Antisocial
Personality Disorder
Antisocial Personality Disorder is
considered to be a type of chronic mental condition, characterized by the
patient having unique and destructive ways of thinking. Individuals suffering
from antisocial personality disorder usually have no regard for the wishes and
feelings of those around them, and cannot differentiate right from wrong.
Although this disorder begins in childhood, symptoms are usually more evident
in early adulthood (Meloy, 1998). This study intends to analyze and explain the
main causes and symptoms in patients with antisocial personality disorder while
analyzing the case of Theodor Bundy.
Case Overview
Theodor
Bundy was born illegitimately in 1946, on November 24 in Burlington, Vermont.
Bundy never knew his father, but remembered and adored his grandfather during
his first three years of life while in Philadelphia. He was upset when he and
his mother moved in with his uncles in Tacoma, Washington at four-years-old.
Bundy also became upset and jealous when his mother became involved with Johnnie
Bundy, a military base cook. Bundy’s mother and Johnnie married and by 1952 they
had their first of three children. Bundy recalls that his mother went through
immense pain during labor, and he related that with her pregnancies and with
Johnnie (Myer, Chapman, & Weaver, 2009).
Bundy
looked up to his teacher in first grade and was upset when she was no longer
present because of having her baby. On the other hand, he disliked his teacher
in second grade. He remembers when he punched a child in school, and she hit
his hands with a ruler. Bundy recognized at seven years old that he felt a
strange feeling of a growing entity inside. He explained the feelings as uneasy
and disturbing (Myer, Chapman, & Weaver, 2009).
Throughout
school, Bundy did well. He received A’s and credited his mother to his
achievement. However, she never talked with him about sex or opened up with him.
He said his mother was not social and never brought up her childhood. Her
incited resentment of Bundy’s father caused Bundy to feel troubled about his
illegitimate status during life (Myer, Chapman, & Weaver, 2009).
Bundy
attended Sunday school and studied the Bible weekly while in high school, but according
to him, he did not retain it. He was aware of politics and would talk to his mother
about the hypocrisy involved in Christianity. Bundy’s parents did not smoke or
drink alcohol, but his stepfather was violent (Myer, Chapman, & Weaver,
2009).
Beginning
early, Bundy regularly opted to be solo. He was fascinated with radio and
music. Later in life, he had a hard time socializing. As a child, he probed
through garbage cans looking for photos of nude women. Although he tried to
involve himself in sports, he did not pursue it because it was too serious, his
mother did not want to pay for sports, and his stepfather did not want to
attend to watch. Because he failed to get on a team, he was traumatized, and
took up skiing (Myer, Chapman, & Weaver, 2009).
Bundy
was infatuated with material items and dreamed of becoming adopted by Roy
Rogers and Dale Evans, and receiving a pony from them. He was embarrassed of
his own family’s car and viewed his childhood as empty because he believed he
was ignored (Myer, Chapman, & Weaver, 2009).
Bundy
had a few friends in junior high school and went to some parties, but he did
not learn proper social skills and in high school became an introvert and very
shy. He did not get into trouble. He dated once in high school, and felt
incompetent with girls. Bundy thought he was poor in comparison to others who
were wealthy. By senior year, Bundy participated in a political race and
accomplished many political efforts where he was able to make more friends
(Myer, Chapman, & Weaver, 2009).
Bundy
expressed having an entity inside and called it the “malignant being” that
wanted him to commit murder. He insisted that the murders he committed were not
because of his craving to kill, but because he wanted complete control over his
target. He asserted that he kept the victims from feeling pain and the sex was
not extreme. Meyer, Weaver, and Chapman (2009) say, “The ‘entity’ grew slowly
within him, becoming stronger, and more powerful after every deviant act”.
Bundy
first attempt at killing was in 1974, in Seattle. For no reason, he smashed the
head of a stranger, Sharon Clarke with a rod, but she survived. After a few
weeks, Lynda Ann Healy, a neighbor of Sharon’s, disappeared along with many
other women over seven months time. Janis Ott was another never to be seen
after an encounter with Bundy and on the same day a woman vanished from a
public restroom near the same lake he met Janis at. Both remains were
discovered nearby. Bundy’s murdering spree went on for months. The victims were
attractive, with long parted hair, white, and in college. Bundy made several
attempts in a day. By 1975, he started killing women in Colorado. Women began
to go missing one after another until Bundy’s arrest in August 16, 1975. A hair
was found in his car that matched that of one of his murder victims, and he was
tried for murder (Myer, Chapman, & Weaver, 2009).
Bundy
was charming, smart, witty, and handsome, which helped convince people into
getting his way. He finagled his way out of a library window and escaped
captivity. However, he was recaptured eight days later and guarded with more care
(Myer, Chapman, & Weaver, 2009).
Bundy
bear witnessed that he was not guilty and was a victim of circumstance,
insisting there was no clear evidence. He argued also that his description was
like the one of many other men. His legal abilities enabled him to delay his
case, which allowed him to escape again. He travelled to Tallahassee, Florida,
where there were nearby sorority houses that housed students from Florida State
University. In 1978 five girls from a sorority house were beaten badly and raped,
two did not survive. A month passed and a 12-year-old went missing after
school. She was later found dead with mutilated sexual organs and was strangled
(Myer, Chapman, & Weaver, 2009).
On
February 15, 1978, Bundy was arrested again, but did not go without a fight.
Again, he insisted he was innocent, but evidence showed that his teeth matched
teeth marks on one of his victims. Bundy went to trial in Florida, where he
again tried to use his charm and legal skills. He admitted to 23 murders in a
teasing way, but kept himself from death for 10 more years using his talents
and charm. He was proposed to many times and even had a child while in prison.
However, on January 24, 1989, he was executed by electric chair in Florida, and
people cheered (Myer, Chapman, & Weaver, 2009).
According
to Meyer and Weaver (2009), “Bundy is a classic case of a high Factor 1
psychopath (see following discussion)—that is, high on the indices of true
psychopathy.” Ann Rule, his biographer told a story of Bundy at about age 14,
when an eight-year-old went missing in the neighborhood he lived in. He knew
the girl and delivered her newspaper. When in jail, Bundy was asked if he
killed her, he said no as he smirked and grinned (Myer, Chapman, & Weaver,
2009).
There are several theories that have been made about how
people get antisocial personality disorder. One such theory is that people with
antisocial personality disorder have alpha waves that do not function the same
as most peoples. For instance, when individuals get arrested, they may feel
nervous, tense and even scared perhaps. In this situation, that person’s alpha
waves would be traveling at an increased rate than usual. A person with antisocial
personality disorder were in the same situation, their alpha waves would be
traveling at about the same rate as usual, and would therefore be able to
remain quite calm. This also explains why someone with antisocial personality
disorder can do some of the things that they do, and are seemingly not affected
by it at all.
Modern
research supports the idea that biological factors, especially those that are
derived genetically, influence the production of criminality, antisocial
personality disorder, and especially psychopathy (Meyer, Chapman, & Weaver,
2009). It is unclear as to how biological factors translate into specific
behaviors, there are possibilities that include deficits in specific types of
intelligence skills, brain dysfunctions, neurohormonal disorders, and so on
(Meyer, Chapman, & Weaver, 2009). Some characteristics of someone with antisocial
personality disorder are as follows: failure to conform to social norms,
deceitfulness, impulsivity, aggressiveness, and a disregard for safety to
themselves as well as to others at times, irresponsibility, and a lack of
remorse.
According to
Meyer, Chapman, and Weaver, the most influential modern conceptualization has
viewed psychopathy as composed of two main factors, the first is
affective-cognitive instability and the second is behavioral-social deviance.
The following characteristics contribute to affective-cognitive instability:
glibness, a grandiose sense of self, pathological lying, conning-manipulative
behaviors, lack of remorse, shallow affect, callousness, and lack of empathy as
well as failure to accept responsibility (Meyer, Chapman, & Weaver, 2009).
Characteristics that contribute to behavioral-social deviance are a higher need
for stimulation, a parasitic lifestyle, poor behavioral controls, early
behavior problems, lack of realistic goals, impulsivity, irresponsibility,
having been adjudicated delinquent, and a history of violating supervision
(Meyer, Chapman, & Weaver, 2009).
Cognitive Perspective
Cognitive
psychology is, at heart, the study of how people’s thoughts and interpretations
color their behavior and reactions (Kowalski & Westen, 2011). In the Case
of Ted Bundy there is a wealth of help and insight that can be gained from this
branch of psychology in understanding how this individual became so disturbed.
Bundy was a pathological liar and this is the stand out in terms of cognition.
When someone lies to everyone around them all the time, the question becomes: does
that individual know the truth? For a man to kill so many women in such a
cavalier way he had to have a horrible opinion of women, he had to justify his
behavior in a way that makes it non-threatening to himself and his ego and this
can be accomplished through pathologically lying to himself about his true
nature and the nature of the women he killed. In the case study, Bundy claims
to be innocent, and maybe he thinks that he was innocent of wrong doing,
because he was doing a service. In cognitive psychology the focus is not on
reality, objectively reviewing facts, but rather on the thought process of a
person and the automatic thoughts that they repeat in their mind constantly
(Kowalski & Westen, 2011).
Behavioral Perspective
Concepts of behavioral theory can be used to
explain and treat antisocial personality disorder. Theodore Bundy’s actions throughout his life
are congruent with the definition of antisocial personality disorder; mainly
because he had a complete disregard for other people’s rights and focused on
his own interests at the expense of the women he killed (Hansell & Damour,
2008, p. 420). Studies have shown that
Bundy was very likely to be antisocial as an adult because his parents were as
well (Meyer, Chapman, & Weaver, 2009, p. 210). His mother resented the fact that he was an
illegitimate child with no father present, plus the fact that she did not like
to socialize, meant that as a toddler and young child he did not have the
opportunity to experience social play and development. This lack of early exposure to other children
may have been another reason why Bundy found it difficult to integrate socially
during his adult life.
Feelings of
inadequacy prevented him from participating in sports as a child; a lack of
social interaction, especially from his mother and stepfather, caused him to be
obsessed with possessions. This also left him with plenty of time to fantasize
about how his life could be. His
family’s low income made him feel inferior to the other children in his high
school, and he felt overlooked and disregarded by his parents who gave all
their attention to his younger siblings (Meyer, Chapman, & Weaver, 2009, p.
210).
It
seems Bundy modeled his outbursts of aggression (during the murders) after his
stepfather who was relatively calm except for an easily triggered temper. Other than that, his mother’s resentment and
his stepfather’s other priorities led to Bundy developing during those early
years with a very inconsistent parent-child relationship. His family’s low income status in addition to
the unreliable parenting resulted in unstable interpersonal relationships and
an insecure attachment to possessions.
Consistent with this analysis, Bundy claims that his desire to kill was
driven by his need to possess the victim (Meyer, Chapman, & Weaver, 2009,
p. 210). Bundy may have gravitated
towards killing multiple women because those actions fulfilled both his need
for more possessions as well as his need for an interpersonal relationship,
albeit brief.
Some
have theorized that the lack of early psychopathic evidence from Bundy’s past
was because his mother probably covered for some of his deviant acts (Meyer,
Chapman, & Weaver, 2009, p. 212).
Behavioral theorists emphasize that antisocial traits are reinforced
when parents reward manipulative or abusive behavior, which very well may have
been what Bundy’s mother was covering up.
Behavioral interventions that aim to teach responsible behavior through
the use of consistent punishments for inappropriate behavior and rewards for
positive behavior have been found to be effective for some people with
antisocial personality disorder (Hansell & Damour, 2008, p. 423).
Psychodynamic Perspective
Antisocial personality disorder
is mainly characterized by the sufferer’s flagrant disregard of other
individuals’ rights. (Hansel & Damour, 2008). In other words, people with
antisocial personality disorder are insensitive to other people’s feelings and
interests; instead they solely focus on their own interests and feelings alone.
Individuals with this disorder do not feel remorse or guilt for their wrong
doings. The Psychodynamic application and treatment of antisocial personality
disorder is linked with the assumption that the sufferers are born into
dysfunctional families with physical abuse tendencies, cruel, and are
emotionally turbulent (Akhtar, 1992).
Consequentially, children that are born into this type of aforementioned family
setting may experience helplessness feelings especially when their parents are
unleashing barrages of anger and violence on them. As a result, such child may
resort into using defense mechanism of identification with the aggressor,
whereby the individual will want to cause others to experience the same
feelings of helplessness, powerlessness, and victimization they experienced as
a child).
Part
of psychodynamic treatment of antisocial disorder includes psychotherapy
whereby the clinician will discuss early childhood experience with the
sufferer. People with antisocial disorder will act instead of feel; they find
it difficult to talk about their personal emotional experiences. The feelings
of helpless and a scared victim during childhood stage makes them want to scare
and victimize others when they grow up (Hansel & Damour, 2008).
Furthermore, the psychodynamic aspect also delves into analyzing early childhood
attachments of individuals with antisocial personality disorder. Gabbard (2000)
stated that “normal parent-child attachment paves the way for the
internalization of a morally guiding superego
and the ability to empathize with others. People with antisocial
personality disorder show abnormal superego functioning and a lack of empathic
ability to imagine how others feel, presumably due to disrupted
parent-child relationships” (Hansel & Damour,
2008, p. 422).
Conclusion
In conclusion, all the theories presented above offer
different perspectives in explaining how antisocial personality disorder can
impact the lives of not only the suffering patients, but also those around
them, since psychopathy can be associated with the disorder. In fact, a report
presented by the FBI in 1992 showed that most psychopathic killers met the
criteria for the diagnose of antisocial personality disorder (Hare, 1996). Antisocial
personality disorder can be considered as one of the most difficult disorders
to treat, since it is rare that patients will seek treatment on their own.
However, behavioral treatments with appropriate behavior gratification can be
effective in making sure those patients are well-adjusted and safe for life in
society.
References
Akhtar, S. (1992). Broken
structures: Severe personality disorders and their treatment. Northvale,
NJ: Jason Aronson.
Hansell,
J. & Damour, L. (2008). Abnormal
psychology (2nd ed.). Hoboken, NJ: Wiley.
Hare,
R.D. (1996). Psychopathy and antisocial personality disorder. Retrieved
from
http://www.psychiatrictimes.com/antisocial-personality-disorder/psychopathy-and-antisocial-personality-disorder-case-diagnostic-confusion-0
Meloy,
J. (1998). The psychology of stalking: clinical and forensic perspectives.
San Diego: Academic Press.
Meyer,
R., Chapman, L. K., & Weaver, C. M. (2009). Case studies in abnormal behavior. (8th ed.). Boston, MA: Pearson/Allyn & Bacon.
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