A QualitativeStudy of the Causes and Consequences of Psychopaths based on the experience of their Companion

Passing from mechanical and psychophysical approaches to social psychophysical approach, psychological diseases have been considered as a multi-aspect phenomenon and a cultural-social issue. This research aims to study and discover mental and conceptual implications of experience and perception of families having mental patients using a social interpretation approach. Data of this qualitative study were collected through semi-structured interviews, and for data analysis grounded theory method is used. Using theoretical and purposive sampling, 19 family members of mental patients were interviewed and finally collected data were analyzed in the framework of 18 pivotal categories and one core category. Based on study results, those interviewed considered mental patients the result of different conditions and backgrounds such as history of mental diseases, family disintegration, painful experiences, economic problems and abnormal behaviors and dissolution of support systems. Attendants in confrontation with presence of mental patients in the family resort to different reactions based on acceptance or non-acceptance of the mental patients, in a range from concealing, negating to accepting the disease and attempt for treatment. Conceptual reconstruction of experience and perception of patients’ families indicate the abnormality of mental illness, isolation and loneliness, as well as criticality of mental disease. Based on this study, presence of a mental patient has led to consequences such as stigma, fear of stigma, derision, self-desired social isolation, financial stress and family disintegration for patients’ relatives.