Historically, the term ‘psychopathic’ “was introduced to fully cover all forms of psychopathology”. There were “sexual psychopaths” who are now “sexually violent predators”, there were drug abuse offenders who have been described as “overwhelmingly psychopathic”, and, of course, there always were serial killers who “have been perennial candidates for ‘psychopath of the year’”. Besides, the psychopathy literature tended to “stigmatize almost any offender about whom there was concern or trepidation”. Nevertheless, it is very interesting that when a psychiatrist called a patient, who has been rated by PLC-R high enough to reach a conditional psychopathy cut-off, a psychopath, “other people would call this patient a ‘really bad person’”. Toch wrote that he recalled “not a single instance in which my understanding of an offender would have benefited from adjudging the person a psychopath”. That is why Gunn guessed that ‘psychopath’ has become almost synonymous with ‘badness’ – “a powerful concept that is unhelpful in medical science” where “the morality of patient’s symptoms or behaviour ought to be irrelevant”.
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