Rolly-chan wrote:I think the debate is still going on, about which terms to use, and who uses which terms, and all that xD It still confuses me quite a bit (that bit about psychoticism does make sense, though, since psychopathy doesn't really mean anything that contributes to a psychopath xD). Hare's explanation is that some people use sociopathy because they believe that social factors are the main cause for that condition, while psychopathy is used by those that believe it's caused by psychological, genetic and biological factors such as neurochemical imbalance, certain genes that make you vulnerable to develop it, etc. But although I like that differentiation, it still confuses me XD
The antisocial personality disorder is from the DSM, while the dissocial personality disorder is from the ICD, and they're pretty much the same but for some slight differences. Psychosis isn't a personality disorder, and doesn't really mean you have problems with empathy. Psychotic patients lose touch with the real world from time to time (not all the time), which can manifest itself as delusions, hallucinations, agitated states and such (and also withdrawal symptoms and apathy, but that's only when they're in a psychotic state). A severe form of a psychosis is schizophrenia, for example, and schizophrenic patients have lucid times, too. And they certainly can feel and exhibit empathy and love. They just don't always walk in the same space and time as the rest of us.
Some books, TV shows and movies depict it pretty well what it approximately looks like when a person is currently in a psychotic state (like Criminal Minds, crime shows in general when there's a character with a mental disorder in the episode, the movie Silver Linings, American Psycho - though that one's also a bit on the psychopathic side, ...).
Schizophrenia with negative symptoms (as in apathy, motionlessness, slow reaction to stimuli, etc) is regarded as worse than one with positive symptoms (as in delusions, hallucinations, etc), because there are therapies and meds that help with the positive symptoms, but it's hard as hell to alleviate the negative ones. And the ones with a negative symptomatology of course also have shallow emotions, including little empathy. But they also won't show much else other than apathetically standing or sitting around, not saying and moving much.
But we're talking about the ability to feel love here, and psychotic patients are able to during their lucid times.
I must make a brief break here and marvel at all the things I can still remember about all that o_o The mind's a wondrous place.
Oooh, I'd love to read that if you have it available. I'm a bit sad that there aren't more antagonists like The Joker, for example (who is a psychopath, and Christopher Nolan's depiction of that is viewed as really good by several psychiatrists and psychologists). It seems like the vast majority wants antagonists that have incredibly good reasons and can be comprehended on an emotional level, while I want psychopaths, who simply are not emotionally comprehensible. xD
You simply can't beat psychopaths in twisted-ness. /D
Which is why my main antagonist in my current original story is a psychopath. I'm not very nice towards my characters in that story, and it's kind of scary how sadistic I am with them XD
I think the character with the worst past in this story is Stella, who was abused and forced by her parents to make animal and later human sacrifices and who now has a split personality because of it. I say only split and not multiple because she only houses one more person inside her. I know that dissociative personality disorder aka multiple personality disorder is a controversial topic, because some deny that it even exists, but for my story, which is in the supernatural genre anyway, I've decided that it does exist xD
The other characters aren't that much better off, though. All of them have experienced some sort of trauma. It's kind of a prerequisite for the positions they have.
I think all of my sadistic tendencies will be used up in that story XD
Anyway, I needed a really twisted antagonist for my plot, and a psychopath was the best choice. I guess I won't be posting that story on CS *lol*
I have read that people who favour nature in the nature vs. nurture debate tend to use the word psychopath, while people who favour nurture use sociopath. But I think that's kind of stupid, because the leading experts in sociopathy say that it is genetic, and if you're male you have a more likely chance of being a sociopath if you have a male relative who is also a sociopath. Also, there's a positive correlation between sociopathy and super males (XYY).
Dissocial and antisocial are very similar, but they still are separate. Maybe I'm mistaken, but I think the biggest difference is that dissocial is partially characterized by amorality. I know that psychosis isn't a personality disorder in and of itself, but it can certainly lead to personality disorders and impaired empathy. Psychosis is just such a broad psychological term that a lot of different factors can come into play depending on the person.
I have a friend who was diagnosed with psychosis, and she has trouble with empathy because of her inability to separate reality from nonreality.
I, unfortunately, don't have any public-ready stories to share with my psychopathic character. I think I might have spun the idea off the Joker some time ago, originally, because I really like the "evil for the sake of being evil" trait. His name is Maria, and he's half siren and half demon. The idea was that since his breeds are just pure spawns of evil, he was just evil because he could get away with it. That's the character who doesn't feel love. I've tried to throw him into a couple role plays and a couple stories, but he hasn't really stuck in anything yet.
My other character, the one who's asocial, is strictly a role play character for now. I absolutely love him, and I love writing for him, but I think that a lot of people hate role playing with him because he's so hard to interact with.
This role play didn't get very far, but I think I posted for James twice, so that should be a fair example of how I play him. I should also mention that he has Middle Child Syndrome, which led to an attention disorder.
His skeleton is here, if you wanted a brief overview.
pud / demigirl / pan
