[Calpernia]

Antisocial Personality Disorder

Diagnostic Criteria

There is a pervasive pattern of disregard for and violation of the rights of others occurring since age 15 years, as indicated by three (or more) of the following:

failure to conform to social norms with respect to lawful behaviors as indicated by repeatedly performing acts that are grounds for arrest

deceitfulness, as indicated by repeated lying, use of aliases, or conning others for personal profit or pleasure
impulsivity or failure to plan ahead

irritability and aggressiveness, as indicated by repeated physical fights or assaults

reckless disregard for safety of self or others
consistent irresponsibility, as indicated by repeated failure to sustain consistent work behavior or honor financial obligations

lack of remorse, as indicated by being indifferent to or rationalizing having hurt, mistreated, or stolen from another

The individual is at least age 18 years.

There is evidence of Conduct Disorder with onset before age 15 years.

The occurrence of antisocial behavior is not exclusively during the course of Schizophrenia or a Manic Episode

Psychiatric Diagnoses are always a bit of a potpourri. So let's add in a little of this:


(my favorite quote)"Criticizing others is a dangerous thing, not so much because you may make mistakes about them, but because you may be revealing the truth about yourself."
-Judge Harold Medina

Narcissist/Psychopath

Projection:

Bullies project their inadequacies, shortcomings, behaviours etc on to other people to avoid facing up to their inadequacy and doing something about it (learning about oneself can be painful), and to distract and divert attention away from themselves and their inadequacies. Projection is achieved through blame, criticism and allegation; once you realise this, every criticism, allegation etc that the bully makes about their target is actually an admission or revelation about themselves. This knowledge can be used to perceive the bully's own misdemeanours; for instance, when the allegations are of financial or sexual impropriety, it is likely that the bully has committed these acts; when the bully makes an allegation of abuse (such allegations tend to be vague and non-specific), it is likely to be the bully who has committed the abuse. When the bully makes allegations of, say, "cowardice" or "negative attitude" it is the bully who is a coward or has a negative attitude.

[bonesmccoy]

AQ terrorists have some components of Anti-social Personality Disorder.

However, judgement of such personality disorders requires a common social framework. Commonality between American and Middle-Eastern Islamic Fundamentalist behavior is difficult to identify. Obviously, both groups of people love family and love their children. However, the manifestation of that love varies greatly.

On the other hand, OBL and Saddam Hussein both have narcissistic and psychotic tendencies which are reflected in their inability to appropriately identify "reality".

A psychosis is when a person can not appropriately identify "reality".

A personality disorder is NOT a psychosis. It is a neurosis. Neurotic people still can identify normal reality. In this case, you would be hard pressed to argue that the terrorists aboard the four planes on 9-11-01 were simply "Neurotic". Indeed, these were rampaging psychotics with delusions of grandeur, paranoid feelings, and massive projection of angst.

I would really characterize these terrorists as partly psychotic with paranoid tendencies. In addition, mania is a large component of their mental health problem.