Does the sociopath have a mental illness, and if so, is there an effective treatment for sociopathic behaviour? For example, when a sociopath is convicted in court for the consequences of a lifetime of abnormal behaviour, should the district attorney arrange for his admission to hospital rather than sending him to jail?
Disorders of the mind can mean different things to different people. To quote journalist Alan Jasonoff ( New York Times ). There is a fine line that separates creative genius from madness and one must always take into account , that what constitutes insanity reflects societies norms and social prejudices.
Culture and ethnicity play an important role and influences how so called abnormal behaviour is interpreted and understood. One culture’s abnormality is another’s cherished tradition.
For example what is it, that separates certain religious convictions from delusions? If an individual regularly prays to God and the saints, he is perceived as pious and is likely to be respected by his neighbours. However, if a person reports that he hears God and the saints talking to him, he runs the risk of being thought of as insane!
How do we distinguish the odd behaviour and bizarre ideas of eccentric individuals from people with schizophrenia? Or understand and appropriately acknowledge a person’s firm belief that they have the power of extrasensory perception while avoiding the dismissive perspective that their belief may be a delusion? At what point do we begin to consider strange beliefs a sign of mental illness?
These challenges I think reflect the diversity found in human nature, especially in the human mind where normal and unusual or even bizarre mental phenomena may often co-exist, making it difficult for us to determine what our definition of normality might be. Yet this is an important issue, as failure to identify serious mental illness in a person may have grave consequences.