Sexual sadism and sadistic personality disorder in sexual homicide

Controversies exist about the diagnostic validity of sexual sadism and its relation to sadistic personality disorder in sex offenders. The aim of this study was to investigate which diagnostic, developmental, and criminal characteristics differentiate sexual sadistic from non-sadistic sexual homicid...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of personality disorders 2006-12, Vol.20 (6), p.671-684
Main Authors: HILL, Andreas, HABERMANN, Niels, BERNER, Wolfgang, BRIKEN, Peer
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adult and adolescent clinical studies
Antisocial Personality Disorder - diagnosis
Behavior
Biological and medical sciences
Child abuse & neglect
Comparative Analysis
Comparative studies
Criminal Psychology
Criminals
Dangerous Behavior
Discriminant analysis
Emotional abuse
Forensic Psychiatry - methods
Germany
Homicide - psychology
Humans
Male
Manslaughter
Medical sciences
Personality disorders
Personality Problems
Personality traits
Prisoners - psychology
Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry
Psychopathology
Psychopathology. Psychiatry
Reproducibility of Results
Risk assessment
Risk Assessment - methods
Sadism - diagnosis
Sadism - psychology
Sex crimes
Sex offenders
Sex Offenses - psychology
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Summary:Controversies exist about the diagnostic validity of sexual sadism and its relation to sadistic personality disorder in sex offenders. The aim of this study was to investigate which diagnostic, developmental, and criminal characteristics differentiate sexual sadistic from non-sadistic sexual homicide perpetrators. Psychiatric court reports on 166 men who had committed a sexual homicide were evaluated regarding psychiatric, sexual and criminal history. Sixty-one offenders (36.7%) with sexual sadism (SeSd) were compared with 105 (63.3%) offenders without this diagnosis (NSeSd). Besides the sexual sadistic symptoms, there were seven factors that discriminated best between the two groups (sexual masochism, sadistic personality disorder, isolation in childhood, multiple sexual homicide, previous rape, previous tendencies for similar behavior, and long duration of the homicidal act). Sexual sadism is connected with circumscribed other characteristics and has to be considered in risk assessment and treatment of sex offenders.
ISSN:0885-579X
1943-2763
DOI:10.1521/pedi.2006.20.6.671