Vad innefattar begreppet psykopati?

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In contrast to the popular notion of the violently-criminal psychopath, a psychopathic personality might also be expressed more constructively. Professions possibly held by some of these subclinical psychopaths may include politicians, businessmen and military officers.

One aim of this article is to examine the concept of psychopathy as described in the literature and as defined by various diagnostic instruments. A second aim is to describe the similarities and differences between the two instruments used most frequently for the assessment of psychopathy (DSM-III-R/DSM-IV and the Psychopathy Check List). Specific focus will be placed upon the aspects of psychopathy that are said to be an essential part of this personality profile, but that do not necessarily fit into the prevailing view of psychopathy as almost automatically linked to antisociality/criminality. The concept of the non-clinical, non-criminal, “successful”, psychopath is discussed, as is the possibility of so called psychopathic personality traits being dimensional, “normal” and normally distributed in the general population.

Much of the current research on psychopathy has been conducted on male, criminal subjects, a fact that, as proposed here, should cause one to question the automatic applicability of any results to a possible successful psychopath, or even to females, for that matter. Further research is needed to clarify whether the concept of psychopathy is necessarily a clinical or categorical one, or whether this type of personality and behavior can be understood best as an extreme expression of dimensional, normal personality traits (as some say is the case with schizophrenia). To try and answer some of the questions concerning the dynamics behind psychopathy, a clarification of the early emotional experiences and social relationships of the psychopathic individual could be enlightening.