After the prosecution accepted a plea of diminished responsibility on behalf of parent-killer Brian Blackwell, on the grounds that he suffers from Narcissistic Personality Disorder, Oliver James helpfully provides some guidelines to help identify this horrifying new syndrome:
That Brian Blackwell should have been diagnosed as suffering from a personality disorder is not surprising.
Eighty per cent of all convicted prisoners do, and 74 per cent have more than one. More intriguing is that the narcissistic variant has been diagnosed, which could explain a propensity for violence.
To qualify as pathologically narcissistic the psychiatrist’s bible requires that you have five or more of these characteristics: a grandiose sense of self-importance; preoccupied with fantasies of unlimited success, power, brilliance, beauty or ideal love; believe you are special and can only be understood by similar special people; excessive demands for admiration from others; unreasonable sense of entitlements; exploitative of others; lack of empathy; often envious of others or believe they envy you; and arrogant or haughty.
It’s certainly shocking that 74% of all prisoners have more than one personality disorder. How many, I wonder, have more than two? 47%? 34.3%? I hope someone’s doing some research on this. And if they know these people have these personality disorders, why on earth don’t they lock them up before they commit a crime?
There’s a whole world of personality disorders out there. Extreme Aggressive Personality Disorder manifests itself through acts of violence against third parties; Wealth Envy Personality Disorder through uncontrollable feelings of jealousy when the sufferer is confronted with the fact that others are richer than them. Combine these with Low Property Respect Personality Disorder and you have a potentially explosive combination where the victims feel compelled to go round violently robbing people of the objects without which they feel their lives to be worthless.
It’s not just in prisons either. Thousands are wandering around untreated with Unpleasant Personality Disorder. And then there’s Therapeutic Diagnoses Personality Disorder, rampant in the psychiatric profession.
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