Psychopathic disorder: a category mistake?
Although the concept of psychopathy retains its currency in British psychiatry, apparently being meaningful as well as useful to practitioners (1), it is often taken to refer to a purely legal category with social control functions rather than a medical diagnosis with treatment implications. I wish, in this brief article, to suggest that it is essentially, and most usefully, an ethical category which stands outside the diagnostic framework of present-day psychiatry.
Holmes
C A
CA
School of Nursing, Deakin University, Geelong, Victoria, Australia.
D000987:Antisocial Personality Disorder / Q000145:classification*; D005555:Forensic Psychiatry / Q000639:trends; D006801:Humans; D007298:Insanity Defense; D009014:Morals; D012927:Social Control, Informal