ABSTRACT
A person apparently lacking genuinely internalised moral standards and who typically infringes these in an opportunistic and guilt-free fashion. Psychopaths may be very socially skilled and/or intelligent, but show no empathy with their victims, are indifferent to punishment, and concerned only with immediate gratification of their desires by whatever means, including violence. This stereotype of the psychopath has, however, been frequently challenged as little more than a catchall phrase for incorrigible criminals, and its value as a psychiatric diagnostic category called into question. It is also claimed that psychopaths do not respond to psychotherapy, but therapists who have persisted report this to be far from the case. The term is recorded in English as early as 1885 (in the Pall Mall Gazette of all places), but became widely used in its full current sense after its use in Cleckley (1941) (which listed 16 characteristics from ‘superficial charm’ to ‘suicide rarely carried out’), largely replacing the earlier expressions moral imbecility and moral insanity. The term sociopath is virtually synonymous with psychopath and DSM III in 1980 replaced it with ‘antisocial personality disorder’. Blair et al. (2006) is the most accessible recent critical overview.
