From antisocial personality disorder to psychopathy, through the case of Tony King

Abstract

Many of the problems we see in our society originate from people with an antisocial personality disorder. A good percentage of these people do not conform to the norms of our society and end up in prison after causing much suffering in their environment. But others who have the same disorder can be integrated within the institutional, political and economic structure of society, and can cause great harm by taking advantage of the opportunities provided by such structures of society. This article, on the one hand, explores the characte- ristics, causes, development, diagnostic criteria and therapy of antisocial personality disorder and, on the other hand describes the differences between this disorder and the psychopathy. To illustrate the pathology of antisocial personality disorder we present the case of Tony King, which seems to respond to the profile both of the antisocial personality disorder and the psychopathy.