This semester I taught both Forensic Psychology and Abnormal Psychology at the University of Bridgeport. The students there are an ethnically diverse group and I think are fairly representative of America’s young adult population. In both classes we discussed those individuals who have a “a pervasive pattern of disregard for and violation of the rights of others.” I wrote antisocial personality disorder, sociopathy and psychopathy on the blackboard before we began our discussion. I then asked the students if they had heard of these terms and if they could tell me the definitions.
Only a small percentage had heard the term antisocial personality disorder, nearly everyone had heard the word sociopath, about a third had heard the word psychopath.
The next question to the students was, “What do all these terms mean?” Someone asked if antisocial personality referred to a person that didn’t like to be around others. Someone else said that psychopaths are “out of touch with reality, psychotic.” Most who heard the word sociopath associated it with criminality.
The students were shocked to discover that all three terms basically refer to the same disorder.
That same week, I spoke with an internet search expert. He told me that the term antisocial personality disorder is searched through Google about 5,000 times per day. The term psychopath is searched 60,000 times per day and the term sociopath is searched 110,000 times per day. These numbers are consistent with my survey of university students. My findings indicate that the American Psychiatric Association has done the public a great disservice with their boggled naming of the disorder.
An interesting historical fact is that this disorder used to be called “moral insanity.” Insanity is a legal term that indicates that due to mental defect a person is not responsible for his/her actions. Although many people believe that the morally insane have a mental (brain)defect there is considerable resistance to saying this absolves them of responsibility for their criminal acts.
This week we discussed the case of John W. Hinckley, Jr. the man who shot President Reagan and Mr. Brady, he was found not guilty by reason of insanity and committed to a mental hospital. A psychiatrist for the prosecution, Dietz testified that Hinckley viewed his actions on March 30 as successful. “It worked,” Hinckley told Dietz in an interview. “You know, actually, I accomplished everything I was going for there. Actually, I should feel good because I accomplished everything on a grand scale….I didn’t get any big thrill out of killing–I mean shooting–him. I did it for her sake….The movie isn’t over yet.” In short, Deitz saw Hinckley as a sociopath who was grandiose and trying to impress Jody Foster with his actions, though I believe he actually diagnosed him with borderline personality.
I reflected to the class that it seems that individuals like Hinckley and Dahmer (the serial killer) should be considered special cases of sociopathy and not lumped with the rest. There are sociopaths who are so grandiose and obsessed with power that they seem to lose touch with reality. Not that they are schizophrenic and have delusions or hallucinations, but their interpretations of the world cannot be construed as “normal.”
This is actually where the term “borderline” came from, as is used today to refer to “borderline personality.” The borderline is some point between neurotic and psychotic-borderline psychotic actually. So perhaps we could consider psychopaths those sociopaths who are so afflicted that their thinking and behavior indicate they have lost their grip on reality. Some psychiatrists do think of psychopaths as the worst sociopaths.
Should those with moral insanity who commit crimes be treated differently than others? Should John Hinckley be released now that he has been judged not psychotic? These are questions for another week.
See also:
https://lovefraud.com/blog/2006/07/30/confusion-about-sociopaths-pyschopaths-and-antisocials/
If you have a personal example of a sociopath’s “loose grip on reality” please share it with us in a comment.
Thank you Jen. I was a little worried there so I went and added that to the post that it was a compound fracture so folks can know what I mean when I say obviously broken. 🙂
BloggerT7165: You said it just fine … I just found how you write, very comical. Most comedians came from a horrific family. So, you are probably used to your humor and can’t see it … I can, it’s all through your writing. Plus, I have a very dry sense of humor.
I hear what you are saying. I had a co-worker … who actually wrote to the editor of our city paper when a famous murder happened in our state. The young teenager that had her boyfriend murder her mother … the mom actually worked with us.
Anyway, my co-worker wrote to the editor and blah, blah, blah how these kids today, no respect … and how they don’t appreciate what their single moms do for them today … blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Well, I wrote the editor and told him that I worked with the woman that wrote the letter to him, and pretty soon, this woman too will be on the front page when her pre-teen daughter grows up and has enough of her nasty abuse and knocks her lights out.
This woman too, was a walking PDR … she knew more than the physicians.
Actually, she’s the one that turned me on to Lowen’s book “Narcissism, Denial of the True Self” … she knew exactly what my first roller coaster was all about … so years after we broke up … she hands me the book to read. I read it and said, that’s it … that’s what he’s all about. She said “I know”. I said “if you knew, why didn’t you give me the book earlier”? She said “because Wini, you get everything you want, and I thought you needed to suffer for a while”!
True story. So, I do know.
Peace.
Jen2008: I don’t drink, nor do drugs … boo -hoo. This is me, naturally. I just have a very warped, dry sense of humor.
Actually, I can find humor in most things … even what happened to me.
Peace.
Actually Jen2008: It’s a Catholic sense of humor. Do you know, I can actually tell a Catholic boy (man) that went to Catholic school … for his sarcastic humor?
Yup.
Thanks Wini. I did not realize it showed through but you are right. I tend to use humor a lot in my life and think it was something that helped me understand life and to laugh at the absurdity of it all and just how funny, in a morbid kind of way, this all was for me.
BloggerT7165: I knew I saw the humor, it wasn’t just me. I wasn’t laughing at you, I was laughing with you … the way you phrase your pain.
Which is a good thing … to keep your sense of humor. That’s what I missed the most going through the suit with my bosses. I missed joking around all the time … which was natural for me to pass the time away. Actually, my friend and co-worker that split when she saw our boss go after me? She used to make me laugh, just how she said good morning to me. She was naturally funny … and we’d crack up all day long … which pissed our boss of to no ends… cause the witch had no sense of humor … what so ever.
That’s why I thought she originally went after me … was to wipe that smile off my face permanently.
Peace.
You are right it wasn’t just you. I looked at then and now how funny, in a morbid way, it all was. Now it may not seem funny to others but to me some of it was quite funny. Like the time she wanted to teach me a lesson and so she burnt my hand on the stovetop burner. That was not so funny bt what was funny was how mad she was because until it healed and the bandages came off I could not do some of the chores I usually did and she had to do them which made her even more upset. Stomping around the house, pouting and grousing about having to do this extra work. Just seeing it made it funny. At least it was funny to me anyway 🙂
BloggerT7165: Oooooooohhhhhh, she really crossed over the line with you. Yes, God does twist it around on them. Just like when my boss went after me … at first she demoted me … then she made me sit and rot for months … doing absolutely nothing for 8 hours a day/5 days a week. Every minute was like an hour. It was excruciating. Then, because she did this … she had to pull another staff to complete my work. They couldn’t do it all … so she had to recruit another. Same thing … so there were 3 or 4 people doing my job … and then they complained. So, no matter what she did to me and yanked work away from me, it took her 3 or 4 other staff to do what she needed to be done.
So they do get it back. Look at Sante, her own son sold her out … she never expected that. She really thought blood was thicker than anything out there …
I still say, they are the most selfish, self centered, self absorbed people in the world. The world revolves around them, them, them … no clue that their are other people in the world besides them. If someone had burned her hand on the stove, believe me, she would have shouted to the roof tops … plus, you’d never hear the end of the story, she’d repeat it every where she went. They’re like that. They do so much abuse to everyone … then if someone does them wrong … they’re the first one’s to cry over anything … and do the squeaky wheel routine.
I’m sorry about all the abuse you had to endure. I didn’t mean to make light of it … just that you had a humorous way you wrote about it.
Peace.
I agree with you Wini that they are selfish, self centered, self absorbed and the world revolves around them. I think yoou and I just disagree on why they are that way. And then we still agree on that even except I think that there is a one group called psychopaths who are that way for a different reason than sociopaths are. And no worries Wini I did not think you were making light of anything.
Well BloggerT7165: If they find out it is a missing gene, I’ll agree with it. But, as of this writing, no one is putting an absolute to why they are the way they are.
I just go from the old fashion logic of thinking that they are conditioned that way … whether it was family environment for the way out there ones like Sante and her youngest son … or they conditioned themselves and it has nothing to do with family … it has to do with how they perceive an infraction (a reprimand as a youngster). The Ego is incredible … and when you see how Big these characters egos get (and I know you have an insight into this … having a front row seat to witness your mom in action) … it’s incredible. I was always floored with the folks that couldn’t see, couldn’t comprehend what I was saying to them. It wasn’t until later, when they showed their big egos … that I understood .. they couldn’t give up the kinship with the idiots I was referring to. Big egos don’t always have to act out you know … some internalize it … it’s reversed for them … the martyr complex going on with them … but big egos just the same.
I don’t know if it’s a mixture of my parents’ common sense, my aunts and uncles common sense, the catholic school nuns and priests, my other schools and teachers .. but, none of these folks would let my ego get carried away. Either that, or I’m just born sensitive. Hey, maybe they should do a survey on us … then work from there (LOL).
Just a thought.