John W. DenBoer, MA, PhD¹, Frederick L. Coolidge, PhD², Daniel L. Segal, PhD³, & Sean Ahlmeyer, MA⁴,
^1,2,3Department of Psychology, The University of Colorado at Colorado Springs (Colorado Springs, CO, USA).
⁴Colorado State Department of Corrections (Colorado Springs, CO, USA).

Abstract
The present study examined the personality and neuropsychological correlates of convicted male and female sex offenders. The investigators measured DSM-IV-TR psychopathology and neuropsychological dysfunction among rapists and child molesters using the Coolidge Axis II Inventory, a valid and reliable assessment instrument. Male child molesters displayed significantly higher Apathy scores than age-matched male controls. Male non-sexual offenders scored significantly higher than male child molesters, rapists, and controls on Histrionic Personality Disorder, Impulsivity, and Disinhibition. Female child molesters reported significantly elevated levels of psycho and neuropathology when compared to female non-offenders. Specifically, female child molesters reported greater Language Problems and Executive Dysfunction, along with greater levels of Psychoticism and Paranoia, when compared to female controls. The implications of these findings are discussed.
Key Words: personality, neuropsychology, sexual offenders, executive dysfunction, child molestation, rape.

Dr. Scott B. Patten, MD, PhD, Associate Professor, Departments of Community Health Sciences and Psychiatry, Faculty of Medicine, University of Calgary, Calgary, AB.

Introduction
The term depression can refer either to an emotion, such as sadness, or to a set of depressive disorders. As an emotion, depression is a universal experience, which likely explains why people naturally understand feelings of depression, on an intuitive level, as a reaction to undesirable life events. However, intuition tends not to be clinically useful for depressive disorders, and can even act as a barrier to effective communication and clinical decision-making. Of course, when depression really does represent a non-pathological reaction to a negative life event, empathic and intuitive understanding is completely appropriate, but a mental disorder should not be diagnosed in these circumstances. It is critical to be able to distinguish normal emotional reactions from the potentially dangerous and usually destructive manifestations of depressive disorders. This distinction is particularly important in the elderly, who may experience a variety of losses such as financial security, health and loved ones. Bereavement in relation to such losses may be normal and adaptive, whereas the emergence of a mood disorder--even if triggered by such events--is typically destructive and can be dangerous.

It is often difficult for patients and physicians to understand the distinction between normal or adaptive forms of depression and depressive disorders.