A Psychological Aspect of Susan Smith: Dependent Personality Disorder
On October 25, 1994, Susan Smith drowned her two sons, Michael and Alex, in the John D. Long Lake in Union County, South Carolina. For nine days she lied about knowing where the boys were. On November 3, she confessed to the killings and would soon go to trial.
Susan’s defense team hired a psychiatrist to conduct a psychiatric evaluation of her. She was diagnosed as having dependent personality disorder. He described her as a person who “feels she can’t do anything on her own”. “She constantly needs affection and becomes terrified that she’ll be left alone” She was only depressed when she was alone. The psychiatrist studied her family history and concluded that based on her family history and his interviews with her, Susan had a tendency toward depression that began in her childhood. Susan’s attorney argued that his client was psychologically destabilized by a lifetime of betrayal. A father who killed himself when she was just six, a stepfather who sexually molested her as a child, a husband who cheated on her and a boyfriend who toyed with her affections (Pergament).
Her boyfriend testified that “the pleasure she got from sex was not physical pleasure, it was just in being close and being loved”. The psychiatrist testified that Susan had sex with four different men during the six-week period leading up to the murders and she had begun to drink heavily during this time (Pergament). Alcoholism is a component of dependent personality disorder.
After only four days of testimony, the defense rested its case. Susan was charged with two counts of murder and sentenced to life in prison with the chance of parole in 30 years, the year 2025.
Dependent personality disorder is an inability to function without significant reliance on a forceful or dominant person providing direction. Individuals diagnosed with dependent personality disorder are usually quiet, and needy for attention, valuation, and social contact. Lack of self-confidence and relying on others are typical. Threatened with solitude or separation, a dependent disorder person may panic with feelings of profound helplessness (Gillihan). The person may be convinced that he/she is incapable...
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...ost effective in treatment (Gillihan).
In conclusion, The National Mental Health Association suggests that:
There are many types of help available for different personality disorders. Treatment may include individual, group, or family psychotherapy. Medications prescribed by the patient’s physician may also be helpful in relieving some of the symptoms of personality disorders including problems with anxiety and depression.
References
American Psychiatric Association (1994). Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders: DSM-IV. (4th ed.). Washington, DC: Author
Bornstein, Robert F. (1993). The Dependent Personality. New York: Guilford Press
Gillihan, Lori. (n.d). Dependent Personality Disorder. Retrieved March 1, 2002, from http://cstl-coe.semo.edu
National Mental Health Association. (n.d.). Personality Disorders. Retrieved from http://www.nmha.org
Pergament, Rachel. (n.d.). Susan Smith: Child Murderer or Victim? Retrieved March 1, 2002 from http://www.crimelibrary.com
Rey, Joseph M. (1996) Antecedents of Personality Disorders in Young Adults. Psychiatric Times, 13 (2). Retrieved March 1, 2002, from http://www.mhsource.com
Helling, SteveSmolowe, Jill. "Casey Anthony LIVING IN FEAR." People 76.13 (2011): 78. MAS Ultra - School Edition. Web.
The downfall of Andrea was sudden, and started with the overdose of a drug that treats major depressive disorder, Trazodone on June 1. After this incident, she was put in the hospital and diagnosed with major depressive disorder by her doctors, but her husband was told that this was an isolated event and was put on a few antidepressants. Barely a month later, Andrea attempted suicide for the first time on June 20th, 1999 by putting a knife to her throat. This attempt frightened Russell Yates, and he started to notice the unusual actions and words his wife was doing and saying. He worried about Andrea’s visions and descriptions that she provided to the hospital staff when she described a knife that was “dull, thin, long like a slicer, and had a wood handle” (O’Malley 38-39). The hospital staff also reported an incident where Andrea may have spoken to Satan, or the dark idea possessing her mind, and she screamed, “What do you want?!!” (O’Malley 40). After 19 days of hospital stay in the psych ward, and an intense mixture of antidepressants called Haldol and Cogentin, Andrea was discharged to a Partial Hospitalization Program. By August 18th, 1999, Andrea’s doctor, Dr. Starbranch, wrote in her notes during a post hospital appointment that the couple wanted to have “as many babies as nature would allow” and designated the fact that this would “guarantee future psychotic depression”
prisoner with her entire family and was executed 8 months after her husband had been executed.
-Bardsley, M., Bell, R., and Lohr, D. 2009. The BTK Story. Retrieved December 9, 2009 from http://www.trutv.com/library/crime/serial_killers/unsolved/btk/index_1.html : This was a reliable source since it collected it’s information from police records, first hand accounts and testimony from the trial. This resource was very helpful because it presented a high-profile case of a person suffering from this disorder.
In this reporting from a scholarly journal, The Stanford Law Review explains the laws of prosecution a sexual psychopath. It gives specific examples such as the Fred Stone Case that happened in the 1940s. Stone sexually abused a ten-year-old girl. The judge declared Stone as a sexual psychopath and sentenced him to a state hospital. In 1941 the superintendent took him back the court because he claimed that he was not getting better. The judge resentenced him to a state hospital. This happened another time in 1945 and he was resentenced to a state hospital. Overall, Stone was let free after multiple years. This edition is based on the different laws that psychopaths have.
Torgersen, S. (2009). The nature (and nurture) of personality disorders. Scandinavian Journal of Psychology, 50(6), 624-632. doi:10.1111/j.1467-9450.2009.00788.x
...then headed out to work. Also, I believe that there was a lack of direction when they inculpated her boyfriend because no evidence was found that could incriminate him in any way. Alternatively, his girlfriend and Pryor were known as hitchhikers to everyone that knew them personally. Basically, these girls were used to taking the risk of asking for rides to arrive to their destination. Though, Nancy Pryor doesn’t believe they were hitchhiking that day on their way to the mall. Robert Reldan had the habit of abducting strangers at bus stops therefore, I came to the realization that the teenage girls probably met there perpetrator at the bus stop when dropped off. All the evidence incriminates Robert and he is still not convicted for the murders of Pryor and Kelly which is outrageous. He should be convicted for all murders because everything points at him.
Comer, R. J. (2011). Fundamentals of Abnormal Psychology (Sixth ed.). New York, NY: Worth Publishers.
Susan Leigh Vaughan Smith was born September 26, 1971 in Union, South Carolina to Linda and Harry Vaughan. She was born the third child in the Vaughan family, with two older brothers. Linda Vaughan divorced Harry when Susan turned 7, and five weeks later Harry committed suicide at 37 (Montaldo). Within weeks of Linda and Harry’s divorce, Linda got remarried to Beverly (Bev) Russell, a local successful businessman. Linda and the children moved from their home into Bev’s, a larger house located in an exclusive subdivision in Union, South Carolina. Susan grew to be a well-liked teenager, and even became president of her Junior Civitan Club and Friendliest Female in her senior year (Montaldo). Everyone liked her, and she put on a great show at school. But after the last bell rang, she had to look forward to seeing Bev at home, something she feared above anything else. Bev had taken to molesting Susan when she turned sixteen, and it was not long afterward that she sought help with the local Department of Social Services (Wiki). The Department of Social services did little to help Susan, only making Bev attend a few counseling sessions (Wiki). When he returned home, he chastised Susan heavily for “airing their dirty laundry in public” and continued with the molestation (Montaldo). I believe thi...
There are many psychological conditions that can affect the way a person acts, feels and goes on about their daily life. There is one in particular that caught my attention and it is the "Addictive Personality Disorder" or APD. According to Daniel H. Angres, MD "addictive personality disorder is a condition in which an individual is susceptible to addiction", which can range anywhere from drug abuse to pornography to even gambling. People are considered to be at risk of having this common but serious condition when one shows aggression, depression and lack of self control. People with this disorder can go from one addiction to the next or even hold multiple addictions at a time.
Susan starts her first person account with stating her educational background and job at the time. She had been teaching at a high school and decided that she wanted to return to school as a graduate student and assistant at a West Coast college. She describes how she enjoyed this life and was very happy, until later that year she would experience the onset of delusions. Susan is very descriptive in her account of her delusions. They started off as nightmares for her, each getting more and more gruesomely violent until she had awoken from her sleep thinking that her unconscious had been influenced by some sort of evil dictator. She describes the nightmares in very bloody and morbid detail, explaining how she had interpreted this as a sign that this evil dictator was attempting to convert her into a serial killer. She felt that there was a g...
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...f brain abnormalities on psychosocial development, criminal history and paraphilias in sexual murderers." J Forensic sci 50.5 (2005): 1204-8.
Fifty years ago, a person breaking the law would either be called crazy or a criminal. Today, the mental health community has much more specific diagnoses. However, the explanation of certain behaviors may be difficult because there is much overlap among mental conditions. In Bret Easton Ellis’ American Psycho, the protagonist, Patrick Bateman, is apparently simply a psychopath. However, Bateman can be diagnosed with other mental illnesses such as Asperger’s syndrome, obsessive-compulsive disorder, schizophrenia, narcissism, and antisocial personality disorder. In both the book and film adaptation, Bateman’s actions can be understood more accurately when analyzed in light of modern psychology.
It was midnight when it all happened. Tom Peterson was sleeping in bed next to his wife after a tiring day at work, while his two little daughters slept in the next room. Suddenly he was violently awakened by the terrified screams of his wife only to get a glance of a huge man standing over him with a butcher's knife. Tom was stabbed thirteen times, one of his daughters was killed and his wife was severely injured. Now, the Peterson family has just exited the supreme court of justice in which the judge has condemned the murderer of their little girl to the death penalty, for as it turns out the Peterson family had not been the first victim of this murderer.