Living with a psychopathic personality: case history of a successful anti-social personality.

Anti-social personalities may be successful in life to a great extent. This is obscured by the tendency to study only those anti-social personalities who are imprisoned, in hospital, or undergoing therapy. We present a case history of Tom, a successful anti-social personality. He was 21 years old when the author lived with him for about 1 year. Tom used his skills to manipulate others and never went to prison nor was he ever ordered into therapy, although he did seek it out voluntarily for a brief period of time. Perhaps what kept him out of trouble with the law was that Tom stole only from friends and acquaintances, and not from strangers. He appeared to be an anti-social personality, but one who was fairly successful at it. Of course, the failure to develop non-manipulative close attachments to others means that the antisocial personality loses out by not having the kind of love, closeness, or stability of friendships that normal people can have.