Draw-a-person for the evaluation of antisocial personality trait

Abstract

Introduction: the analysis of criminal personality is the field of common interest both for criminology and forensic psychiatry. It takes in great consideration an assessment of psychological, constitutive and environmental factors predisposing to anti social behavior. The goal is to estimate the power of the DAP in evaluating the presence and intensity of the Antisocial Personality trait. Materials and Methods: the sample consists of 20 subjects with antisocial personality disorder with a history of crime, drug abuse and alcohol addiction, instability in emotional relationships, who are admitted to nursing homes for mental disorders; a control group of 52 normal subjects randomly recruited among university students and government employees. In the control group, subjects had no previous psychiatric or psychological signs. Their age is between 25 and 45 years old equally distributed by sex. They were recruited for the study of DAP scales and the MCMI-III test. Results: the scales and the DAP (acting out, good adaption, aggression, narcissism, negativityoppo sitionality, psychosis, paranoia, pulsionality and Interpersonal relationships) have produced significantly different results between the two study groups. Within the pathological sample, the acting out and negativityoppositionality scales proved to be associated with the MCMI-III scale of antisocial disorder. Discussion: the antisocial subjects turn out to have a significant tendency towards acting out, poor ability to manage and sublimate their aggression, and a negativistic-oppositional behaviour. Within the sample of pathological subjects, the DAP differentiates only in relation to the area of impulsivity; the tests used have discriminating ability within the group, while losing efficacy in relation to the aggression