PRICHARD, in 1835, described "moral insanity" as a "form of mental derangement... in which the moral and active principles of the mind are strongly perverted so that the individual is found to be incapable... of conducting himself with decency and propriety in the business of life."¹In 1888 Koch changed the name of this pathological entity to constitutional psychopathic inferiority. "Psychopathy" has been used as a "wastebasket" term since its introduction into the psychiatric nosology because its clinical characteristics and limits are so poorly defined. The term as used today describes "various inadequacies and deviations in the personality structure of individuals... the defect existing primarily in the conative, emotional and characterological aspects of the personality."²As a result of the vagueness of the concept of psychopathy, many patients have been classified as psychopathic who actually were neurotic or psychotic with psychopathic symptoms. Karpman,³in search of a
No takes yet. Share an insight, caveat, or question.
Harold Kaplan (1952) studied this question.