What is a Psychopath? (Part 2 of 2)

Is psychopath just another word for serial killer? Are all psychopaths like Hannibal Lecter? Can childhood abuse create a psychopath?

In this video, I'll be addressing the 7 Most Common Myths About Psychopathy. All content is based on both old and current research.

If you have any questions, feel free to send me a private message. If I receive enough people asking the same question, I will answer it as a Viewer Question.

Thanks for watching!

Category:

Education

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• psychopathy
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• psychology
• psychopathology

[Combavski]

Hi barcode, thanks for the video. when i was doing my nursing practice in a psychiatric ward one of the psychiatrists put it quite well (albeit referring to a patient w histrionic personality disorder): all the personality disorders are not disorders but actually personality "styles", so how can you treat a personality? it corresponds well to what u were saying re treatment of children being the most effective, presumably before the personality has been thoroughly "set".

[barcode9588]

@Combavski - That's a good point. I'm headed into personality research, and I would certainly agree that personality disorders (as per the DSM-IV currently) are quite contentious for that reason. What makes a personality "disordered"? The current definition is that it is maladaptive and pervasive, but even that's controversial. Often, "maladaptive" can be little more than a product of societal norms and statistical artefacts.

[bloodmoon0011]

Do you know of any place online where I could get a good, reliable checklist for psychopathy scaling? I sometimes think I'm too... Well, I just don't care about a lot of things most of the time. Not really apathy, I just really don't care about most people and I'm wondering how I would score on a test for it.

[barcode9588]

@bloodmoon0011 - Do not look for the PCL-R, because it is not a measure you should be scoring yourself. You need training to be able to administer the PCL-R. Also, apathy is characteristic of a lot of other conditions. Major Depressive Disorder would be the main one I could think of.

[Combavski]

@barcode9588 Good luck with your research, I bet it will be really exciting! I'm interested in psychology & psychiatry in general but also I recently got out of a 9 year long relationship. Analysing the situation after the fact I can only describe him as a (non-violent thank god!) sociopath. It's scary to think that I, who consider myself fairly intelligent, let myself be suckered like that for so long. I'd like to think that if it weren't for the kids I would have got out a lot sooner...

[metalkevkdog]

i bet im a psychopath......I lie for fun

[ryanbeev]

"murder isnt wrong its illegal" haha i laughed so hard @ that

[barcode9588]

@dreaminginnoother - Nicely worded! Couldn't have said it better myself. And @jimmshitbags, a correlation may also indicates that we simply don't know enough yet about what exactly causes psychopathy. It may be several factors, one of which could be childhood abuse interacting with temperament and life experiences. Or it could just be a gigantic coincidence that psychopathy and childhood abuse often occur together, with neither influencing the other. Remember...correlation != causation.

[dreaminginnoother]

@jimmyshitbags I think the point of saying it is just a correlation is because not all abused children grow up to be psychopaths and not all psychopaths are abused as children. Surely, child abuse seems to be a trigger for the expression of psycopathy, but it does not entail it nor does psychopathy require abuse.

[NeloAngelo502]

lets date.