psychopaths and their bad press

[FrankO]

Couldn't agree more with you there, Dave.

[claire]

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.

Hi Corey,
To be fair, psychology uses statistical studies to validate hypotheses, or the efficacy of diagnostic tools, of which the test for psychopathy is one. Statistical tests, really, give a legitimacy to psychology that psychologists themselves rely upon when making diagnoses.

Further, I can't agree that sociology and psychology are completely different fields (the phrase social psychology might give you an inkling of the possible crossovers). At the very least, the two fields are able to offer insights into each other that mightn't be possible taking a 'pure' approach (and the scare quotes are because I don't think any discipline is untainted by the insights and criticisms of another).

You cite schizophrenia and borderline (presumably you are referring in the latter to borderline personality disorder; in the former, I am not sure if you are referring to the full spectrum of schizophrenic disorders). There is little evidence in the studies to demonstrate that sufferers from schizophrenic disorders commit significantly (ie. statistically significant) more violent offences than the general population. To clarify further, psychotic episodes can be a feature of schizophrenic disorders (although are not [last time I checked] a diagnostic feature of BPD), but can also be (diagnostic) features of other disorders (bipolar I; PTSD, for example) and afflictions (drug and alcohol withdrawal, eg.). Since 'school shootings' isn't listed in the DSM, I am presuming you imply that these incidents arise as a result of psychotic episodes--on what basis, I wonder?

Lastly, for the most part (and in common medical usage in the UK and New Zealand--my two regions of experience), sociopathy and psychopathy are coterminous in meaning.

Just a few clarifications; hope you don't mind.

[corey123]

Claire,

Of coarse not. Thank you for clearifying. LIke I said, Boarderline is more of a personality disorder and yes, I was citing the whole spectum of Schizephrenic disorders. f
I, personally consider sociology and psychology to be two different fields, but fields can overlap.

Thanks

[David Monaghan]

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


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

Apparantly not.


doris

Doris,

an intriguing thought about psychopathy. I hadn't considered a serial killer who is not a psychopath. One who is the opposite, empathetic, would be pretty unusual. Nevertheles, modern criminologists shower killers with an alphabet soup of "ologies". IN 1888 press, police and "alienists" settled on the term "monomaniac" for the Whitechapel murderer. This idea was the killer had a paranoic obsession, usually taken as a hatred, of women.
The most far reaching work on the type of murderer the ripper likely was had come out two years before, in Krafft-Ebing. His views stand up surprisingly well, and were possibly the first to study common traits in sex killers, based on a methodology of interviews, or compilation of case notes.

Ebing noted the link between blood fetish, sex and murder. He described
the fantasies that drove the killer, ‘Case 25 Mr X’: ‘Imagining representations
of blood and scenes of blood . . . Without the assistance of this idea,
no erection was possible. Death followed imagining ‘Injury to Women’
(Stabbing, Flagellation etc.) Following lust-murder and violation of
corpses, come cases closely allied to the former, in which injury of the
victim of lust and sight of the victim’s blood are a delight and pleasure.’
Krafft-Ebing Dr R. von. Pyschopathia Sexualis (Stuttgart, Ferdinand
Enke 1886: p. 72).

Ebing included the unnamed Ripper in the same category of "lust-murderer" as a much later edition of his work.
But what is often over-looked is the finer points of the term "lustmord". Krafft Ebing made the observation that the murder did not take place after the sex act, the murder itself was a sex act. The chilling effect of the Whitechapel crimes was in part the newness of this notion. The victims had clearly been neither been raped nor robbed. The crimes seemed motiveless and random. Murder as sex was a startlingly new concept. However, Krafft Ebing made a more specific observation relevant to the Ripper crimes. One that the Meteropolitan police were emasculated from exploring. Krafftt Ebing's studies linked this type of killing to "defloration mania", the fad for breaking in virgins rampant at the time. The Metropolitan police had invested efforts in jailing Pall Mall Gazette editor WT Stead and his whistle blowing madam of Hanbury Street, Rebecca Jarrett, for exposing the virgin trade to defloration maniacs in Whitechapel and elsewhere. Krafft Ebing's studies said murder where abdominal mutilations occured and where body parts were carried off, were the work of a man afflicted with defloration mania. The Littlechild shows that by 1913, Krafft Ebing's thinking had influenced at least some police thinking of who the Ripper was.

Regards

David Monaghan
Author
Jack the Ripper's Secret Confession

[corey123]

Hi Dave,


Congradulations on your book. . Also, I have always wanted to read Pyschopathia Sexualis . I have only been able to get my hands on current literature pertaining the the unnormal psychology of serial killers and would want to know, is there any copies of this availiable?

Yours truly

[GregBaron]

Psycho Killer qu'est qu'est c'est....

Interesting stuff all........in the states the present term used is antisocial
personality...........this followed sociopath which followed pyschopath..
they all mean the same thing...recently a new publication of mental disorders
was published.. I forget what its called but they may have changed again...
who knows?

The characteristics of these people are pretty consistent.....narcissism,lack of emphathy, no moral code, no remorse....often intelligent and good at posing as real people.....hence the difficulty in detection....these people are
everywhere....Wall Street.....I imagine there are many...CEO's.....lawyers...
every walk of society...One might argue that it's a nice affliction to achieve
success as normal restrictions don't apply.....anyway, some that happened to be paired with a sadistic sexual urge might turn out to be serial killers..
a la Ted Bundy......I feel sure JTR was this type...from my understanding
this "disease" is incurable and some studies are beginning to point to physical
brain abnormalities........nuff said for now..

Greg

[Versa]

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

I think what this means is that people with psycopathic disorders are not especially prone to commit sexually-oriented murders

It does not mean that people who commit serial violent offences do not suffer from psychopathy....

[Marc]

Krafft Ebing's studies said murder where abdominal mutilations occured and where body parts were carried off, were the work of a man afflicted with defloration mania

David,

I find this mention very interesting since a recent case in France concerned a man seemingly obsessed with defloration who killed several young females he had captured with his GF help.
I didn't followed this case very closely, but your comment leads me to look back at the circumstances which surrounded his killings.
One of his nearly victim saved her life by telling she was pregnant.

[Zodiac]

Psychotic Vs Psychopath.

Hi one and all,

On a purely personal level what really winds me up is that most people don't seem to have even the first clue that there is a HUGH amount difference between someone who is a "Psychotic" i.e. someone who suffers from a psychotic mental illness and a "Psychopath", the major characteristics of which have already been described by other posts on this thread.

I think one of the problems is that the terms "Psychotic" and "Psychopath" both end up being shortened to the common usage term "Psycho". This is why I and many others prefer to use the term "Sociopath" rather than "Psychopath". Although I can see how this could of course lead to a confusion amongst the general public, should the words "Sociopath" and "Sociologist" ever become become shortened in common usage to the term "Socio"!!! Oh if only!!!

All the best,

Zodiac.

[Versa]

Hi one and all,

On a purely personal level what really winds me up is that most people don't seem to have even the first clue that there is a HUGH amount difference between someone who is a "Psychotic" i.e. someone who suffers from a psychotic mental illness and a "Psychopath", the major characteristics of which have already been described by other posts on this thread.

I think one of the problems is that the terms "Psychotic" and "Psychopath" both end up being shortened to the common usage term "Psycho". This is why I and many others prefer to use the term "Sociopath" rather than "Psychopath". Although I can see how this could of course lead to a confusion amongst the general public, should the words "Sociopath" and "Sociologist" ever become become shortened in common usage to the term "Socio"!!! Oh if only!!!

All the best,

Zodiac.

Yes Psychotic and Psychopathic are two different disorders and it does cause confussion to the layman. Where psychosis is relatively common psychopath, sociopathic or antisocial personality is much much rarer.