Quote:
Originally Posted by PepsiFree
What you’ve described, as in a 14 year old (and especially an adult) who doesn’t know right from wrong, is someone with antisocial personality disorder. After rejecting the term “psychopath,” you’re describing Miller as one. I certainly don’t think he is, but you believe he is?
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Once again: Antisocial personality disorder is not diagnosed in persons under the age of 18. The criteria for APD are too similar to the normal social and moral immaturity of adolescents to be serviceable for diagnostic purposes.
A close friend of mine, who is herself a clinical psychologist, went through very much the same kind of thing with her son when he was in his early and mid-teens. He did not, as far as I know, do anything as thoroughly disgusting as what this young hockey player has done, but he was dangerous to himself and others and appeared utterly oblivious to the wrongness of his actions. My friend went through agonies because there was no way of telling whether her son was a psychopath in the making or just an unusually disturbed kid whose brain would grow out of it.
EDIT TO ADD: To the best of my knowledge, it was the latter. My friend's son, to the best of my knowledge, did not grow up to be a psychopath. It did take some pretty strong intervention to get him off the destructive path he was on, including a stint in military school, but I am happy to say that the intervention helped. Age 18 is a little late for that kind of intervention (if it's still needed) but not necessarily too late.
Who knows? Maybe the best thing for this kid would be a hitch in the Army, where nobody would treat him as special because of his athletic talent, and where, ideally, he would have a big black drill sergeant to put the fear of fire in him and the racism out.