Treatment of antisocial personality, psychopathy, and other characterologic antisocial syndromes.

Treatment of antisocial personality disorder (APD) and ";core" psychopathy is usually considered a pessimistic clinical exercise. This paper reviews the importance of accurate diagnosis (including differences between APD and other antisocial syndromes), limited techniques for predicting and preventing adult antisocial syndromes, several kinds of treatment that have been attempted with varying success, management of specific antisocial behaviors, and the frustrations-even dangers-of working with severely antisocial patients.