This piece in the New York Times titled, Can You Call a 9-Year-Old a Psychopath?, was written by Jennifer Khan. This article reminded me a lot of the documentary on diagnosing child with psychological disorders. This is the story of a family with a son who exhibits many different traits that can be associated with numerous disorders within the DSM, Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorder, but they believe he is a child psychopath. The mother tells stories of the child’s ability to go from extreme temper tantrum to silent cold calculating behavior. But the other significant point made was the difficulty in finding a therapist whose opinion matched the opinion of the previous therapist. This story is a continuation of the issues raised in the documentary from class. The real lack of understanding child personality disorders and the appropriate ways to treat them. Kahn writes that “Currently, there is no standard test for psychopathy in children, but a growing number of psychologists believe that psychopathy, like autism, is a distinct neurological condition — one that can be identified in children as young as 5.” Then she continues on to write about how doctors are attempting to isolate true psychopaths from child that exhibit severe behavior problems. The key to diagnosing the child as a psychopath is behavior problems and “also test above normal on callous-unemotional traits.” This is a interesting topic for us to discuss because there is a belief that there are psychopaths who work on Wall Street or other high demanding jobs. Where would a successful diagnosis of childhood psychopathy lead? Would we be looking to cure it? What happens if there is no cure? Mandatory monitoring? What does everyone else think?
Andrew Conyers
I do not believe there is enough research and evidence to conclusively diagnose a child with psychopathy. One of the psychologists in the article makes the point that because the brain is not fully developed and behavior could be misinterpreted, it is almost impossible to diagnose children. There is no question that something should be done to help children who exhibit this type of behavior. But labeling them as psychopaths is almost like giving them a life sentence. It seems too rash.
Detecting the behavior and learning how to properly treat these children should be of the utmost importance to prevent them from getting in to trouble when they get older and becoming a burden to society. I think time will tell what eventually will happen to them.
I do not believe a child as young as 9 years old can be called a psychopath or be diagnosed conclusively with a true mental health issue. The brain is still developing as a child, children by nature may exhibit various forms of behavior. In todays society it seems that if any behavior does not conform with what is accepted as the norm, it is labeled with a diagnosis and “treated” with medications. Their may be signs of possible development of mental health disorders in children, and other forms of treatment such as therapy can be given, but to medicate and label children at such a young age is not right. There is not enough information on how these drugs affect the future development of children. Furthermore, a child being told he has something from a young age, he/she may grow up believing it and therefore exhibiting those issues. With no standard on how to diagnosis these conditions in children and with the lack of information that doctors have about how anti-psychotic drugs affect a child brain development, it is not ethical nor is it in society’s best interest to try to identify child psycho-paths. The medicalization of deviance has become an issue that has led to us trying to prevent deviance from early childhood by drugging children to make them conform.