Ask the Therapist

PTSD in Serial Killers 

Hello I am a PhD student in Forensic Science.

If I said to you I have a client who presents as withdrawn with
physiological
and psychological symptoms which suggest PTSD that include
having 'visitations' from ghosts I would imagine you might also arrive at
the
PTSD diagnosis.
However if I also said to you that this person had killed 12 people
including
three members of his immediate family would you still come to this
diagnosis?

Can psychopaths be affected by PTSD if they profess to care for one of the
individuals they killed?

I'm writing a paper on a serial killer who, while being interviewed by
police,
presented with both physiological and psychological symptoms of PTSD. He is
an
habitual liar and meets the criteria of the PCL-R and APD. He later hung
himself in jail after writing a 107 page suicide note that took him 6 months
to write.

Unless those 'ghosts' were a partial description of flashbacks, I would not
come to a diagnosis of PTSD. And, by definition, sociopaths feel no
remorse. Consequently, the conclusion drawn that the person's 'caring for'
one of the victims would prompt a PTSD response is specious at best, flat
out wrong, at worst.

Finally, a question for you to think about...a patient walks into a
psychiatrists office and states, "I am a pathological liar". What do you
do? It's a conundrum.

My forensic training has taught me that most serial killers, no matter how
distorted they are, tend to be highly intelligent, or at least above
average. I would think manipulation before I would think secondary
psychogenesis. 

Back