Forums
New posts
Search forums
What's new
New posts
New profile posts
Latest activity
Internet Search
Members
Current visitors
New profile posts
Search profile posts
Log in
Register
What's new
Search
Search
Search titles only
By:
New posts
Search forums
Menu
Log in
Register
Install the app
Install
Forums
Parent Support Forums
General Parenting
Diff between AS and antisocial personality disorder?
JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding.
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an
alternative browser
.
Reply to thread
Message
<blockquote data-quote="mrsammler" data-source="post: 426921"><p>I too find the topic of ASPD pretty fascinating. I gave it scarcely a thought until a year ago, when trying to understand my nephew difficult child drove me to read Hervey Cleckley's The Mask of Sanity and, even though the book is very dated (published in '41) and some of his diagnostic indicators have since been disproven or at least heavily qualified. (The notion that all ASPDs are charming and glib, for instance; several noted ASPD experts have observed that they "never met an ASPD sufferer that they didn't find very unlikable.") Still, Cleckley's multiple profiles of psychopaths, and the general profile that he drew from them, read like a veritable portrait of my nephew. And all of the diagnostic indicators clicked completely into place without any guesswork or ambiguity. Further reading in Robert Hare's work heavily confirmed my surmisal. I know that only an experienced clinician can make reliable diagnoses of this kind, but when *every* diagnostic indicator is a spot-on "direct hit," you can reasonably begin to wonder if you're not arriving at a decent facsimile, however amateur, of a solid diagnosis.</p><p></p><p>Still, I won't play diagnostic expert here (except to note that I've done a TON of reading and study on the topic in the last year). I will note, however, that some posts seem to suggest that a difficult child knowing right from wrong indicates that a diagnosis of ASPD is not merited, and this is incorrect: ASPDs know right from wrong--they typically know it every bit as certainly as we "typicals" do--but simply don't care. At all. Also, not all ASPDs are violent, although many are. Nor is a difficult child cheerily submitting to being handcuffed, and affably greeting cops on the street whom he's met via being arrested, counter-indicative of ASPD. Quite the contrary, in fact: it presents like classic shamelessness and incapacity to learn from experience, in that the difficult child seems to show no natural shame or embarrassment in a circumstance when a "typical" would practically shrivel in mortification and distress.</p><p></p><p>I agree that you can't diagnosis ASPD before age 18 because some typical teen behaviors present similarly to *some* ASPD behaviors, but I've also heard a very experienced and well-regarded adolescent psychologist say, off the cuff at a private social conversation, that "CD is just what we call ASPD before the age of 18--they are behaviorally the same thing." Spoken in casual social circumstance, not the office, but he obviously felt it was true and asserted that many other adolescent psychologists felt the same way, however tacitly--one of those uncomfortable truths best not spoken too loud or in mixed company, lest it offend those parents for whom the topic of CD is a very raw nerve.</p><p></p><p>Another diagnostic red herring among amateurs is the insistence that the MacDonald Triad behaviors--fire-starting, animal torture or killing, and bed-wetting, all in childhood years--be observed or recorded as a part of a diagnosis of ASPD. Not so: the MacDonald Triad behaviors are typical only in the most violently extreme ASPDs who are very likely to commit crimes of violence in adulthood, which is a fairly small subset of all ASPDs.</p><p></p><p>Even the essential "shorthand" definition of ASPD has been formulated differently in different studies by different experts--i.e., it's not always encapsulated merely as "persons without conscience," although that is certainly a very central indicator. A very well researched New Yorker article in '98 borrowed this shorthand definition from a noted ASPD researcher: "the condition of moral emptiness." That too seems very centrally definitive to me from what I've observed of (what I'm certain is) psychopathy: simply the complete absence of the moral faculty. I.e., not merely uprooted or stunted or deadened or numbed, but never there at all. Just a hollow void where the moral faculty or moral inclinations should be. I think that might be a more useful definition than the standard "absence of conscience" for this simple reason: ASPDs can fake guilt and remorse. In fact, they invariably do when caught or when they want to wriggle out of punishment or consequences. But you can't fake the possession of a moral faculty if you don't have it--the absence of it practically shouts. My nephew often simulated the appearance of guilty feelings when it served his self-interest (not very convincingly), but it was ceaselessly apparent that he possessed no moral faculty at all--he knew right from wrong but he had absolutely no concern about it. It's hard to conceal *that*.</p><p></p><p>A fascinating and troubling topic...</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="mrsammler, post: 426921"] I too find the topic of ASPD pretty fascinating. I gave it scarcely a thought until a year ago, when trying to understand my nephew difficult child drove me to read Hervey Cleckley's The Mask of Sanity and, even though the book is very dated (published in '41) and some of his diagnostic indicators have since been disproven or at least heavily qualified. (The notion that all ASPDs are charming and glib, for instance; several noted ASPD experts have observed that they "never met an ASPD sufferer that they didn't find very unlikable.") Still, Cleckley's multiple profiles of psychopaths, and the general profile that he drew from them, read like a veritable portrait of my nephew. And all of the diagnostic indicators clicked completely into place without any guesswork or ambiguity. Further reading in Robert Hare's work heavily confirmed my surmisal. I know that only an experienced clinician can make reliable diagnoses of this kind, but when *every* diagnostic indicator is a spot-on "direct hit," you can reasonably begin to wonder if you're not arriving at a decent facsimile, however amateur, of a solid diagnosis. Still, I won't play diagnostic expert here (except to note that I've done a TON of reading and study on the topic in the last year). I will note, however, that some posts seem to suggest that a difficult child knowing right from wrong indicates that a diagnosis of ASPD is not merited, and this is incorrect: ASPDs know right from wrong--they typically know it every bit as certainly as we "typicals" do--but simply don't care. At all. Also, not all ASPDs are violent, although many are. Nor is a difficult child cheerily submitting to being handcuffed, and affably greeting cops on the street whom he's met via being arrested, counter-indicative of ASPD. Quite the contrary, in fact: it presents like classic shamelessness and incapacity to learn from experience, in that the difficult child seems to show no natural shame or embarrassment in a circumstance when a "typical" would practically shrivel in mortification and distress. I agree that you can't diagnosis ASPD before age 18 because some typical teen behaviors present similarly to *some* ASPD behaviors, but I've also heard a very experienced and well-regarded adolescent psychologist say, off the cuff at a private social conversation, that "CD is just what we call ASPD before the age of 18--they are behaviorally the same thing." Spoken in casual social circumstance, not the office, but he obviously felt it was true and asserted that many other adolescent psychologists felt the same way, however tacitly--one of those uncomfortable truths best not spoken too loud or in mixed company, lest it offend those parents for whom the topic of CD is a very raw nerve. Another diagnostic red herring among amateurs is the insistence that the MacDonald Triad behaviors--fire-starting, animal torture or killing, and bed-wetting, all in childhood years--be observed or recorded as a part of a diagnosis of ASPD. Not so: the MacDonald Triad behaviors are typical only in the most violently extreme ASPDs who are very likely to commit crimes of violence in adulthood, which is a fairly small subset of all ASPDs. Even the essential "shorthand" definition of ASPD has been formulated differently in different studies by different experts--i.e., it's not always encapsulated merely as "persons without conscience," although that is certainly a very central indicator. A very well researched New Yorker article in '98 borrowed this shorthand definition from a noted ASPD researcher: "the condition of moral emptiness." That too seems very centrally definitive to me from what I've observed of (what I'm certain is) psychopathy: simply the complete absence of the moral faculty. I.e., not merely uprooted or stunted or deadened or numbed, but never there at all. Just a hollow void where the moral faculty or moral inclinations should be. I think that might be a more useful definition than the standard "absence of conscience" for this simple reason: ASPDs can fake guilt and remorse. In fact, they invariably do when caught or when they want to wriggle out of punishment or consequences. But you can't fake the possession of a moral faculty if you don't have it--the absence of it practically shouts. My nephew often simulated the appearance of guilty feelings when it served his self-interest (not very convincingly), but it was ceaselessly apparent that he possessed no moral faculty at all--he knew right from wrong but he had absolutely no concern about it. It's hard to conceal *that*. A fascinating and troubling topic... [/QUOTE]
Insert quotes…
Verification
Post reply
Forums
Parent Support Forums
General Parenting
Diff between AS and antisocial personality disorder?
Top