Actually, this reminds me a lot of oppositional defiant disorder (ODD). ODD is a disorder found in teenagers and is described as having the following symptoms:
A pattern of negativistic, hostile, and defiant behavior lasting at least six months during which four or more of the following are present:Of course, since this pretty much describes being a teenager I'm not really sure if any of us went thru our teenage years without suffering from ODD.
1. Often loses temper
2. often argues with adults
3. often actively defies or refuses to comply with adults' requests or rules
4. often deliberately annoys people
5. often blames others for his or her mistakes or misbehavior
6. is often touchy or easily annoyed by others
7. is often angry and resentful
8. is often spiteful and vindictive
The disturbance in behavior causes clinically significant impairment in social, academic, or occupational functioning.
One day, as I was sitting juvenile domestic relations court, another defense attorney leaned over to me and described this as "rich white kid syndrome." What he was talking about is the fact that the only people that seem to get diagnosed with this are kids who belong to upper-middle-class families and above. These kids get in trouble and their parents go out and hire a psychiatrist who diagnoses them with ODD. However, if you are a poor kid from the trailer park or from the slum apartments when you get in trouble you're just a bad kid. Nobody steps up with a diagnosis which calls being a bad kid a disorder.
2 comments:
Well rich or poor it’s always nice to have money. But does being poor mitigate your crime? After all we do have those wonderful PDs to look out for the interests of the underclass. As to IED, they better hope that I’m not on the jury because I won’t buy that as an excuse. Besides I don’t believe the 16 million figure anyway. Researchers, like kids will say the darndest things.
An important note in the DSM was left out of this description, to wit: "Consider a criterion met only if the behavior occurs more frequently than is typically observed in individuals of comparable age and developmental level."
At my agency we diagnose poor children with ODD routinely. But usually there's no forensic application.
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