Case report: the mask of sanity

The antisocial personality seems unable to learn from his experiences that he continues to repeat his impulsive behavior even if it leads to legal prosecution. The antisocial personality cannot fully realize that what he does is actually socially unacceptable or dangerous, or that he has any responsibility to society to control his behavior. Quite often he cannot stop himself or control his unconscious impulses regardless of his supposed good intentions and the impending punishment to be inflicted upon him. RR, a 31 -year old male from Metro Manila has been in and out of jail because of multiple robberies. He was referred for psychiatric evaluation due to difficulty sleeping, restlessness, hallucinations and delusions of persecution. During therapy RR was deceitful, manipulative and without insight or remorse for his wrongdoing. He rationalized his stealing, cheating, gambling, hurting or killing of people and substance abuse. RR came to the sessions only upon court order without any intention to change or conform to societys laws and despite a confrontational stance, remained in denial, rationalized his actions and gained no insight.

Knowledge, perceptions and attitudes towards wife abuse among third year medical students in Manila, SY 1998-99

Objective: This paper aims to determine the knowledge, perceptions and attitudes of 3rd year medical students towards violence against women. Methods: A descriptive cross sectional survey was conducted among 224 third year medical students of 3 medical schools in Metro Manila using the pre-tested and validated Knowledge, Attitudes & Perceptions Towards Violence Against Women (KAP- VAW) questionnaire for health professionals. Results: Only the more obvious physical signs of injury were associated with the more readily identifiable forms of abuse- physical and sexual- while subjective somatic complaints, mental and psychological signs and symptoms were less likely associated with VAW. Verbal and economic abuse were hardly known forms of abuse. The more commonly perceived reason for a woman to remain in an abusive relationship was due to her emotional dependence, while a variety of negative characteristics were enumerated to explain the abusive husbands behavior- egotism, sadism, insecurity and jealousy. Despite the fact that almost all the students (99.2 percent) expressed a positive attitude towards the abused woman, only 24.8 percent felt they were ready to actually handle such cases. Conclusion: Although medical students were aware of the impact of violence against women and seemed eager to learn more while in medical school, there was some hesitancy in actually managing such cases as they felt they didnt know enough, thus it is highly recommended that the medical curriculum include training modules on wife abuse.