Psychopaths

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).