Without Conscience, Understanding Psychopathy and its Effects

Much research has gone into attempts to define and understand ‘psychopathic personality disorder’ (sometimes alternatively known as ‘sociopathic personality disorder’).  There tends to be an assumption that psychopathy always leads to violence and/or murder.  We hear about serial killers being ‘psychopaths’.  Yet these are only a few of the 4% of the population’s psychopathic personalities.  For many therapists, we may rarely or never see a client who has this cluster of personality traits, but we will see lots of clients who have been affected by them.  Men and women locked into abusive relationships and finding themselves unable to leave. Clients who are overwhelmed by managers at work who wield power, and in whose presence,  they lose confidence and their own frame of reference.  This day will be an opportunity to focus on the character traits which make a person with psychopathic traits worth understanding.  For people with conscience, it can be almost impossible to comprehend that there are those among us who behave without conscience.