Preview

writing assignment psychopathology theory

Satisfactory Essays
Open Document
Open Document
430 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
writing assignment psychopathology theory
Fuller, Jason
CRJU 168/C #13713
Psychopathology
February 16, 2015
A Violent Past Explained By Psychopathology Theory
Psychopath, “A person with a psychopathic personality, which manifests as amoral and antisocial behavior, lack of ability to love or establish meaningful personal relationships, extreme egocentricity, failure to learn from experience” (Dictionary.com). With most of the characteristics of a being psychopath, Dino Thompson III has made it relatively easy to explain and compare his criminal history to that of the psychopathology theory.
The Indianapolis Star states, “Thompson, 17, was charged Monday with the murder of Ashton Harting, who was shot in the back in the early morning hours of January 19 after he and some friends had been wondering a neighborhood, knocking over trash cans, where witnesses said two teens ran into Thompson’s house after shots were fired in the street where Ashton died” (King, Disis). With a long criminal past that includes battery, driving a stolen car, assaults while in a juvenile detention and treatment facilities, Thompson was currently under home arrest for violating probation in 2013 on a robbery case where he pleaded guilty to beating a young boy unconscious and stealing his headphones and cell phone (King, Disis). The list just goes on and on, and with a rap sheet of over 274 pages the absence of respect for authority and to identify with others leads me to the idea that Thompson is a true psychopath.
Taking another vantage point of this case we can look at the possible treatment and cures for psychopaphy as stated by Martens (1999) where as a result of therapeutic psychosocial influences and life events seem to help cure this disease. Regrettably as Crystal Garcia, an associate professor of criminal justice, University Indianapolis says, “Thompson’s history might indicate a struggle with impulse control – one that might be solved only with intensive therapy. Unfortunately, we just don’t have the resources, nothing good



Cited: Dictionary.com. Dictionary.com. Web. 17 Feb. 2015. <http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/psychopath>. King, Robert, and Jill Disis. "Violence Marks past of Teen Suspect in 13-year-old 's Slaying." Indianapolis Star. USA Today, 3 Feb. 2015. Web. 17 Feb. 2015. <http://www.indystar.com/story/news/crime/2015/02/03/violence-marks-past-teen-suspect-year-olds-slaying/22825387/>.

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Satisfactory Essays

    Rebecca Taylor LaBrode discusses in her article, “Etiology of the Psychopathic Serial Killer: An Analysis of Antisocial Personality Disorder, Psychopathy, and Serial Killer Personality and Crime Scene Characteristic," LaBrode discusses the treatment available to individuals with psychological disorders, and she connects personality disorders that come from children with past traumatic events, but she also states that the disorder can be treated from an early stage in life. Labrode specifically says,…

    • 292 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    What is a psychopath? How would we describe a psychopath? Although people may have a different opinion of the description of a psychopath, there are some aspects that most people will agree on. From our understanding, psychopaths are impulsive, ego-centric, and sometimes violent individuals, who lie and manipulate others for their own personal gain. At the same time, psychopaths can be charming which explains how they manage to easily manipulate others. The most intriguing characteristic, however, is the lack of conscience within a psychopath. We can all agree, it seems as if psychopaths feel no remorse or guilt after exhibiting their…

    • 788 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Ap Psychology Unit 6 Essay

    • 1319 Words
    • 6 Pages

    against prototypes is an efficient way of making snap judgments about what belongs in a…

    • 1319 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    ii. Drive – An Internal State of Tension that Motivates an Organism to Engage in Activities that should Reduce this Tension.…

    • 1166 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Best Essays

    “A problem shared is a problem halved” is an old saying that humans have found comfort in. For some unexplainable reason humans love and have found great comfort in sharing their problem’s or telling stories to others. Although the term, “counseling” wasn’t coined until the 1960’s, counseling can be traced all the way back to tribal times; they would sit around and share their experiences as a group. This later transferred into priests that would listen and advise their parishioners on their problems. But, in the 1890’s Sigmund Freud, a German neurologist, developed a theory, psychoanalysis.…

    • 1594 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Best Essays
  • Good Essays

    intro psychology workshee

    • 582 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Complete each part with 100- to 200-word responses. The word count for individual questions may vary but your responses should total 500- to 800-words for the entire worksheet.…

    • 582 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Thirdly, the potential problems that could result from inaccurate implications of causation rather than correlation given by the headline is that even in one of Raine’s studies one prolific serial killer differed from the others by not only having a undamaged frontal lobe, but also unusual patterns of activity in other parts of the brain. Therefore there is a possibility that a potentially violent and dangerous person could be considered normal.…

    • 361 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    According to Erickson’s Psychosocial Stages of Development, Hank is in the Ego Integrity vs Despair stage of late adulthood. In this phase of life an, “Adult comes to terms with life’s successes, failures, and missed opportunities and realizes the dignity of own life” (Broderick & Blewitt 2015 p. 12). The positive outcome of late adulthood is wisdom and the negative outcome is regret. Like most people in late adulthood, Hank reflects on his life. He loves to tell stories about his life to anyone who will listen. This reflection includes being proud of his accomplishments and living without regrets. Bringing the union into the city and raising his children, are two accomplishments that bring him the most satisfaction. Another is that he raised…

    • 1277 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Complete each part with 100- to 200-word responses. The word count for individual questions may vary but your responses should total 500- to 800-words for the entire worksheet.…

    • 895 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Psychopaths

    • 901 Words
    • 4 Pages

    When one thinks of psychopaths, they may think of serial killers such as Ted Bundy or Albert Fish. The reality is that psychopaths come in all forms and are much more common than one would think. A psychopath can be defined by a combination of multiple traits, such as lacking conscience, empathy and remorse, and irresponsibility and impulsiveness. This disorder is a type of antisocial personality disorder. Psychopathy is also a spectrum disorder, where psychopaths can exist anywhere on the spectrum using the 20-item Hare Psychopathy Checklist: a tool used to measure psychopathy (Kiehl & Hoffman, 2011). Psychopaths are affected in every aspect of their life due to this disorder, such as family and relationships, which causes issues as it prevents sufferers from functioning well in society. Issues with this disorder also include the fact that it is among the most difficult disorders to spot, yet psychopaths make up 1-2% of the population (Rogers, 2012), and 20-25% of the criminals in prison (Cohen, 2011).…

    • 901 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    The most notorious serial killers and criminals in history suffered from various mental disorders. The vast majority of these cases begin with poor treatment by their parents during childhood and the lack of discipline being out of line. Most of these criminals’ antics start before they’re even a teenager, with a minute amount beginning their law breaking as an adult. Examples of this are shown in infamous killers Peter Dupas, Richard Kuklinski and heavyweight boxing champion Mike Tyson, all of which suffered from at least one type of mental illness.…

    • 1797 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Stress tends to affect the brain in many ways, however, it is due to trauma at different stages in life that will presumably have different effects on the brain, for instance, it can lead to Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. When my father was a child he saw an uncle of his killed by a Doberman Pincher, this caused him to become a victim of PTSD. The PTSD transformed the manner in which he reacts to Dobermans and all other types of dogs he comes in contact. As a child, my siblings and I were never allowed to have any sort of pet. It was as if it were a sin to come into contact with an animal. However, now that Abraham, who is the oldest of the boys in the family, married an animal fanatic they own; a horse, three miniature ponies, two dogs which…

    • 617 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Additionally, Thompson justifies the massive loss of brain tissue during adolescent’s years; they are still under development and shouldn’t be evaluated as a whole (Thompson, 2001). Jennifer Jenkins in her article “On Punishment and Teen Killers” asserts that she does not accept the “underdeveloped brain” argument, because she solemnly believes that if that were the reason, then teens would all have the urge to kill at roughly identical rates all over the world .Her argumentative opinion is hasty generalizing since she is presuming that all teenagers are alike and will be tempted to commit murder. Brains grow and change at different paces according to Thompson’s research group at the University of California, Los Angeles were they have developed technology to map the patterns of brain in individual children and teens…

    • 805 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    It is a common assumption, that whenever a brutal, violent or senseless crime is committed, it is by someone who is mentally ill or sick. Blaming violent and senseless crime on mental disorders may be comforting but it is not necessarily accurate. A stereotype has developed of the 'insane mass murderer' largely due to the media, however, research evidence suggests that this stereotype is far from accurate. Much research on the link between crime [specifically to this discussion, violent crime] and mental disorder has been conducted, however there are different factors that need to be taken into account when examining this link. Definition of mental disorder is a major one, along with possible uneven sample distributions. Also, there have been changes in mental health and criminal justice policies that have increasingly made hospitalisation restricted to those who are more socially disruptive or dangerous. With these considerations in mind, research evidence can be then be examined.…

    • 2253 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Celebrity Diagnosis

    • 761 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Psychological disorders have become rampant in the modern age. People with psychological disorders live all around us. Even you may be subject to a simple and unnoticeable disorder. Some on the other hand, cannot help but fulfill the sick and disturbing thoughts that reside in their minds. They engage in inhumane behavior that, although wrong, contributes to psychological understanding and research, opening doors to new theories. These people live among us, and can be unleashed at any time. One of these people is Jesse Harding Pomeroy. Although he killed only two people, he tortured many others in gruesome fashions, and deriving some sort of sexual thrill from the ordeal he put them through. Jesse Pomeroy had antisocial personality disorder, or sociopathology, a disorder in which its victim shows purposeless and irrational antisocial behavior, lack of conscience, and emotional vacuity. Sociopaths are thrill seekers, literally fearless. Punishment rarely works, because they are impulsive by nature and fearless of the consequences. Incapable of having meaningful relationships, they view others as fodder for manipulation and exploitation.…

    • 761 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays

Related Topics