A psychopath is a clinically perverse individual who has psychopathic personality, with severe mental disorders.
A psychopath is a person who suffers from a psychic disorder, a psychopathy that affects their form of social interaction, often behaving erratically and antisocially. In the broadest sense, a psychopathy is an illness caused by an organic abnormality in the brain. In a restricted sense, it is synonymous with psychosis (mental illness of neurological or psychological origin).
Generally, psychopaths are male, but it also affects women, to varying degrees, although with different and less specific characteristics than the psychopathy that affects men. The psychopath's illness is called synonymous with the diagnosis of antisocial personality disorder.
Some individuals with milder psychopathy do not usually have a traumatic history, but the disorder - especially in more severe cases, such as sadistic and serial killers - seems to be associated with a mixture of three main factors: brain/biological disorders or neurological traumas, genetic predisposition and childhood trauma such as emotional, sexual, physical abuse, neglect, violence, conflicts, separation from parents etc.
In general, in men, the disorder tends to be more evident before the age of 15, and in women it can go unnoticed for a long time, mainly because women tend to be more discreet and less impulsive than men, and the disorder usually follows both sexes throughout the life.
as some psychopaths are serial killers, there is the common mistake of assuming that all psychopaths are violent people or murderers. However, many psychopaths are not murderers. Psychopaths often pretend to have genuine feelings toward other people.
Taking into account some of the characteristics of psychopaths, such as the ability to manipulate and easily gain people's sympathy, often occupy relevant positions where they exercise power.
Despite being a difficult condition to treat, psychotherapy or medication prescription can improve a psychopath's clinical condition.
Psychopaths are often confused with sociopaths. Psychopaths are born with characteristics such as impulsiveness and lack of fear, which makes them seek risky behaviors and danger, often ending up in antisocial attitudes, since they are unable to correctly establish themselves in the norms social. The sociopath, on the other hand, has a temperament that is a little more "normal" than psychopaths.
Characteristics of a psychopath
A psychopath is characterized by a character deviation, absence of feelings, coldness, insensitivity to the feelings of others, manipulation, narcissism, self-centeredness, lack of remorse and guilt for cruel acts and inflexibility with punishments and punishments.
See too:
- Differences between sociopath and psychopath
- Definition of Sociopath