What are the common mental health diagnoses found in individuals who commit sexual acts with animals?

1. What the manuals say: a diagnostic footnote, not a discrete illness

The American Psychiatric diagnostic framework does not give “zoophilia” a separate, well‑defined entry: DSM‑5 places sexual interest in animals in the residual category “Other Specified Paraphilic Disorder,” and only qualifies it as a disorder when it produces significant distress or functional impairment ^[1]. Scholarly reviewers note that the term itself is problematic across DSM editions and that clinical categorization remains limited and imprecise ^[3].

2. Forensic literature reframes the question around paraphilia and risk

Forensic psychiatry papers treat human–animal sexual activity primarily as a paraphilic phenomenon relevant to forensic evaluation, sentencing, and public policy rather than as a reliably comorbid psychiatric syndrome with a uniform set of diagnoses ^[2]. Legal responses vary widely and much of the forensic discussion centers on how to classify and criminalize acts rather than on systematic psychiatric comorbidity data ^[2].

3. Typologies exist, but they are classificatory, not epidemiological

Researchers such as Aggrawal have proposed multi‑tier classifications (a 10‑class system) that attempt to differentiate “role players” and “exclusive” zoophiles and to map degrees of deviance; these systems collapse many behaviors under the umbrella diagnosis of Paraphilia Not Otherwise Specified or Other Specified Paraphilic Disorder–Zoophilia ^[2]. Such typologies are descriptive tools for clinicians and medicolegal practitioners and do not, by themselves, establish common co‑occurring psychiatric diagnoses across cases ^[2].

4. What is known — and what is not — about comorbidity

Available sources emphasize the scarcity of systematic research into mental‑health comorbidity among people who have sexual contact with animals; they do not present a concise list of “common” coexisting psychiatric disorders tied to these behaviors ^[2]. Scholarly commentary warns against overgeneralizing from case reports and medicolegal samples because those groups are likely to be atypical and subject to selection biases ^{[3] [2]}.

5. How law, ethics and limited clinical data shape perception

Because many jurisdictions treat bestiality as a criminal act, cases that reach clinicians often do so within forensic contexts, which skews available data toward criminalized or litigated instances rather than community prevalence ^[2]. Commentary in forensic journals highlights that legal categorization and sentencing goals can drive clinical attention more than efforts to build robust epidemiologic profiles ^{[3] [2]}.

6. Implications for clinicians, policymakers and the public

Clinicians should use DSM guidance: diagnose only when there is distress or impairment and place presentations within other specified paraphilic disorders while remaining mindful that current knowledge about typical comorbidities is limited ^[1]. Policymakers and advocates should note that much discussion in the literature is about classification, legality and risk management; available sources do not supply clear, population‑level psychiatric comorbidity statistics to justify broad clinical generalizations ^[2].

Limitations: available sources do not report systematic studies enumerating the common psychiatric diagnoses among people who commit sexual acts with animals; much of the literature is classificatory or legal in nature rather than epidemiologic ^{[3] [1] [2]}.