'Psychopathy' is not covered separately in either the DSM-IV or ICD-10, so I would not consider it to be a widely recognised diagnostic/clinical term as you have suggested.
One faction won out over another, so that automatically makes the other side illegit? I know that's not what you said, but it seems to be where you're headed.
'Callous concern for the feelings of others' and 'incapacity to experience guilt or to profit from experience, particularly punishment' are included within the ICD-10 criteria for dissocial personality disorder so you might want to start using ICD-10 instead of DSM-IV!
Okay, can you provide the diagnostic criteria from the limey book for me, then? And how many on the checklist qualifies you?
You also mention that it is a distinct behavioural disorder, or is it just a more severe form of ASPD?
There was an experiment amongst prisoners. They blew air into their eyelids, causing them to blink, while ringing a bell. The majority, like Pavlov's dogs, after a while blinked when the bell was rung but the air was not blown. The people previously diagnosed as psychopaths (a small percentage of the sample, most of which would probably qualify for ASPD) did not. Total inability to respond to behavioral conditioning is worthy of a separate category in my (again, non-expert) opinion.
What treatment would you then offer to psychopaths?
A bullet to the back of the head? Psychopaths, by definition of the disorder, are currently untreatable. They should be confined and studied until a treatment is discovered.
Even worse, you are basing this 'diagnosis' on just the outcome of a checklist. There needs to be a more collaborative approach to predicting recidivism, a small part of which could be the HCL-R.
I never said the sole basis for predicting recidivism should be the PCL-R. I only said that grouping psychopathy in with the much broader category of ASPD would be detrimental to such a prediction.
In the UK, psychiatric and psychological assessments are conducted (if requested by the legal representatives/court) prior to sentencing which offers a very detailed and holistic assessment (so the psychiatrists can charge more, I assume!) which I think is more helpful than a label of 'psychopath'.
No offense, but although I'm no expert on the topic, I'm not gonna trust your government's system of dealing with the criminally insane solely on the basis of the Mental Health Act, which is an abomination worthy of the Soviet system of psychiatry. I'm not saying my country's system is not without its faults, but then again, I don't trust my government in how it deals with such things any better.
You talk about accurate determination of risk, but risk is dynamic not static so accuracy will always be compromised. Irrespective of the criminal justice system, it is widely acknowledged within psychiatry that there needs to be less of an emphasis on labels due to stigmatisation and the subsequent isolation that patients endure. I agree with this hence my dislike of even more medical jargon.
Fuck that-- if a person is truly a psychopath I don't give two fucks about them being stigmatized.
Out of interest, how do schizophrenics access treatment whilst in US prisons?
If they're in a prison and not an institution for the criminally insane, they access treatment the same way a prisoner with cancer would-- through the prison doctors. In both cases, the quality of care is frequently shameful.
Here's where I'm comin from on this-- I think my country's criminal justice system and incarceration rate is shameful and manifestly unjust. I am also opposed to the social control aspects of psychology/psychiatry. I'd like to free most people from prison and see real reform in our criminal justice system, as well as get psychologists and psychiatrists out of the social control business. But the only way this will happen is (among other conditions) if we significantly reduce the amount of repeat offenders in society and if we identify the truly (a) insane and (b) behaviorally incurable. I see ASPD as part of a disturbing trend in psychology and psychiatry to broaden behavioral disorders to basically include anyone as having a behavioral disorder. Look in the DSM or the limey equivalent, then tell me that everyone you ever met couldn't be classified under at least one disorder listed in the manual. That's fucked up. Psychiatry/psychology should be limited to the truly mentally ill/disordered, not as it is now-- a panacea or global explanation for every behavior or thought someone finds troublesome. [/rant]
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