spineless sadism

spineless sadism (uncountable)

1. (historical, psychiatry) One of the four subtypes of sadistic personality disorder as defined by the american psychiatrist Theodore Millon. Includes features of avoidant personality disorder

• Sadistic personality disorder was introduced in DSM-III-R and removed in DSM-IV. personality disorder not otherwise specified may be used instead.
• Any individual with sadistic personality disorder may exhibit either one of the following somewhat different subtypes (Note that Millon believes it is rare for a personality with one pure variant, but rather a mixture of one major variant with one or more secondary variants):

• tyrannical sadism
• enforcing sadism
• explosive sadism