[HPforGrownups] Re: Regarding Voldemort being a psychopath

[Random832]

No: HPFGUIDX 176237

Bart Lidofsky wrote:
> Steve wrote:
>>> First off I'll start by saying that being proclaimed 
>>> a psychopath is not a diagnosis or representative a 
>>> specific mental disorder.  So while JKR proclaimed 
>>> Voldemort to be a psychopath, she isn't saying 
>>> anything other than Voldemort had serious 
>>> psychological issues ...
> 
> bboyminn:
>> Maybe Sociopath is a better description. Certainly,
>> Voldemort was a megalomaniac; 
> 
> Bart:
> 	He is a psychopath. The only reason for saying that "psychopath" is not 
> a diagnosis is because it is not present in a commonly used book of 
> diagnoses, one for which politics is almost as important as medicine. 

I'm not sure which book you mean --

According to Wikipedia: The official stance of the American Psychiatric 
Association as presented in the DSM-IV-TR is that psychopathy and 
sociopathy are obsolete synonyms for antisocial personality disorder. 
The World Health Organization takes a similar stance in its ICD-10 by 
referring to psychopathy, sociopathy, antisocial personality, asocial 
personality, and amoral personality as synonyms for dissocial 
personality disorder.

As for an actual diagnosis, here's some further reading:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychopathy_Checklist-Revised_%28PCL-R%29
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antisocial_personality_disorder#Establishing_the_diagnosis
See also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conduct_Disorder

I'm no psychiatrist, but I don't think Tom Riddle, in fact, fails to 
meet any of these criteria.