Personality Disorders or Psychopathy

There is no doubt that psychopaths have abnormal personality traits. The concept of personality is very broad, but fundamentally it refers to a person’s set of emotional characteristics and behaviors. This unique combination shapes us as unique individuals, and this personality is revealed when we interpret and respond to the environment we perceive. People tend to respond in similar ways to many situations, and it is in these situations that personality and its potential disorders can be assessed. The world around us often exhibits psychopathic behaviors, which are generally isolated traits resulting from a society where we all end up being mere numbers.

A segment of this society adopts these despotic attitudes as a way to relieve stress and address any shortcomings they may have. Many of these behaviors, which follow a psychopathic pattern, become “antisocial behaviors.” Reality shows that, day by day, these attitudes are increasingly accepted as normal, becoming a way of interacting within certain groups and, in some situations, even entire societies. All it takes is for such attitudes to yield enough benefits or go unnoticed, so that society does not consider the gravity of their effects and actions. There are various personality disorders closely related to psychopathy, although exhibiting behaviors with abnormal psychopathic traits is one thing, and actually being a psychopath is quite another—the latter is an entire way of being and perceiving the world.

In contrast, abnormal behaviors occur in specific situations and not uniformly across all aspects of personality, as is the case with psychopaths.

Antisocial Personality Disorder:

The core characteristics of antisocial personality disorder involve a general pattern of disregard for and violation of societal norms, which may begin in childhood or adolescence and continue into adulthood. Although it is a psychopathic trait found in marginalized environments involving drugs, alcohol, and crime—where individuals face constant risk due to the illegal nature of their activities—it also occurs in very affluent societies where marginalization is absent but egocentrism and rivalry are present; this disorder is not equivalent to psychopathy, even though it shares the trait of aggressiveness.

Narcissistic Personality Disorder:

People who have an exaggerated desire to be admired—for their behavior and imagination—have an inflated sense of their own importance; this great “arrogance” leads them to believe that they can only be understood or comprehended by privileged and select minds. These people find it difficult to relate to others due to their severe lack of empathy toward those around them; they tend to envy others’ successes or exploit them for their own benefit. The difference between a psychopath and a narcissist is that the psychopath is superficial, cold, abusive, and highly impulsive in their aggression, but they rarely feel envy toward others’ achievements and seldom need the admiration of others; furthermore, they are often accompanied by a history of criminal behavior, which is not the case with the narcissist.

Neurotics:

The concept of “neurotic disorder” implies that the person understands and recognizes a disturbance in their personality in response to the reality of events, without any organic basis. This flawed way of relating to the events in their lives causes them great suffering and distress from which they wish to free themselves, and these disturbed emotions do not exhibit the symptoms typical of psychosis, such as hallucinations or delusions. The difference between them and psychopaths is that the latter do not perceive any disorder in their behavior, so their inconsistency does not cause them any suffering (something along the lines of “You go ahead and talk; I’ll do whatever I want”).

Psychosis:

In a psychotic person, contact with reality is assessed inaccurately; the accuracy of events bears no relation to their perceptions or thoughts, and despite any contrary evidence presented to them, they persist in their errors.

Their behavior is disturbed by delusions, hallucinations, and marked changes in mood and behavior. These psychotic episodes can manifest as bipolar disorder, in which episodes of extreme euphoria alternate with episodes of deep depression.

Or in paranoid psychosis, where the person creates a set of delusional ideas that are entirely true to him or her, with completely implausible explanations—such as being persecuted to cause harm, the belief that he or she is a prominent figure, that his or her husband or wife is unfaithful, etc.… but which are completely false when confronted with reality. The difference from a psychopath is that the psychopath perceives reality as it is, and although it might seem as though they are experiencing some kind of hallucination when they try to justify their behavior, it is nothing more than a deception or a cover-up for their conduct. Some studies indicate that a small number of psychopaths suffer from psychosis or neurosis; however, according to the prevailing and established diagnosis, psychopaths generally perceive reality normally, and it is their lack of human emotion that distinguishes them from so-called mental disorders.