Dynamic formulation of antisocial personality disorder: a case study

Abstract

Individuals with antisocial personality disorder display behaviors that do not fit the social norms or criminal behavior such as deceitfulness, running away from home or school, theft, violence or substance abuse. They do not feel remorse about such behavior. They can exploit others for their own benefit and cause physical, sexual or financial damage. They might seem normal, smart, friendly, charming or nice. They are described as egocentric, having low threshold of tolerance, unable to bond or show empathy, impulsive, exploitive, unable to maintain relationships and irresponsible. Prevalence is 3% for male and 1% for female population. Instead of focusing on the legal part, trying to understand the underlying issues and organizing the data using psychodynamic evaluation would be helpful to understand the patient and the disorder better. Hence, this situation might be affective in increasing the treatment success and facilitate social readaptation. The case was brought to treatment on the demand of appointment of a legal guardian following running away from home, lying and after being formally charged. The psychological formulation of a 19-year-old woman who faced many problems due to her antisocial behavior is presented in this work.