Psychiatric Illness and Female Criminality: The Role of Sociopathy and Hysteria in the Antisocial Woman
C. ROBERT CLONINGER M.D.1, and
SAMUEL B. GUZE M.D.2
1 Assistant resident in psychiatry, Barnes and Renard Hospitals and the Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, Mo.
2 Professor of psychiatry, Washington University School of Medicine, and associate psychiatrist, Barnes and Renard Hospitals, 4940 Audubon Ave., St. Louis, Mo. 63110
A systematic psychiatric study was carried out with a group of convicted women felons. All the women received at least one psychiatric diagnosis. Sociopathy, alcoholism, drug dependency. hysteria, and homosexuality were encountered more frequently than would be expected in the general female population. Sociopathy or hysteria was found in 80 percent; a 20 times greater prevalence of hysteria than is found in the general population was the most striking finding. The results of this study confirm other work suggesting that there is a significant association between sociopathy and hysteria.
