[Clinical picture, differential diagnosis and forensic-psychiatric evaluation of affective reactions in psychopathic patients with hysterical traits]

Forty women with a psychopathic hysterical structure of personality undergoing forensic-psychiatric examination at the V. P. Serbsky All-Union Research Institute of General and Forensic Psychiatry were examined for affective responses manifested at the time when they broke the law. The results of studies have shown that in a subjectively important psychogenic traumatic situation hysterical psychopaths present affective responses differing in severity, which dictated the differential forensic-psychiatric evaluation of these states. In patients who were considered responsible in relation to the law-breaking act affective responses were personal in nature and were expressed in exacerbation of psychopathic features in the framework of the accustomed pattern of reacting. Some subjects presented a state of psychopathic decompensation of a psychotic level at the moment of the law-breaking act, which accounts for exculpation of this group.