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.)
Dear STeve Becker:
It is kind of a “catch 22” thing I think with the psychopaths. First off, I agree with you, they have a “missing” something that doesn’t let them interact with “normal” people in the “normal” way. Given that, are they, like a scitzophrenic who is “out of touch with reality” UNABLE to distinguish right from wrong and not be held accountable for their actions? Or, because they do know “right from wrong” be held accountable?
I agree with you about viscious animals (dog or any other animal) not being allowed to hurt either other animals or humans. What about the viscious humans? I’ve never had any problem putting down a viscious animal because it was threatening to me or others, because in raising animals I know that temperment tends to breed pretty true and an animal that is aggressive is likely to have aggresive offspring, so I have “culled” my cow herd and other kinds of animals by temperment more than anything else.
Since I am not allowed to “cull” the human race of these viscious humans, and most countries even no longer practice the death penalty—how are they to be dealt with? I also realize that there are wide variations in the violence even among psychopaths, some are financial or emotional monsters and others are serial killers and everything in between.
I can’t put down every viscious animal in the world, and I can’t do that with the viscious humans either, so the only recourse I see is for me (the universal “me”) to learn to recognize the signs and symptoms of this “disorder” early on in the relationships I have in my life so that I can protect myself from being “bitten.” Visicious dogs are not always identifiable by sight, or ones that are unpredictable are not always easily identifiable either, but you learn to watch for the signs that a dog might attack and to keep yourself safe from them until you know the dog’s capabilities and tendencies. I think it behooves us to learn the RED FLAGS of the psychopath and to learn to protect ourselves in intimate relationships by exclusing people who show tendencies toward this kind of disordered behavior.
Steve Becker: The spare the rod, spoil the child was meant as a tool of discipline used by a wise parent, not a fool for a parent. Hence, why you have neglectful, loveless fools that became sperm donors and egg carriers.
That’s why government stepped in and had to put all the control for ALL parents … for the cases that some foolish parents used their anger to rage and destroy a child with so-called punishments.
Peace.
OxDrover the ones I have interacted with all knew the difference between right and wrong. But it is hard to explain it. It is kind of like this. Do you ever break the speed limit when you are driving? If so do you know it is wrong? But you do it anyway right? Now of course there is a huge difference between that and the “wrongs” that a psychopath does.
But thats just it, to them there is no difference and they will in fact point that out in what seems like a flawed logic. Funny thing is I was just today watching a video of an inmate interview and he made the statement of what is a worse sin, stealing a cracker or killing someone? They are both equal in God’s eyes he said.
And that is it, its not just bs they are pushing they really do think this way. So I do not feel guilt or remorse for breaking the speed limit so why would I for doing X…
That is the best I can think of right now to explain how they have thought.
BloggerT7165: Remember, their egos are humongous backing their logic in how they think and what they want to get away with.
And, they do know right from wrong … they just don’t care about doing wrong, cause they know they don’t want to be caught … hence, the masks they wear. When they are caught … they just lie and deny, deny, deny … until there is something in it for them to tell you the truth. Hence, why there are court deals made with these jerks… or should the real word I should be using is fools?
Peace.
We (humans) we a difference in the character and the consequences of “sin” (as defined by “any wrong act=sin”) where God may or may not see a difference in “degrees” of wrong doing.
Yet, the Bible in Proverbs 4 says tht a man who steals because he is hungry must have a consequence (repaying several times what he stole) he is more excused than the man who steals when he is not hungry.
We (society of humans) see stealing $5 worse than stealing $1 or stealing any amount as less bad than killing a person. We see killing “in self defense” as not wrong, but pre-meditated murder as worse than killing someone in a fight but not intending to kill them (manslaughter). We (society) also take into consideration the MOTIVE for what “sin” (crime) is committed. The likelyhood of the crime being repeated, etc. the amount of damage done to the victim.
Sometimes our laws and punishments for crimes don’t seem to “fit the crime” very well though, and sometimes there are worse injuries to people than killing them, remember the little girl that was raped, her hands cut off and her body (alive) thrown into a ditch? She lived through all that and her attacker was only in prison aobut 10 years if I remember correctly. To me, what he did was 100x worse than if he had killed her as far as the punishment he should have received.
Rogers Hall of the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences at Little Rock, AR houses the criminally insane and violent offenders in ARkansas. People who have killed (or worse) and are deemed too dangerous to release into society. They are not in prison, per se, but they are held under prison-like conditions of security for the safety of the community and the safety of themselves.
It’s a shame that more psychopaths are not also housed for the safety of society in such institutions.
I can’t explain it well in this medium. I agree Ox, what I am trying to convey is how some of them think/feel. I know it is not my ego nor do I feel anything when I break the speed limit even though it is breaking a law. That same thought/feeling set is similar to what the ones I have interacted with have described to me. hopefully that makes sense
BloggerT7165: Work back through your theory and you will come to the reasonings of why they do what they do. They condition themselves to do evil. Starting with the very first offense… that of lying to their caregivers as children. They got away with the lie. It felt great, no one was the wiser … so off and on to bigger and better deceptions and their egos gave them the pat on their backs.
Peace.
I agree with you Oxy, but the psychos lie so well and the courts fall for their deceptions as truthful.
Peace.
Yes, OxDrover, I agree with you…the key is developing good radar, good antennae as the best means of protecting ourselves from exploiters. The thrust of many of my prior posts has addressed this subject. You are also wise to note that many sociopaths are not violent in the classic sense of violent; but violent or not, they are prone to violating others with an alarming absence of empathy and remorse. And, yes, WINI, I appreciate you didn’t mean “sparing the rod” literally, and you are right to wonder about the impact of extremely neglectful parenting on psychopathic development.
Steve Becker: A few summers ago I was with friends walking through a famous rose garden. It was a beautiful day to enjoy with close friends … good conversations, mutual respect. We were walking along and all of a sudden, the two young moms (late teens or early 20s) were pushing their baby carriages and had youngsters at their sides walking with them. All of a sudden, one of the young mom’s starts hitting, putting all her weight and hitting in anger her oldest child, who must have been 3 or 4 years old. I was walking right behind her … and automatically, I grabbed her arm in mid air before she could hit that child again. She looked up at me and I said to her in a very peaceful tone of voice “how would you like it if someone my size started beating you out of anger? She was so startled … she didn’t say a word, her eyes just opened up very wide and she never hit that child again (as far as I know) … both young moms just looked at all of us. As we all said “have a great day”. I said, enjoy and love the gift of your child that God gave you.
Peace.