Classification of psychopathies by P.B. Gannushkina

[Teacher]

“Normal character is convention, which doesn't really exist. The norm is created by man as personality (created by society) "
Gannushkin PB

Gannushkin PB - Russian, Soviet psychiatrist. Peter Borisovich Gannushkin devoted his life to borderline psychiatry, especially psychopathies (psychopathic constitutions, psychopathic personalities, pathological personalities, pathological characters, character anomalies). Psychopathies are borderline states between mental norm and pathology.

In his monograph "Clinic of psychopathies: their statics, dynamics and systematics" he described in detail the statics and dynamics of psychopathies. Today we will talk about statics, about the classification itself.

Before moving on to the classification, let's take a look at the groups of psychopathies:
- cycloids;
- asthenics;
- schizoids;
- paranoid;
- epileptoids;
- hysterical characters;
- unstable psychopaths;
- asocial psychopaths;
- constitutionally stupid psychopaths.

Now let's move on to a more detailed description.

Cycloid group:

Constitutional depressive psychopaths.

We are talking about persons with a constantly depressed mood. The picture of the world seems to be covered with a mourning veil for them, life seems meaningless, in everything they look for only dark sides. They are born pessimists. The main symptom: an unreasonable decrease in mood, increased fatigue, painful sensitivity.

Constitutionally agitated psychopaths.

These are people who are quick to respond to everything new, energetic and enterprising. Constantly high spirits, increased activity. Often carried away, interest in the world, informal leader, versatile interests. Instability of interests. Gambler. Addiction to scams. Easily accepts life's hardships.

Cyclothymics.

Much more often than constitutionally depressive and constitutionally excited psychopaths, there are individuals with multiple undulating changes in states of arousal and depression. Further, the periodic replacement of some states by others begins.

Emotive-labile (reactive-labile) psychopaths. The instability of the emotional sphere. He does not have long attachments, vague interests, cannot keep promises for a long time. Doesn't know how to correctly express, formalize and maintain affection, keep in behavior.

Asthenics group:

A group of neurasthenics.

Painful sensitivity up to suspiciousness in relation to their own bodily experiences. Painful attitude towards physical and mental health. In neurasthenics, subjects, the most distinctive features are excessive neuropsychic excitability, irritability, on the one hand, and exhaustion, fatigue, on the other.

A group of psychasthenics.

Their main features are extreme indecision, fearfulness and a constant tendency to doubt. They are extremely impressionable, and moreover, not only to what is happening around them at a given moment, but also even more to what, in their opinion, may happen, to all the troubles that, as they believe, await them in the near future. the future. There are no internal means for making decisions. Compensation by external means. He even makes his own decision based on external means.

Schizoid group:

Most schizoids are characterized by the following features: autistic isolation from the external, real world, lack of internal unity and consistency in the entire psyche and the bizarre paradox of emotional life and behavior. They usually impress, as people are strange and incomprehensible, from whom you do not know what to expect.

The dreamers.

These are usually finely feeling, easily vulnerable subjects, with a weak will, due to the tenderness of their mental organization, they do not tolerate the rough touch of real life; collisions with the latter make them cringe and withdraw into themselves, they plunge into their dreams and in these dreams they seem to compensate themselves for the troubles they experience in real life. The fragility of the nervous organization makes dreamers related to asthenics, and detachment from reality and autistic immersion in dreams makes it impossible to draw any sharp line between them and schizoids.

Paranoid group:

A tendency to create super valuable ideas. Seems self-centered, evaluates and treats others in accordance with his overvalued statements. Demanding, cruel, vindictive, capricious and irritable. The most characteristic property of paranoids is their tendency to form so-called overvalued ideas, in the power of which they later find themselves; these ideas fill the psyche of the paranoid and have a dominant influence on all his behavior. The most important such overvalued idea of the paranoid is usually the idea of the special meaning of his own personality.

Fanatics.

This term, according to ordinary speech, denotes people who, with exceptional passion, devote their whole life to serving one cause, one idea, a service that completely leaves no room in their personality for any other interests. Thus, fanatics, like paranoids, people of "overvalued ideas", like those, are extremely one-sided and subjective. What distinguishes them from the paranoid is that they usually do not put their personality to the fore in the same way as the latter, but more or less disinterestedly subordinate their activities to one or another general idea.

Epileptoid group:

Key features: the presence of emotional attacks, viscous emotional states, moral defects. We consider the most characteristic properties of this type of psychopaths: firstly, extreme irritability, reaching to bouts of uncontrollable rage, secondly, attacks of mood disorders (with the character of melancholy, fear, anger) and thirdly, definitely expressed, so-called moral defects (anti-social attitudes). Usually these people are very active, one-sided, intensely active, passionate, lovers of strong sensations, very persistent and even stubborn.

Group of hysterical characters:

A group of hysterical.

The main features of the psyche of the hysterical are: 1) the desire at all costs to attract the attention of others and 2) the absence of objective truth, both in relation to others and to oneself (distortion of real relationships).

Pathological liars.

If the need to attract attention to oneself and dazzle other people with the brilliance of one's personality is combined, on the one hand, with an excessively excitable, rich and immature fantasy, and on the other, with more sharply expressed moral defects than in hysterics , then a picture of that psychopathy arises.

A group of unstable psychopaths:

For the most part, these are people "not cold" and "not hot", without great interests, without deep affections, not bad comrades, often very nice interlocutors, sociable people, bored alone. Inability to act without a model. Lack of established ways of behavior, dependent on others. Compensation: Choosing a bright sample. Easily inspired, they easily cool down, not always finishing the business they started, especially if they were left to themselves. They cause the displeasure of those around them with their disorderliness, sloppiness, and especially laziness.

Anti-social psychopath group:

These are psychopaths, whose main, conspicuous feature is pronounced moral defects. Crime is just the kind of activity that best suits their inclination; for criminals of this kind, their complete incorrigibility and, as a consequence, a tendency to relapse are extremely characteristic. Often they develop into real, convinced "enemies of society", taking revenge on the latter for the restrictions that it puts on their activities; they are gradually seized by a real passion for fighting the law, the danger of which only inflames them; crime begins to attract them as a favorite business, special skills develop and, as a consequence of the feeling of possessing a kind of talent, a certain professional pride.

The described psychopathy embraces a very wide group of people, in many respects of a different kind. In addition to the main type, characterized by features close to epileptoids (people are rude, cruel and evil), among them there are also “cold”, soulless resonators, subjects akin to schizoids, who have a well-functioning mind always ready to justify, explain them “bad deeds.

A group of constitutionally stupid:

These are people innately limited, stupid from birth, without any border, as of course, merging with the group of congenital backwardness (idiocy, oligophrenia).

Intellectual impairment. It will be successful if you choose an average sample. Prudish, resonant. Duty, everyday opinions.

Constitutively narrow-minded psychopaths are always conservatives; out of a natural sense of self-defense, they cling to the old, to which they are accustomed and to which they have adapted, and are afraid of everything new.

People of this kind sometimes study well (they often have a good memory) not only in secondary, but even in higher education; when they enter life, when they have to apply their knowledge to reality, to show a certain initiative, they turn out to be completely fruitless.