Antisocial Personality Disorder

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Antisocial Personality Disorder
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• Antisocial Personality Disorder
• Also referred to as sociopathy or psychopathy
• Individuals exhibit antisocial behaviour
• Antisocial Behaviour
• Verbally or physically harmful to others, animals
  and/or property
• Seriously violates social expectations or norms
• Two components
• Presence of antisocial behaviour
• Absence of prosocial behaviour
• Natural for children to exhibit some antisocial
  behaviour during development
• High levels of antisocial behaviour considered a
  clinical condition
• Antisocial personality disorder is only diagnosed
  in adults, but bears resemblance to conduct
  disorder
• Approximately 4 of the population suffers from
  antisocial personality disorder
• 3 men
• 1 women

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• Oppositional-Defiant Disorder
• Sufferers Young children hostile towards
  authority
• Can lead to conduct disorder
• Conduct Disorder
• Sufferers Older children who lie, steal and
  behave violently.
• A small number of these children who do not
  improve with maturation develop antisocial
  personality disorder

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• Causes
• Family problems unstable marriage,
  harsh/inconsistent discipline child abuse
  (physical or sexual), frequent changes in
  residence or primary caregiver, learning
  disabilities etc.

• Neurological disorders, low IQ, low socioeconomic
  status and having a parent who suffers from the
  disorder or substance abuse increases the
  likelihood of developing antisocial personality
  disorder

Sources (pics, left to right) (http//www1.istock
photo.com/file_thumbview_approve/1639286/1/istockp
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• Symptoms
• Non conformity to social norms

• Deceitful and manipulative towards others, often
  to get something (ex. money, drugs)
• Impulsive, long list of past residences and
  employments
• Irritable, aggressive and engages in physical
  violence
• A reckless disregard for the safety of themselves
  and others
• Consistently irresponsible, inability to hold
  down or find a job, fails to do such things as
  pay bills
• No conscience
• Shows few feelings beyond contempt for others

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• Treatments and Therapies
• Children and Adolescents
• Possible if intervention is soon enough, though
  difficult
• Primary treatment therapy
• Goal to develop positive behaviour to replace
  negative ones
• Systematic, designed to improve communication
  within a group, often the family or a group of
  similar children
• Methods include modeling, role-playing,
  corrective feedback and reinforcement systems
• Success is largely dependent on the cognitive
  capacity and emotional development of the
  individual
• Most severe cases ? medication used to control
  behaviour
• Adults
• Extremely difficult to treat
• Often a chronic condition
• Some medications aid in controlling behaviour
• However, non compliance and abuse prevent
  widespread use