Antisocial Personality Disorder (ASPD)

November 15, 2023

3 min read

Antisocial personality disorder is extremely misunderstood. It’s one of the few psychiatric disorders that is often left undiagnosed and ultimately untreated, with few healthcare professionals offering to diagnose and treat this disorder.

The reason for this lack of diagnosis and treatment is that many clinicians avoid people with antisocial personality disorder because it is a tricky mental health disorder rife with destructive behavior, manipulation, lies, and deceit. In other words, clinicians may feel they are unable to help people with antisocial personality disorder, or they simply want nothing to do with them.

Below, we’ll explore what antisocial personality disorder is, its symptoms, causes, and more.

What is Antisocial Personality Disorder?

Antisocial personality disorder (ASPD) is a mental health condition characteristic of people who commit harmful behaviors without remorse. Most people without ASPD have sympathy and empathy and exhibit guilt or remorse after hurting someone or acting recklessly, which is one important factor that prevents us from harming people in the first place. However, people with ASPD don’t have these normal human reactions that keep most of us from emotionally or physically harming others.

What Does ASPD Look Like?

Someone with ASPD may be very charming, witty, and fun at first glance. However because people with ASPD may not care for others or show remorse, they are more prone to lie and exploit others. Their actions may be destructive and unsafe as they’re unconcerned about how they may affect or hurt other people.

Types of ASPD

There are two types of ASPD, both of which you’ve probably heard mention of before:

1.
Psychopath: Psychopaths can’t feel empathy for others, but tend to mimic the emotion in order to trick people. They are often very charming and deceptive and their actions are often calculated and manipulative. Psychopathy is a very severe form of ASPD.
2.
Sociopath: Sociopathy is less severe than psychopathy, because individuals may be able to form some type of attachment to others, while still breaking social rules as they please. Sociopaths are often more impulsive and less calculated than psychopaths.

Other types of mental health disorders that fall into the same category as ASPD, but are different include borderline, narcissistic, and histrionic personality disorders.

Symptoms of ASPD

Common symptoms of people with ASPD include:

Ability to act charming and witty
Skillful at manipulating others' emotions and flattering them
Criminal behavior
Often lying, fighting, and stealing
Problems with substance abuse
Disregard for the safety of others
Often angry or arrogant
Lack of remorse and guilt
Ignoring right and wrong

What Causes ASPD?

Our personalities form during childhood, although we don’t know exactly how they form, we know it’s shaped by life experiences and our inherited genes. Similarly, we don’t know for sure what causes ASPD, but there are some risk factors that increase the likelihood of developing this condition.

Genes
Brain biology: Abnormal levels of serotonin in the brain can result in antisocial behaviors.
People with alcoholic and/or antisocial parents
Victims of child abuse
Substance use disorder (SUD) or a relative with this disorder

Men are also more at risk of developing ASPD than women. Additionally, this condition usually develops during childhood.

Diagnosis and Treatment

A specialist in mental health disorders like psychologists and psychiatrists will diagnose someone with ASPD. To reach this diagnosis they will first complete a psychological evaluation. This evaluation will look for patterns of antisocial behavior to determine if they have ASPD. They will also follow the criteria for ASPD from the DSM-5, which includes:

1.
Violation and disregard for the rights of others since age 15.
2.
The person is 18 years or older.
3.
A history of conduct disorder was apparent before the age of 15.
4.
The antisocial behavior is not a result of bipolar disorder or schizophrenia.

After someone is diagnosed with ASPD, there are two main treatment options:

1.
Medication that can reduce aggression and mood swings.
2.
Cognitive behavior therapy (CBT): CBT focuses on changing a person’s thinking patterns and behavior. It may also help people with ASPD see how their actions affect other people.

If you know someone who you think has ASP or you think you may have some indications of it, please seek out medical treatment.

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