Antisocial personality

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when and where was antisocail disorders dicovered?

-- Melanie (mercedes22blue@aol.com), May 08, 2003

Answers

As a separate disorder, "antisocial personality" appears to have emerged as a result of the 1843 M'Naghten rule related to diminished capacity for crime. There is a brief but excellent review of the literature in the chapter on Antisocial Personality Disorder in Lorna Smith Benjamin's Interpersonal Diagnosis and Treatment of Personality Disorders, 2nd ed. (Guilford Pres, 1996) and you'll find similar reviews in other textbooks of psychopathology and in encyclopedias of psychology. Benjamin's review is interesting because she underlines an interesting point, not usually made elsewhere: "Curiously, this particular mental disorder consigns the individual to full accountability in the legal system." Whereas many "diagnoses" of mental illness might help one to maintain an insanity defense, this particular diagnosis lends help to the prosecution.

-- Hendrika Vande Kemp (hendrika@earthlink.net), May 09, 2003.

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