Sexual Deviation and mental stress

At the least serious level, a person with a character disorder may flunk out of school because he can't make himself care about studying. While this may trouble his family a great deal, the problem may not be considered socially very serious, since basically he alone is the real victim and because, too, there is some likelihood he may outgrow his immature behavior. On the other hand, a person with a more serious character disorder may cause harm to others as well as to himself. He may lie, cheat, or steal even when he has no realistic need to do so. Or he may become a drug addict, alcoholic, or sex deviate. Unlike most other emotionally troubled people, those with character disorders often feel no great anxiety or guilt about their behavior.

Those who lack any normal sense of guilt or anxiety about socially destructive acts-whose passions enjoy free rein, who can tell right from wrong but pay no attention to the distinction-are called psychopaths. Exactly why psychopaths act as they do, rejecting social criteria is not clear. Several reasons have been suggested. Perhaps a psychopath has not yet developed an effective conscience but remains like a child: selfish, impulsive, and short-sighted. Perhaps a psychopathic personality emerges as the result of growing up in a subculture or minority group that may not have the same values as society in general. This may be the case with some juvenile delinquents who believe that violent acts indicate man- hood. Because of the difficulty sometimes in determining whether an individual with a character disorder is really emotionally sick or healthy, but antisocial, some authorities use the term sociopath instead of psycho-path. Unlike the neurotic individual whose unconscious conflicts carried over from childhood may show themselves in specific symbolic symptoms such as compulsive hand-washing, the psychopath is affected throughout his entire personality.

To him, everyone else may appear to be wrong. The psychopath or sociopath may really believe that anyone who tries to live honestly and to maintain good relationships with other people is stupid. Alcoholism and Drug Addiction Alcoholics and drug addicts are chronically ill people whose ailments are manifested in their behavior. Unlike many people with mental conflicts, they have turned to something outside themselves to find in- adequate but temporarily satisfying easement. Far from solving their conflicts, they add extra, and serious, problems that result from excessive drinking or drug taking. Much of the progress in treating alcoholism and drug addiction has been made possible by the recognition that the victims are sick people, not criminals (although crimes often are committed by addicts in order to obtain the funds needed to maintain their habit).