CJA/314
Biological Criminal Behavior
Andrea Yates had battled with postpartum depression for years and on June 20, 2001, she drowned all five children in the bathtub of her home. Ultimately the underlining cause of her actions was caused by postpartum psychosis that was triggered by Andrea’s improper use of her medication, failure to adhere to her doctor’s advice after treatment, and her lack of knowledge of coping techniques commonly used by women who suffer from postpartum depression. Postpartum depression can take up to a year after the birth of a child before the mother would even notice the signs of depression and in Yates’s case if left untreated can have a tragic affect on the person and everyone around him or her.
A psychopath is someone is has a mental disorder or display violent behaviors. A psychopath also has a personality order and loves to manipulate others, lacks empathy of others, emotionless, and fearless. There is nothing that scares them, there are four subtypes of psychopaths.
The first one is a Primary Psychopath, this type of psychopath does not care about punishment or disapproval, and they inhibit their antisocial impulses. A word that means the same to the normal person does not mean the same to him or her, they think very different from the way that normal people do, which is referred to as “semantic aphasia.” The Secondary Psychopaths, these types of psychopaths are not afraid to take risks of any kind, stress reactive, worry a lot, guilt-prone. These types of psychopaths worry more than the average person. A Secondary Psychopaths, are adventurous, and play by their own rules, they try to avoid pain and cannot resist temptation.
Distempered Psychopaths are those that go into a rage very quickly. This type does not usually happen with women, it is more of the men who it mainly happens to. The men who are distempered psychopaths have a high sex drive and get a high off excitement. Charismatic
References: Andrea Yates Biography. (2012). Retrieved from http://www.biography.com/people/andrea-yates-235801 Lilenfeld, O. (11, 28 2007). What "psychopath" means. Retrieved from http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm McLellan, F. (12/02/2006). Mental Health and justice: the case of Andrea Yates. Lancet, 368(9551), 1951-1954. doi:10.1016/S014-6736(06)69789-4 Ramsland, K. (2012). Andrea Yates: Ill or Evil?. Retrieved from http://www.trutv.com/library/crime/notorious_murders/women/andrea_yates/index.html Resnick, P. J. (MD). (November 5, 2011). The Andrea Yates Case: Insanity on Trial [Video podcast]. YouTube. Retrieved from http://youtube.com/watch?v=dCnUIQtYN0 What is a psychopath. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.rexxfield.com/define-sociopath