Is psychopathy a form of insanity?

As psychopaths lack the capacity for empathy, they lack the deep moral understanding necessary for criminal responsibility. So, psychopathy justifies an insanity defense, under the M’Naghten Rules.

Are psychopaths mad or bad?

Psychopaths are bad, but not mad and, as such, are not the intended beneficiaries of the insanity defense. The defense is meant for people who have deficits that interfere with their more-or-less intact moral reasoning, moral understanding, or moral action.

What is the Mask of sanity by Hervey Cleckley?

The Mask of Sanity, available on Amazon, is a classic text on psychopathy by former psychiatrist Hervey Cleckley, where he goes into great detail about the “mask” that toxic psychopaths wear. Cleckley details how this mask conceals a chaotic inner world devoid of real emotion and empathy and chronically destructive towards the self and others.

Why do we feel pity for psychopaths?

Psychopaths therefore must do everything they can to constantly keep this Mask of Sanity or pretense up, all day, every day, to everyone they meet. This is when we start to feel pity for the psychopath, as a normal person imagines what it must be like to have to do this all the time, and the constant effort and energy it must entail.

How do psychopaths interact with their victims on an everyday level?

However, exactly the same principle can be brought down the micro level of how psychopaths interact with people in their lives on an everyday level. They are constantly acting; projecting an image of a certain person to their victims that is the opposite of who they really are.

Who coined the term psychopath?

The term psychopath has been kicking around since the nineteenth-century, but was popularized by psychiatrist Hervey Cleckley in his 1941 classic The Mask of Sanity: An Attempt to Clarify Some Issues About the So-Called Psychopathic Personality.