Law and disorders

We have no body armour, no air cover, no weapons—only our wits to protect us. General practice is door to door, street fighting medicine. Personality disorders are our stock in trade. The dependent, the paranoid, the histrionic, the borderline—we jolly them along, not responding to their ill placed health anxieties. Our job is to keep them away from the vortex of secondary care investigation that would only feed their introspection.

One group of patients, however, is different: those with antisocial personality disorder, defined by …