Pyromania

Individuals with this impulse-control disorder recurrently fail to resist impulses to deliberately start fires. They experience fascination with fire, its consequences and related activities. Setting the fires may provide relief or gratification related to tension experienced prior to the act.

Diagnostic criteria for 312.33 Pyromania

A. Deliberate and purposeful fire setting on more than one occasion. 

B. Tension or affective arousal before the act. 

C. Fascination with, interest in, curiosity about, or attraction to fire and its situational contexts (e.g., paraphernalia, uses, consequences). 

D. Pleasure, gratification, or relief when setting fires, or when witnessing or participating in their aftermath. 

E. The fire setting is not done for monetary gain, as an expression of sociopolitical ideology, to conceal criminal activity, to express anger or vengeance, to improve one's living circumstances, in response to a delusion or a hallucination, or as a result of impaired judgment (e.g., in DementiaMental RetardationSubstance Intoxication). 

F. The fire setting is not better accounted for by Conduct Disorder, a Manic Episode, or Antisocial Personality Disorder.

Reprinted with permission from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition, Text Revision. Copyright 2000 American Psychiatric Association

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