Sociopathy, many experts agree, is a deficits disorder.
The sociopath, in this view, is missing something—things like empathy, remorse, and basic respect for the boundaries of others.
When you think of a deficit—something missing—you don’t necessarily think dire consequences.
You may think, instead, things like less”¦incomplete”¦limited.
For instance, the idea of intellectual deficit might spark the association, mental retardation.
Instead of invoking fear, this tends to elicit our understanding, even empathy. The mentally retarded individual is missing something that most of us have—a normal intellectual capacity. You think, this is unfortunate, for that person.
When you think of kids with attentional deficits, you’re likely to bring some extra patience toward the challenges their condition presents. Your accomodation is based on recognizing their behaviors as originating in a deficit.
When dealing with the Asperger’s Syndrome population, you understand their social inaptitude as arising from a neurologic difference. And so in responding to the Asperger individual’s peculiarities, you allow that he or she, on a social level, is operating with less than a full deck.
In general, when speaking of disorders of deficits, we tend, or at least try, not to take the consequences arising from the disorder personally. We recognize the deficit as something the person doesn’t ask for and, at best, struggles to control.
This isn’t to deny, or minimize, the impact of the individual’s difficult behaviors. But in locating that impact in a deficit, we can potentially experience it as less personally injurious.
Sociopathy, however, presents an interesting challenge in this regard. Research increasingly implicates brain differences in sociopaths. Sociopaths, we are learning, fail to experience and process certain emotions like nonsociopaths. Their capacity to learn from aversive consequences appears to be compromised. And they show evidence of certain enduring forms of attentional pathology, involving defective inhibitory and impulse control.
The sociopath, in a word, appears to be a psychologically handicapped individual.
Yet it’s hard to empathize with the sociopath, who himself lacks empathy. And how not to personalize his actions—actions that can cause so much personal pain? And how not to personalize that pain, even if it results from the sociopath’s deficits?
It brings to mind the concept of processing a vicious dog attack. The dog is vicious. It attacks you. It knows it is attacking you. We can even imagine that it knows, on a primitive level, that it is wounding you. The dog needs to be leashed, kept away from others. Improperly secured, it sees you walking down the street, primitively registering your vulnerability. And then it attacks, remorselessly.
While it’s true that we can ascribe to sociopaths (and not dogs) a capacity to evaluate their prey and plot their means of attack, we run the risk, I think, of giving the sociopath too much credit.
After all, if the sociopath’s deficits destine him to interpersonal exploitation, does his exploitation become personal simply by virtue of his capacity to plot it?
Sure, the vicious dog, unlike the sociopath, may lack calculation and plotting skills. But for all intents and purposes, unless locked-up, both will inevitably attack and/or violate. The vicious dog, if it doesn’t attack you, will attack someone else. And if you are lucky enough to escape the sociopath’s transgressions, someone else won’t be.
From this perspective, the sociopath’s deficits will take forms of interpersonal exploitation just as surely as the child with ADHD can be expected to obnoxiously disrupt others, heedless of their boundaries.
From this angle, it’s possible to construe the sociopath’s aggression as tantamount to a hurricane’s damaging your house. The wreckage may be great, and traumatic; but it is the wreckage, ultimately, of an irrepressibly violent, impersonal force.
Arguably, this defines the sociopath: an irrepressibly [interpersonally] violent, impersonal force.
We hope, through our awareness, prudence, and luck, never to suffer its destructiveness. But if less lucky, we can remind ourselves that the sociopath, in the final analysis, is about as pointless, worthless, and arbitrary as a natural disaster.
(My use of “he” in this article was for consistency’s sake, not to suggest that men have a patent on sociopathy. This article is copyrighted (c) 2008 by Steve Becker, LCSW.)
BloggerT7165
Yes Wini the bible also endorses what we today would consider criminal, even psychopathic acts:
Selling my daughter into Slavery – exodus 21:7
Killing anyone who works on the sabbath – exodus 35:2
Owning slaves – leviticus 25:44
And there are many more (Lev 19:19, Lev 24 10-16. Lev 20:14 and on and on) My point was that there is a level of subjectivity in this entire topic. I picked the bible to show how what was acceptable even in a holy book is no longer acceptable today. What was non-psychopathic and even non-criminal then would be called criminal and psychopathic by many today. That is one reason why straying into the whole “evil” thing can confue the issue even more.
Wini
BloggerT7165: Because they don’t want to stop their selfish greedy, self centered behaviors … that is why prison was invented. To have them read the Bible, go humble during their stay. We just didn’t realize … they would revert back to their greedy ways after they got out.
It’s all in conditioning. We conditioned ourselves to be positive in society … along with the help of society in itself … how our society is structured, the family, the churches, the schools … etc.
So have the selfish conditioned themselves into staying selfish all their lives. Why would they want to change? What’s in it for them to change … a prison cell? So what, they don’t look at prison like we do … they look at doing their time and they can’t wait to get released so they can go out and scam and con again to get their fix, of their greedy way.
So, I think the blogging should be “how, how, how … do you undo their conditioning of themselves from being selfish and greedy? Why would they care about what real love is? If they never had to truly experience it? Why would they care about being compassionate, if they never experienced it to feel compassion. The same with all God’s virtues.
The only thing I can think of is … step by step guiding them (spoon feeding them) what a righteous step is … why you need to do the work, how it feels for having done the work … step by step by step. At every level of a righteous step, have them reflect what they are learning … what they are experiencing … also allowing them to be patient (which they never learned being selfish … it’s always instant gratification with the likes of them) … etc.
Then after you retrain them … undo their own conditioning of themselves … then what? Do they like the new conditioned selves? Or, do they selfishly revert back to being greedy?
Peace.
BloggerT7165
It’s all in conditioning –
And I disagree completely. I have known some that come from very good backgrounds and there is zero indictation they were “conditioned” to be the way they were (psychopaths) and Hare has said the same thing. I have seen conditioning play out with sociopaths though.
People for many many years have tried your approach of how to undo it and failed. How do you undo having brown eyes? With sociopaths the “undo” has worked. With psychopaths it has not.
Steve Becker, LCSW
Janetf, I am sorry for your experience. One hopes that with websites like LoveFraud there can be a reduction, eventually, of cases in which sociopaths successfully pull the wool over others’ (and the system’s) eyes, leaving their victims to be blamed and left to pick up the pieces, too alone.
Wini
BloggerT7165: I never mentioned that anyone else but themselves did the conditioning. I said, they condition themselves due to their selfishness and greed. First, I think they start off with jealousy … being jealous of someone … then the jealousy turns in to selfishness and greed.
It’s perception in life … how do you want to perceive your life? Is the glass half full? Or is the glass half empty? Same with their perceptions. They are not idiots … they do this to themselves … except … they started at such a young and immature age … they had no clue what the ramifications of doing this to themselves would cause and what good experiences in life they would loose.
Peace. eventually
Wini
Correction … I’m typing to fast for the puter…
Same with their perceptions. They are not idiots ” they do this to themselves ” except ” they started at such a young and immature age ” they had no clue what the ramifications of doing this to themselves would cause and what good experiences in life they would eventually loose.
BloggerT7165
Again Wini I agree that sociopaths fall under what you are talking about. I do not agree that psychopaths do.
Wini
BloggerT7165: Why is that? Because we can’t fathom why the abyss of their depravity is so ingrained into their every fiber?
I just think psychos are the greediest of the greedy. I’m sure there are degrees of all the vices … give our EXs time with their greed … they’ll get to psycho level.
Peace.
Indigoblue
For sake of defintion could you tell me your difference between Sociopath and Psycopath ? A = red hair B = blond Hair C = brown hair :)~
BloggerT7165
Indi I am going to over simplify this to explain it.
A psychopath is born that way. They are a psychopath from day one. A sociopath is made. For instance a sociopath is someone who was not abusive or antisocial during childhood or adolescence (any more than any normal child/teen might be). But they may enter a gang and they then act in every way like a psychopath. But later if they escape the gang they often change and no longer could be considered a psychopath. A sociopath is made, a psychopath is born.
There is a lot more to it of course.