Aileen Wuornos

Was Aileen Wuornos a psychopath? Why or why not? It's a question I have to answer for homework!?

I need help answering this question. "Was Aileen Wuornos a psychopath? Why or why not?". I have to explain it, and it's for my humanities class at school!

Public Comments

1. I don't think she could've been a psychopath. Although Aileen Wuornos killed several men, she was in love with another woman at the time of her arrest. Even if she didn't care about taking the lives of who she murdered, she did care a lot for this woman, and even protected the woman from being sent down (arrested) with her. Even if you don't think about her being in love, one definition of psychopaths says: "The psychopath is defined by a psychological gratification in criminal, sexual, or aggressive impulses and the inability to learn from past mistakes.[citation needed] Individuals with this disorder gain satisfaction through their antisocial behavior and lack remorse for their actions Lack of a conscience in conjunction with a weak ability to defer gratification and/or control aggressive desires, often leads to antisocial behaviors. Psychopathy does not necessarily lead itself to criminal and violent behavior. Instead, psychopaths high in social cognition may be able to redirect their antisocial desires in a different, non-criminal manner.[citation needed] Psychopaths (and others on the pathological narcissism scale) low in social cognition are more prone to violence against others, failure in occupational settings, and problems maintaining relationships. All psychopaths differ in their impulse control abilities, and overall desires." The first man she killed apparently tried to rape her after physically abusing her. She'd already had a tough life. There was a gun, so why not use it? Self-defense? But I believe the money she gained from killing these men was too beneficial for her to want to stop. And it seems like she was treated so badly by men/people in the past that she wanted revenge, and felt that any she killed deserved it (to die). (They were generally men seeking a prostitute, despite being married/living good lives.) Before this, it seems like she'd only committed smaller crimes to get by, so it's not as if she wanted to go around killing people, or seeking sexual/aggressive, etc, gratification all of the time.
2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aileen_Wuornos At her sentencing, psychiatrists for the defense testified that Wuornos was mentally unstable and had been diagnosed with borderline personality disorder. She was sentenced to death on January 31, 1992 .Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Borderline_personality_disorder