psychopaths and their bad press

[doris]

Since becoming a ripperologist I have naturally become interested in psychopathy, as the word is so often bandied about.

Ill tell you what suprised me.

There is no compelling evidence that sexual killers tend to be psychopaths!
How suprising is that?

The only evidence that stated that Sexual killers tend to suffer from psychopathy was a single crappy piece of research that used the daft rorsach ink blots.

Look, here is a bit I filched from wikipedia for convienience-

"No evidence for propensity to sexually-oriented murder

No clinical definition of psychopathy indicates that psychopaths are especially prone to commit sexually-oriented murders, and scientific studies do not suggest that a large proportion of psychopaths have committed these crimes.[citation needed] Although some claim a large proportion of such offenders have been classified as psychopathic, this evidence comes from a single, unrepeated research study using the Rorschach Inkblot Test, an invalid test for psychopathy and for sex offenders,[35] references not considering psychopathy,[36] and studies concerning sexual homicide, a somewhat different population than the general class of sex offenders and not from meta-studies combining repeatable results."


I don't know about you, dear readears, but I always assumed that sexual killers, serial or otherwise were psychopaths.

Apparantly not.


doris

[corey123]

Doris,

Psychology would be a better word. Don't always trust what you read on wiki. Any and everybody can post on there. Not saying its wrong. Just double check the 'facts'.

[doris]

I do admit mate, That wikipedia is not be trusted without further reasearch.

However, I looked at the sources and found the evidence compelling.

doris

[corey123]

Doris,

Thats good. I myself would not say every serial killer is psychopathic. No not even close to all of them are.

[protohistorian]

Since becoming a ripperologist I have naturally become interested in psychopathy, as the word is so often bandied about.

Ill tell you what suprised me.

There is no compelling evidence that sexual killers tend to be psychopaths!
How suprising is that?

The only evidence that stated that Sexual killers tend to suffer from psychopathy was a single crappy piece of research that used the daft rorsach ink blots.

Look, here is a bit I filched from wikipedia for convienience-

"No evidence for propensity to sexually-oriented murder

No clinical definition of psychopathy indicates that psychopaths are especially prone to commit sexually-oriented murders, and scientific studies do not suggest that a large proportion of psychopaths have committed these crimes.[citation needed] Although some claim a large proportion of such offenders have been classified as psychopathic, this evidence comes from a single, unrepeated research study using the Rorschach Inkblot Test, an invalid test for psychopathy and for sex offenders,[35] references not considering psychopathy,[36] and studies concerning sexual homicide, a somewhat different population than the general class of sex offenders and not from meta-studies combining repeatable results."


I don't know about you, dear readears, but I always assumed that sexual killers, serial or otherwise were psychopaths.

Apparantly not.


doris

There are many disorders that can cause one to commit a sexually themed murder, psychopathy is just one in a fairly large list. The bad rap in general comes from the psychopath's inability to feel remorse or empathize, both of which are very negatively received in most societies, particularly western ones. Check out the thread "population totals" to get an idea of the major singular fatal psychopathologies and their numbers relative to the population of the East End in 1888. Dave

[Roy Corduroy]

The bad rap in general comes from the psychopath's inability to feel remorse or empathize, both of which are very negatively received in most societies, particularly western ones.

Murder is negatively received in say, China, where, after a trial, they take you out and shoot you.

Check out the thread "population totals" to get an idea of the major singular fatal psychopathologies and their numbers relative to the population of the East End in 1888.

I'd like to check it out, Dave, I remember you starting it, but to be quite honest, there are something like sixty (countem') sixty PAGES of threads under general discussion.

Roy

[protohistorian]

Hello Roy, you can use the search function in the header of every page. Hope this helps. Dave

[martin wilson]

Hi Doris
My understanding of a psycopath is that it is a psychiatric 'catch all' for people who behave in a socially aberrant way but who do not conform to the classic symptoms of a specific mental illness, as they say not all killers are psycopaths and not all psycopaths are killers.
I dont understand what the difference between a psycopath and a sociopath is, for my own purposes I class a psycopath as someone who gratifies their sexual urges and a sociopath as someone who gratifies their ego, very general I know and I guess there are plenty of crossovers, I always think that with a sociopath, they kind of 'leak' their disorder into their life, wheras a psycopath tends to present a completely different face to the world or as I understand it, the psycopath is the guy you DO get in the car with.
I think essentially the urge to kill is the dominant compulsion which manifests itself through one or the other of the bodies most dominant drives.
Robert Kesslers' 'Signature Killers' I found very useful, if its any help, and Corey has a world of info on this, personally I find it a real struggle trying to understand any of it, I cant even make up my mind whether Jack was a psycho or a socio!
All the best Martin

[corey123]

Martin,

Psych-Psychology- brain
Socio-social-personality

Personally I think he was a socio. Not psycho.

[corey123]

Doris, Martin, anyone,


Really the title 'sex murderer' is too damn vague. There are Lust Murderers, Sexual sadists, Rage murderers, and Rage rapists. Some also think that some forms of serial arson can be sexual in nature. truly anything can be ascribed a 'sex murder'.

From the crimes of Peter Kurten, "Jack the Ripper", "Jack the Stripper", Gilles de Rais, and John Duffy. They would all be classified as 'sex murders'. However, when set into distinctive catagories they lay out as this.

Lust murderer:
1)Jack the Ripper
2)Peter Sutcliff

Sexual sadist:
1)Peter Kurten
2)"Jack the Stripper"

Rage Rapists:
1)John Duffy.

Gilles de Rais would be under the title of pedifilia.

Yours truly

[DaveMc]

I wouldn't bother with the psychological terms.
It's more of a statistical study than it is a science.
What's the real difference between Psychopath and Sociopath anyway?

They just make up new words and phrases for "A-hole"

The killer suffered from "My mommy didn't put enough sugar in my tea" syndrome.

[corey123]

Dave,

The study of psychology is NOT a statistical study it is a scientific study. Based on how the brain works. Sociology is the study of social behavior, personalities. Two COMPLETELY different feilds.

The two differences are Schizephrenia and Borderline. They are the Psychotic episodes and school shootings. They are the serial killers and mass murderers.

[martin wilson]

Hi Dave
Yes but are they an A-hole type 1 or an A-hole type 2? thats what I want to know.
I agree with you on the labels though, what I know as psychopaths and sociopaths are now people with 'personality disorders' anti-social,narcissistic etc, whether this represents a genuine advance in diagnosis or if it's the same old diagnoses couched in trendy new language I'm simply not qualified to say.
What I do know is that psychological profiling has in some cases provided solid leads.There are also cases where it has been useless but because I'm a cynic I put that down to the incompetence of the profiler rather than dismiss the whole science,there must be some idiot psychologists who think they are Willam Peterson in 'Manhunter' confusing rather than helping the police.
All the best Martin

[FrankO]

There is no compelling evidence that sexual killers tend to be psychopaths!

Hi Doris,

It seems that you’ve transcribed the quote taken from Wikipedia into your remark above. If so, that transcription is not correct.

The Wikipedia quote just says something about the composition of the group of psychopaths as a whole: it isn’t especially prone to commit sexually oriented murders and only a small part of this whole group commits (this type of) murder. The quote doesn’t say anything about the composition of serial killers.

As to the latter, from all that I’ve read I believe that in fact most serial killers tend to be psychopaths (or whatever other term’s in use) or people with personality disorders rather than people suffering from mental diseases.

From the viewpoint that the latter are probably less inclined to care for the consequences of their deeds that’s quite understandable, because this makes them easier to apprehend than psychopaths or the like, who tend to act less impulsive.

Furthermore, murderers suffering from some mental disease tend to be caught before they can ever become an actual serial killer, although of course there are exceptions (like Richard Trenton Chase).

All the best,
Frank

[DirectorDave]

I think a large proportion of successful business people and sportsmen could be diagnosed with psychopathic tendencies.......the laypersons mental image of a psychopath is some kind of knife wielding maniac.....but in reality that is just not the case.

Psychopathy and intelligence in most cases create a successful, motivated, driven person.