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Tuesday, April 23, 2013

Psychopaths in Fiction

Once again, I'm guest posting in a mini-series on the ACFW Blog. Yesterday was about therapists in fiction, and today is about psychopaths in fiction.


Colloquially, people use the term psychopath (pronounced sigh-COP-ah-thee) to indicate that someone is “crazy,” but this would be a gross overstatement. I’ve got family members who are crazy, but are not remotely psychopaths. In the psychological field, the term is mainly used in conjunction with or as the equivalent to Antisocial Personality Disorder, but this is shortsighted and incorrect.

The term psychopath isn’t located in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), which is the canon of therapists, psychologists, and psychiatrists. Psychopathy is more like a combination of characteristics from several disorders, not just one.

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