Elliott Rodger, the Men's Rights Movement, and Differential Diagnosis
Elliott Rodger has puzzled us all. Among other proffered disorders, he is said to have had high functioning autism (formerly Aspergers ) and maybe he did, we'll discuss why in a moment. But we haven't seen a single direct quote about it from a mental health professional who treated him for the disorder, or from his parents. Sunday we suggested here that Elliott had Antisocial Personality Disorder . He met the minimum number of features on the DSM 5. But a day later I didn't like hearing a host on Entertainment Tonight proclaim with absolute certainty, "He was a psychopath, obviously!" We don't use that label. There are those who are sociopaths , and there are those who are almost sociopaths , people with degrees of Antisocial Personality Disorder. But no one uses the word psychopath anymore. To make the antisocial personality diagnosis, by the way, I should have checked out whether or not Rodger showed antisocial behavior prior to age fif...