Psychopathy is a personality disorder partly characterized by antisocial and aggressive behaviors, as well as emotional and interpersonal deficits including shallow emotions and a lack of remorse and empathy.
It is associated with atypical responses to distress cues, such as facial and vocal expressions of fear and sadness.
It is associated with decreased activation of the fusiform and extrastriate cortical regions, which may partly account for impaired recognition of and reduced autonomic responsiveness to expressions of fear, and impairments of empathy.
Psychopathology is the study of abnormal cognitions, behavior and experiences.
Psychopathology is separated into descriptive and explanatory types.
Descriptive psychopathology categorizes, defines symptoms as reported by people and observed through their behavior.
Explanatory psychopathology seeks explanations for certain kinds of symptoms according to psychodynamics or cognitive behavior.
Psychopathology is interdisciplinary: clinical psychology, social psychology, and developmental psychology, as well as neuropsychology and other psychology subdisciplines; psychiatry; neuroscience generally; criminology; social work; sociology; epidemiology; statistics.
Distinguish between mental disorder requires assessing a person along four dimensions: deviance, distress, dysfunction. and danger.
Deviance: specific thoughts, behaviors and emotions are considered deviant when they are unacceptable or not common in society.
Defining an individual’s actions as deviant or abnormal when their behavior is deemed unacceptable by the culture they belong to.
Distress refers to the negative feelings by the individual with the disorder.
The important characteristic of distress is the limit to which an individual is stressed by an issue.
Dysfunction refers to the maladaptive behavior that impairs the individual’s ability to perform normal daily functions.
Maladaptive behaviors prevent individuals from living a normal, healthy lifestyle.
Behaviors and feelings that are potentially harmful to an individual or the individuals around them are abnormal.
The term psychopathology may denote behaviors or experiences which are indicative of mental illness, even if they do not constitute a formal diagnosis.
Any behavior/ experience which causes impairment, distress or disability, particularly if it arises from a functional breakdown in either the cognitive or neurocognitive systems in the brain, may be classified as psychopathology.
Neuroticism is often described as the personal level of minor psychiatric symptoms.
The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) is a guideline for the diagnosis and understanding of mental disorders.
Major depressive disorder
iBipolar disorder
Dysthymia
Schizophrenia
Borderline personality disorder.
Bulimia nervosa
Phobias
Pyromania