Psychopathy: what it is and main characteristics of a psychopath

Psychopathy is a psychological disorder characterized by antisocial and impulsive behaviors, in addition to contempt and lack of empathy with others. The psychopathic person tends to be quite manipulative and centralizing, thus exhibiting extremely narcissistic behaviors and not being responsible for any of his attitudes.

The diagnosis of psychopathy is made by a psychiatrist based on the Robert Hare scale, in which the doctor evaluates and scores the person from 0 to 2 according to the behavioral characteristics analyzed. At the end, the doctor compares the value obtained with the scale to check the degree of psychopathy.

Although psychopaths are often portrayed in movies and series as extremely aggressive people, this behavior is not characteristic of psychopaths. Psychopathic people do not always develop this type of aggression, the power of manipulation, self-centeredness and lack of empathy being more characteristic.

Psychopathy can happen in both men and women, being the most evident characteristics in men from 15 years old, while in women the diagnosis is more difficult because they do not have so many impulsive behaviors. This psychological disorder can happen due to several situations, such as brain alterations, due to genetic factors and, mainly, childhood trauma, such as sexual and emotional abuse, violence and conflicts at home, for example.

Main features

Psychopaths are unable to form any emotional bonds, often having superficial and short-lived relationships. In addition, they are manipulative and lie naturally, and can even pretend emotions even if they can't feel them.

The main characteristics that help to identify a psychopath are:

1. Lack of empathy

The lack of empathy is one of the most important characteristics to identify the psychopath. This is because people who have psychopathic traits are indifferent and insensitive to the feelings of others, showing no reaction, whether happy or sad.

However, as they can lie very well, they can fake emotions or sympathize with a person, even without caring, so it is difficult to identify the lack of empathy.

2. Impulsive behavior

Since psychopaths do not care about others, they try to take impulsive actions, without taking into account other people and without thinking about the pros and cons of certain actions. In addition, they do not usually deal well with rejection and frustration, and may exhibit aggressive behavior.

3. Do not assume guilt

Psychopaths are usually not responsible for their actions, they always think they are right and, therefore, they always place the blame on others. Since he never acknowledges his mistake, he also does not feel remorse for anything he has done.

4. Egocentrism

People with a psychopathic streak usually think that they should be the center of attention, as they consider themselves to be super important, and this behavior can be described as narcissism. Know what are the characteristics of a narcissistic person.

5. Too many lies

Psychopaths tend to lie to excess, even without realizing that they are telling lies. Usually these lies are spoken with the aim of deceiving people and even manipulating them to gain their trust.

How the treatment is done

The treatment of psychopathy is done by a psychiatrist, psychotherapy sessions are usually recommended, which can be done with the psychologist, and use of medications that can improve the clinical condition.

The difficulty in treating psychopaths is that they do not identify with the characteristics, often judging that their behavior is normal and not admitting that they have psychopathic traits, which means that they do not seek psychiatric help.