Psychopaths: A Journey Beyond The Portrait Made By Films

Psychopaths are known to the general public because they have been dark and recurring characters in film and literature. They have also been identified, unfortunately, as protagonists of real crimes who stand out for their coldness. But what is true in what is projected in fiction?

On the other hand, if it exists in our society, is there an intervention or treatment protocol? Is its effectiveness known? This and other questions are the ones that we will detail below from the scientific evidence, in the face of the fictional eagerness of television, cinema or literature.

What is meant by psychopath?

A psychopath is defined by the sum of a personality disorder and a socially deviant lifestyle, tending to ignore social norms to satisfy their own stimulation deficit. In other words, these people need “stronger emotions” than others to feel just as activated as we do. This, added to a deficit in the capacity for self-control and empathy, makes them time bombs about to explode, where other people are simple means to achieve their ends.

Psychopathy: diagnostic criteria

According to DSM 5, the manual with which psychologists diagnose, the criteria for recognizing psychopaths are:

A) Moderate or major maladjustment in personality functioning, manifested in specific difficulties in two or more of the following 4 areas:

• : egocentricity, self-esteem derived from personal gain, power or pleasure.

• Goal setting is based on personal gratification, absence of internalized prosocial criteria, associated with a failure to conform to ethical, legal or culturally normative behavior.
• : lack of concern for the feelings, needs or suffering of others, lack of remorse after hurting or treating others badly.
• : inability to establish reciprocal intimate relationships, such as exploitation as a primary means of relating to others, including falsehood and coercion, use of dominance or intimidation to control others.

B) 6 or more of the following pathological personality traits:

• Handling
• Cruelty
• Falsehood
• Hostility
• Risk
• Impulsiveness
• Irresponsibility

It is worth highlighting some qualitative changes with respect to the previous manuals, now giving it the name of “Antisocial personality disorder”. Thus, the subject’s personality is emphasized over other considerations . However, the most widespread scale in the police environment is that of Hare. In many cases, it is the starting point in legal and / or criminal proceedings, it is the following:

The first of these factors refers to interpersonal and affective characteristics, to the most emotional part. On the other hand, there is the factor of social deviation, which includes those elements related to problems of irresponsibility and impulsivity, with a deficit in the socialization of the individual; the most behavioral part.

Psychological Considerations in the Evaluation of a Psychopath

From these conceptions there are some clarifications that we must make to the concept of psychopath that is sold to us in the media and in the movies. A psychopath, as we have already said, is identified by the sum of an emotional or personality problem and a deficit in social skills or a behavioral deviation. Thus, a psychopath does not necessarily have to be a murderer. Various studies define the destinies of psychopaths based on their accessibility to crime.

What does this mean? That a psychopath “of good birth” will have received studies that allow him to use this manipulation in white collar crimes or hacking websites or computer equipment. Whereas, “a poor psychopath” will find it easier to commit a homicide than a big scam. Therefore, we must change our popular conceptualization of psychopathy and psychopaths as something more common and less grotesque than in the movies.

Now, why does a psychopath show these emotional and behavioral deviations? There is a thick branch of research that is guided by postulating that these people have “innate” lesions in the frontal lobe of their brains that trigger all these reactions. In addition, the environment has a fundamental role as it will act as a key to open that door or not. In other words, a “young psychopath” subjected to abuse has more votes to open that door than one who developed in a favorable environment.

Treatment of the psychopath

However, this is not always the case. Therefore, can we prevent it? Is there any type of treatment? What is being done in Spain in this regard? These and other questions are what we will answer below.

The main ways of prevention are aimed at controlling these people in psychiatric institutions, through drugs and therapy. This has a great underlying problem, psychopathy is not like other psychological traits or syndromes that are detected with the naked eye. In fact, many times it is identified when the psychopath has already committed one or more crimes. What to do then?

Dolan, in 1998, employed “therapeutic community therapy.” On the other hand, Tyrer in 1996, made use of the “treatment with brief cognitive therapy” inspired by Linehan’s dialectical therapy. All of them had positive results, but the studies to validate them ran into a drawback. We could not have a “control group” or group of untreated psychopaths, so that the researchers could contribute positive results to the intervention.

For his part, Garrido, the largest representative in this type of research in Spain. He considers that there is an evident lack of studies of this type in our country, which is worrying because this type of criminal is the most dangerous and recidivist. It emphasizes recognizing and treating those “axis I” psychopaths. That is, they have not yet violated the rules but they have that personality tending to psychopathy.

What is done in Spain?

The truth is that although, more and more, we have various preventive and restorative guidelines in this regard, we do little or nothing in Spain in this regard. With which, it should be noted, the importance of recognizing that prison punishment is useless in this type of offender  since the psychopath does not show any repentance or submission. That is, we should change the conceptualization and the forms, recognizing a qualitatively different prisoner, where our methods are not his.

Finally, for those of you who have been bitten by the bug, here is a case “Made in Spain”, “El asesino del Rol”. Finally this guy acknowledged feeling sorry … need to redeem himself or strategy? Judge yourselves: