Problem
I. An older couple has decided to adopt after failed attempts to conceive a child naturally. The adoption service has just discovered that the child this couple is interested in adopting is the offspring of a notorious psychopath.
i. Should the adoptive parents be informed of this information? Why or why not?
ii. Would you want to know this information if your parents planned to adopt a child or in the future you decided to adopt?
iii. If the couple decided to continue with the adoption, as a clinician what would you suggest to maximize the chance for the child to have a "normal" life and minimize the chance for the child to follow in the biological parent's footsteps as a psychopath?
iv. How would revealing this "dark secret" hinder the child?
v. Develop a short prevention plan to target potential psychopathology with children born to psychopaths.
II. Respond to the following question as we start review of atypical sexual behavior:
"What justifies the classification of a source of sexual pleasure or a type of sexual activity as a mental disorder?"
I just want you to think a moment about how we classify behavior as atypical (out of the ordinary) vs. disordered (when we would intervene or try to make a person stop).
This can be controversial when we are talking about sexuality - at what point would we consider a sexual behavior disordered?
Again, this is just to get conversation going! No pressure to be completely right.
How do we say a behavior is disordered? What leads us to that conclusion?