). Vitella (1996) believes that individuals with childhood conduct disorder have a higher than normal probability of being both criminal and diagnosed antisocial personality disorder in adolescence and adulthood, and persons with serious criminal records have a higher probability of being diagnosed psychopathic than those with little or no criminal history. Nevertheless, Ellis & Walsh (2000) in caution pointed out that these

Antisocial Personality Disorder is a personality disorder recognized within the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual. This disorder is

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.

According to research antisocial disorder causes violent acts in children of a young age. Review of literature indicates that antisocial personality disorder is a mental condition in which a person has a long-term pattern of manipulating, exploiting, or violating the rights of others. This behavior is often criminal (Berger, 2014). It has been said that people who have experiences a traumatic event in their life many develop antisocial personality disorder, which can also cause them to be very violent (Black, 2013). Researchers say they don’t know for sure what causes this disorder. Many state that how the person interacted in their early years around family and friends can be a major factor to this disorder (Gorhol, 2014). The environment they grew up in such as substance abuse, child abuse, or neglect has been said to be linked with antisocial personality disorder (Black, 2013).

Based on this perspective, it has also been theorized that some parents teach their children antisocial behavior unintentionally by rewarding bad or aggressive behavior. Parents who “spoil” their children or fail to discipline them when they display antisocial behavior such as aggression or violence set their children at higher risk of later developing antisocial personality disorder. (Kantor, 2006) Findings that the rate of antisocial personality disorder is higher in adults whose parents also had antisocial personality disorder provide evidence for the behavioral theory. (Comer, 2012) The cognitive perspective of psychology explains the development of antisocial personality disorder theorizing that people with antisocial personality disorder hold attitudes that trivialize the importance of other’s needs and emotions.

One theory is that the brains of sociopaths mature markedly slower than those of non-sociopaths. Another theory claims abnormalities in central nervous system development, such as the prefrontal cortex, could contribute to sociopathy. The prefrontal cortex is responsible for controlling, judgement, impulsiveness, aggressiveness, and decision-making, which are all related to sociopathic traits. There could also be a chemical imbalance in the brain, specifically a serotonin imbalance. Serotonin is known as the “happy brain” chemical, and brings about a positive sense of wellness in a person. Thus, changes in this balance could result in changes in personality. While not entirely a genetic disorder, family history of sociopathy could also be correlated to a diagnosis of antisocial personality

Farrington, D. P. (2005). Childhood origins of antisocial behavior. Clinical Psychology & Psychotherapy, 12(3), 177-190. doi:10.1002/cpp.448 This academic article “Childhood origins of Antisocial Behavior” by David P. Farrington gives the reader a general idea of what the entire essay is going to be about.