Sexual Murder - Justicia Forense

ut because they have more overt psychopathological disturbances, whichusually fall within the borderline, schizotypal, or schizoid spectrum of personalitydisorders. Their resulting disorganized personalities prohibitthought and careful planning.Individuals with these types of personality disorders do not necessarilyhave a predilection to act out spontaneously; however, they do lack, to a largeextent, the controls and defenses necessary to contain their behavior. Thus,if their fantasies build to a point where the compulsion becomes overbearing,they may act out — in a high-risk manner that is likely to get them apprehended— in order to release the inner tension the compulsion creates. Theseoffenders are distracted by their psychopathology, and they lack the innerresources necessary to plan much of their behavior in general, including theircriminal behavior.Individuals with borderline, schizoid, or schizotypal personalities canpotentially experience brief psychotic-like episodes. Although as a rule theydo not become psychotic, they are nevertheless chronically unstable or stablein their instability. For example, the borderline engages in intense, emotional,interpersonal relationships along with a lot of destructive or self-destructivebehavior. The person with a schizoid personality is withdrawn and isolative;he has never had many friends and does not want friends. The schizotypalindividual is somewhat more disturbed than the borderline or schizoid personality;he is heavily involved in daydreams, difficult to relate to, oftenisolated, and he appears odd, eccentric, and unusual. In fact, the schizotypalpersonality was referred to as latent schizophrenia in the first and secondeditions of the DSM. This clinical condition is now placed among the personalitydisorders primarily because of the absence of overt symptoms indicativeof schizophrenia such as hallucinations or formed delusions.Sometimes the compulsive murderer who does not plan is profoundlymentally ill, suffering from schizophrenia. The diagnostic criteria for schizophreniahave changed over the years as a result of the influence of severaltheorists who emphasized different sets of symptoms and behaviors. Forinstance, Bleuler (1951) stressed rather subtle symptoms of associative loosening,blunted affect, autistic withdrawal, and ambivalent thinking.Schneider (1959) emphasized a different diagnostic pattern that required anovert symptom picture of auditory hallucinations and bizarre ideation. Otherpractitioners, such as Mayer-Gross, Stater, and Roth (1969) and Langfeldt(1969), attempted to integrate the work of Bleuler and Schneider, but theirsynthesis has been less well-received than the original theories. Prior to theDSM-III (1980), the Bleulerian conception of schizophrenia was predominantin the U.S. However, since then, a Schneiderian view of the illness hasbeen used. Thus, the current diagnostic criteria for schizophrenia includeovert symptoms such as hallucinations, delusions, disorganized behavior, and