Who Is A Psychopath?

A psychopath is a mentally unbalanced person inclined toward criminal and antisocial behaviour. A psychopath is characterised by lack of empathy for fellow beings, lack of conscience for good and bad, very poor impulse control and manipulative behaviour in general.

A psychopath uses his charm, powers of manipulation and intimidation for controlling others and using them to satisfy his own selfish needs. Since a psychopath is devoid of conscience or feelings for other people, he takes what he desires often in cold blood neglecting the social norms.

Other common characteristics of a psychopath are superficial charm, average intelligence, absence of delusions, lack of nervousness, unreliability, insincerity, and absence of shame or remorse, antisocial behavior without compulsion, poor judgment, and incapacity to love, loss of insight, unresponsiveness, and impersonal sexual life.

The diagnostic technique used to find a psychopath is called Hare Psychopathy Checklist- Revised. This is a clinical rating scale having 20 items. Each item gets a score on a three-point scale. The responses from the patient are collected through file information and using structured interviews.

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