By: Bradley, Heather, Joanne, Katelyn, Stefan

Diagnosis

After careful analysis and deliberation, we have concluded that Perry Smith suffers from Anti-Social Personality Disorder.

Explanation of Illness

Antisocial personality disorder is when a person displays a disregard and violation of other people’s rights, and sees everything from their perspective only.

This builds up to a lack of conscience.

Symptoms

Continuous lying or stealingSuperficial charmLack of empathyInability to keep jobs or stay in schoolImpulsiveness and recklessnessLack of realistic and long-term goalsSubstance abuseRecurring difficulties with the law

Evidence “Only when the Bully Kid picked on him.

[Perry] was short and stock a new kid in school they tried to mistreat him. They found [Perry] willing to fight for his rights.” (127)

People diagnosed with anti-social personality disorder are claimed to have an aggressive nature and this is evident in this first example. As a child, Perry was bullied and this angered him so he reacted with the same aggressive nature to the other kids. This aggressive nature stuck with Perry as he grew older.

Evidence“Bobo’s love for the little boy weakened until it went

quite away. He wasn’t her baby any more but a wild thing, a thief, a robber. His first recorded arrest was on October 27, 1936-his eighth birthday.” (184)

Perry, throughout his childhood, had grown up to be somewhat of a monster. His older sister Barbara claims that when he was younger, she would baby him but as he grew older he became more aggressive and resulted in Barbara becoming afraid of Perry. Perry is entirely unaware of this fear and when he visited his sister one time he was rough with her, unaware of how much he was hurting her.

Evidence“The first is his ‘paranoid’ orientation toward

the world. He is suspicious and distrustful of others, tends to feel that others discriminate against him, and feels that others are unfair to him and do not understand him.” (297)

Victims of anti-social personality disorder are claimed to have a lack of empathy for others. This is evident in Perry because he lacked any actual real friends except for Dick and Willie Jay.

Evidence“For the most part, his rages in the past have been

directed at authority figures-father, brother, Army sergeant, state parole officer-and have led to violent assaultive behavior on several occasions.” (297)

People with anti-social disorder are often claimed to have an outburst of poor behavioral control. Perry fits this description well because when he was visiting his sister he “pushed her against the wall and held her there,” (185) when Barbara brought up the subject of Perry living with Tex John Smith. This topic angered Perry, causing him to act in a violent manner.

Evidence“When turned toward himself his anger

precipitated ideas of suicide.” (297)Victims of this disorder are said to have a

short lived life due to suicide or other ways of premature death. Perry fits this description because his brother had committed suicide and his other sister had an “accidental” death. Perry may have thought that suicide was a way as an escape out of the life that he was living.

Evidence“…we lived in a ‘house car.’ Perry went to school

as often as possible. He didn’t like school very well…I also told [the lady principle] that I was going to take Perry out of her school real soon, move away to another state. Which I did” (128)

Perry had an interrupted education due to his father moving around in a mobile home and eventually pulling him because he knew his son didn’t like attending school. With no interaction with other kids and in the future, adults lead Perry to live in solitude which lead to his anti-social disorder.

Evidence“[Perry] has poor ability to organize his

thinking, he seems unable to scan or summarize his thought, becoming involved and sometimes lost in detail, and some of his thinking reflects a ‘magical’ quality, a disregard of reality..” (297)

Victims of anti-social disorder are claimed to have a lack of realistic, long term goals. Perry has a dream of going to Mexico in search for treasure but the chances of that happening are very slim in his case due to his lack of money.

Evidence“Here [Perry] was in Olathe, Kansas. Kind of funny, if you

thought about it; imagine being back in Kansas, when only four months ago he had sworn, first to the State Parole Board, then to himself, hat he would never set foot within its boundaries again. Well it wasn’t for long.” (14)

Perry, who may have had once committed a crime in Kansas, was on parole and couldn’t return into the boundaries of the sate and promised himself as well as the State Parole Board, but that was short-lived because only after a short span of four months, Perry went back into Kansas to commit another crime. People with anti-social personality disorder are claimed to not follow laws and often break them.

Evidence“ It all started when my wife wanted to go to

the city and live a wild life- and ran away to do so.” (126)

Victims of anti-social personality disorder often develop the disease from a lack of a stable home and in Perry’s case, he had no home where both his parents lived in peace. Perry was taken away from his father, then he lived with his father for a while but the two of them often moved from place to place so he had no stable home.

Prognosis

Increased chanced of dying early of violent means (ex: suicide, accidents, homicide)

Unemployment, incomplete education, divorce, bad parenting, homelessness, and frequently going to jail

80-85% of criminals in jail have Antisocial Personality disorder

Prognosis Continued

Most psychopaths have Antisocial Personality disorder, but most people with the disorder are not psychopaths

Psychopaths commit 50% of serious crimes

Treatment

Difficult to treat/no specific treatment

Patients don’t voluntarily seek treatment because they don’t think that they need it

Mostly chronic

Treatment continued

No medication prescribed specifically for anti-social personality disorder

No medication to treat symptomsPsychotherapy is the main treatment (patient

learns mood, feelings, thoughts, and behavior to find a healthy way to manage symptoms)

Level of Moral Development

Level Three: Individual behaves morally in order to gain approval from other people.

Example of Moral Behavior

To impress Dick, Perry follows him and kills the Clutters.

Example of Moral Behavior

Perry wants to please Mrs. Hickcock, so he changed his story and told the detectives that he kill all of the Clutters. His reasoning was so that she would not have to live with the fact that her son is a murderer.

Example of Moral Behavior

Even when Perry is killing the Clutters, he tries to make them feel comfortable and calm.

Accountability Statement

We believe that Perry is accountable for his actions because he knew that murdering the Clutter family was wrong, and he has also stated that he does not show remorse for what he has done.

Photos of Perry Smith

1. "Anti-Social Personality Disorder." ACCG Counseling Services. Web. 20 Nov. 2009. http://www.accg.net/antisocial.htm.

2. Wikipedia. Web. 20 Nov. 2009. http://www.wikipedia.com. 3. Mayo Clinic medical information and tools for healthy living -

MayoClinic.com. Web. 20 Nov. 2009. http://www.mayoclinic.com. 4. "Antisocial Personality Disorder." Internet Mental Health. Web. 20 Nov.

2009. http://www.mentalhealth.com/dis/p20-pe04.html.5. "Google Image Result for

http://law.jrank.org/article_images/gat_0000_0002_0_img0111.jpg." Google Images. Web. 20 Nov. 2009. http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://law.jrank.org/article_images/gat_0000_0002_0_img0111.jpg&imgrefurl=http://law.jrank.org .

6. "Google Image Result for http://cltlblog.files.wordpress.com/2008/12/perry-smith-mug-shot.jpg." Google Images. Web. 20 Nov. 2009. http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://cltlblog.files.wordpress.com/2008/12/perry-smith-mug-shot.jpg .