The Mask of Sanity

The topic of serial murder is seen all over media. It ranges from shows such as Dexter and Criminal Minds to movies like The Silence of the Lambs, Psycho, and Hannibal. While very entertaining, these shows, and the general media, fail to fully portray the actual reasons for serial killing. They force the observer “to believe that persons capable of random homicides must indeed be mentally ill or sick” (Hickey, 2016, p. 77) and it only increases our societies fear of those who have mental…

Sociopaths are characterized by their aggression, risk-taking tendencies, and their lack of concern for one’s own health or the health of others. In addition, sociopaths do not feel remorse and are able to get away with much more immoral behavior than someone without this mental illness. Not all Sociopaths fall under the classification of a serial killer or serious criminals. In fact, many sociopaths are able to control their desire to carry out the violent acts drawn up in their emotionless…

The Brain Network of Serial Killers and Psychopaths A Serial Murder Symposium was held where all the attendees discussed and agreed that there was no generic profile of a serial murderer. How a serial killer commits a crime depends on a lot of different aspects including motivation, his behaviour, how he was raised and what circumstances he had faced in childhood. How are they identified and arrested? A police officer should be trained, how exactly to decipher one from another? The Behavioural…

God created us all perfect because each one of us has our own uniqueness. We may have some things in common, but no one is alike. Some people are right handed, some people are left handed. Some have hazel eyes, green eyes, and some brown eyes. Most importantly, we're all made for a purpose. However, there are some people in this world whose characters, habits, and moral behaviors are very inhuman. These individuals’ cruel acts so that they have no remorse and empathy for others. These people are…

Charles Manson once said, “remorse for what? You people have done everything in the world to me. Doesn’t that give me equal right.” this quote is similar to what a sociopath would say. A sociopath is an individual with a personality disorder. This disorder displays itself with extreme antisocial attitudes, behavior, and a lack of conscience. Sociopaths and psychopaths are both interchangeable and are both considered to be social predators. Although sociopathy seems to portray itself as mad, it…

Understanding how human behavior is linked to ¬¬¬different disorders is essential while striving to comprehend crime and its causes. Many professionals often assume psychopathy and antisocial personality disorder are identical, and interchangeably utilize the two terms. Upon further investigation and research, both have been proven to be in fact different, and entail different elements. Psychopathy is a bundle of socially deviant behaviors and personality traits; antisocial personality disorder,…

I did not trust him alone with our son and likely never will. I witnessed him engage in questionable sexual conduct with our infant. I saw him shout in our son’s face for what was often accidental scratching, poking or pinching. I saw him punch our younger dog in the head to the degree that the dog urinated instantly. Our young son saw him punch a hole in the wall, smack the dogs for little to no reason. I was instructed to punch our un-neutered young dog in the testicles if he tried to mount…

Psychopaths and sociopaths In hollywood there's been multiple movies where there is a mindless killer on the loose, psychopath and sociopath are what they call pop psychology terms for a certain antisocial personality disorder. These terms are not well defined this way compared to the literary use of them. Differences between the two Psychopaths and sociopaths are not the same but they both have have some similar traits such as; brake or ovoid the law, lie and deceive, impulsive, aggressive,…

I have been curious as to what psychopathy and antisocial personality disorder is, as are other people. We often associate psychopaths to crazy, killers, or our exes. I have done that a time or five myself. Now, bear with me here because a lot is still left to discover about psychopaths and antisocial personality disorder. Some common questions I have asked myself (and researched) and others may have wondered are the ones not completely answered yet. What is antisocial personality disorder?…

Note: Within the essay, whenever the term serial killer is used, it encompasses any type of violent offender without a motive or a connection to the victims. Today’s society is not able to truly comprehend the serial or the mass murderer. With no motive or connection to the victims, the violence does not make sense. It is difficult to depict a character or concept only partially understood. Psycho took this perplexing subject and executed it respectfully and appropriately. It was the…