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.
I am forming my opinion based on Without Conscience and The Sociopath Next Door. Dr. Hare has studied psychopaths for a number of years and has never seen any type of therapy or medication help them to change their basic personality. If their condition was something that could be fixed, you’d think something would have worked by now. I really get the idea that something is missing. I don’t think it has to do with the size of the ego. I know many people with giant egos who are basically good people. I think it has more to do with what is missing. When you think about it, if someone does not suffer normal fears and anxieties, they will not have any sort of shyness or social phobias like many people have. This could make them appear very charming and outgoing. If someone didn’t think about emotions and relationships, this frees up a great deal of mental energy to think about how to manipulate others. I don’t think it’s any great feat of ego or charisma that makes them so different. I think it’s what they LACK that allows them to develop socially in a different way than others–a more self-serving one. The charm is part of their game.
I used to know a guy who was labeled as “idiot savant”. He was disabled by society’s standards. He could not have a normal conversation or hold a job. He was considered as developmentally disabled. Yet he knew the exact time of every stop light in San Francisco. He also could recite every cartoon from every New Yorker magazine going back 20 years! If you mentioned a name (for instance, “Reynolds”) he could recite every New Yorker cartoon that ever had the name Reynolds in it, even though he did not understand its meaning!! He is someone who just developed along a different pathway. Similarly, I think the sociopath develops on a different pathway than others due to the lack of emotional empathy. All that energy that we focus on relationships and relational thinking has to go somewhere! So it goes into the pursuit of power, sex, money, and control. With no holds barred, they can develop elaborate schemes. I think the general public is fascinated by psychopaths because we all have a part of us that wants to be free of social conditioning but we never act on it.
Again I agree with you Star. I just happen to be in the camp that believes there are sociopaths and there are psychopaths and they are different. I too have read Hare’s books as well as various research articles he has produced. I also have the benefit of actually having specific training and experience in working with/treating them.
I read the 1993 edition of Without Conscience. At the end of the book, Hare says he was developing a “treatment center” for psychopaths. But it is not based on the premise that they can be fixed or cured. It does not aim to teach them empathy, because he feels they will never attain that. It is more to teach them socially acceptable ways to get their needs met. I wonder what ever happened with this. BloggerT, do you know if this ever went into practice? Also, in your experience, do you use the Psychopathy Checklist?
I do not know if he ever developed a center or not. And no I do not use the checklist. I am no longer working with the population that I used to but I still keep up, as best I can, with the research and trainings and I still see a goodly number of them cross my path now but I do not see them for long term treatment like I used to.
StarG: The reason you or any of us don’t act on evil is because we were stopped when we were children, reprimanded and taught the righteous way what was the other option to what we did wrong. If no one knew that you did wrong … then you pat yourself on the back (your ego) that you got away with it (whatever it was at the time). As children, if you got away with one wrong, then naturally a child will try for the 2nd wrong and if they got away with that wrong … of course, they naturally want their own way to get away with the 3rd and 4th and so on and so forth wrongs. What started off as a game as a child who didn’t know all the ramifications for what they were doing … became their reality (their own conditioning so to speak) … if I just lie and say I did right .. no one questioned me, no one was the wiser, so why shouldn’t I do what I want to do?
Therefore, they got the rush of doing wrong, whatever wrong (vice) was. They didn’t learn the righteous way, they didn’t feel the good that flowed through our core when accomplishing something righteous … to live, learn and experience what it is that we learn when we were conducting a righteous act. Therefore, they don’t have the experience of what we learned and how we learned. They have the opposite … what is learned and felt or not felt by learning and experiencing what wrong (vice) was all about. That’s why they don’t have the initiative to change how they conditioned themselves to live. They don’t miss not feeling love, because they never experienced it by doing the righteous things in life that will allow you to feel love. How could they miss what they never experienced?
I still think that if they could trust someone to guide them through righteous acts to learn and experience the wisdom provided by doing righteous acts, they too would feel what we all feel. It’s just getting them to trust anyone is the constant road block and their stead fast resistance.
Besides, I’m telling you, they can’t do this on their own … to leave it to them to start making righteous decisions in life … that’s why they need to be incarcerated and spoon fed righteous wisdom to break down the unrighteous way they think and act. Not just giving them a Bible to read. Big deal, they read the Bible with their ego in tack … you need to be humble in order to comprehend the scriptures … if not, it’s all words on a page. They have to walk step by step through each righteous passage in life … to experience it themselves what it feels like. How great it feels.
Why do you think we continue to choose doing something righteously? Because it feels good when we do because we conditioned ourselves all our lives to feel these great experiences and we know, if we continue doing what is righteous … well feel great about it.
Peace.
Wini what about those that were not reprimanded and taught the righteous way what was the other option to what we did wrong and yet they turned out just fine?
And your suggestion about the spoon feeding has been tried before and has not been any more successful than any other approach. Star is right in that there is something missing. There is a genetic piece to this that “spoon feeding” just has not overcome. Not to mention that the bible does not cure or prevent psychopathy. Not to mention what do you do with those non-christian ones? And who decides what version of “righteousness” we spoon feed them? I am not trying to be offend anyone but psychopaths and religion are a bad mix. Not to mention empathy is not something you can teach though it can be learned. The same with being “humble”. You can’t force someone to be “humble”. People only change if they want to change. Another flaw is that it does not feel good to them when they help people.
BloggerT7165: We don’t live in a vacuum. Everyone watches TV, reads the papers, magazines etc. They are deciding what they want versus what they don’t want in their lives … through the media.
As far as spoon fed righteousness. I said it before, Tolle is on to how to quiet your ego and go silent, be still … to go in to the now. Going into the now is allowing a person to become humble again. That was the missing ingredient with the likes of them while trying to spoon feed them in the past. It was getting them to the now, the humble state of mind.
I don’t mention any one religion. I try to throw alot of different religions into the mix … I use the generic word of God … as in the creator. You can call God Joe for all I care.
Wini Robert Hare in is book Without Conscience (the 1993 version page 170) states “I can find no convincing evidence that psychopathy is the direct result of early social or environmental factors”.
Sorry Wini but on this you and I will just have to hold different views. I believe that what you suggest has been tried and has failed and will continue to do fail because it totally ignores the missing pieces.
Dr. Ian Pitchford stated “Psychopathy is not associated with low birth weight, obstetric complications, poor parenting, poverty, early psychological trauma or adverse experiences…”
Research is piling up more and more that agrees with what Star stated above.
BloggerT7165: I saw my middle sister consumed her thoughts and actions since she was a kid. She had the same parents as me. My parents couldn’t get through to her cause her ego clouded hearing or listening to any wisdom they had to relay. So, what did they do? Pulled me into the action when faulting her on anything … they would include me with the blame. Figuring I was closest in age with her and I was the sensitive child and she was the wild child … and I’d just naturally would convince or explain the overall picture to her at our young ages to knock it off. They told me this in my late 30s. I told them ghee thanks … I thought you two were nuts for doing all this, like what were you blind half the time or having DRS setting in early with all these joint reprimands … I mean, how did I get in the mix if I wasn’t even home when something with her happened. Then I told them I already figured out she was a bitch … but it would have been nice and easier on me if they told me at 10 or something. Instead of me thinking that the adults in my family were loosing it.
Just kidding. But, Thanks MOM and DAD for punishing me along with wing nut nut.
Funny thing about my wild child sister … she would never allow her own son to experience anything close to the beginning of what she experienced in life. Go figure?
I remember when my nephew was about 6 or 7 years old. He got picked on in school by some bullies verbally teasing him. He came home in tears and told his mom what happened. I just happened to stop over that day and my sister tells me the story. I didn’t say a word as she kept repeating “Wini, aren’t you listening to a word I am saying … kids can be so cruel and they picked on “so and so” in school. I just looked at her. She was getting so angry that I wasn’t upset and talking with her about what happened to my Godson. She repeated it again … don’t you care what happens to him, he’s your nephew. Finally, I told her and I said, I know how cruel some kids can be to other kids …YOU where one of those bully kids … you tormented me when we were kids … now that it happened to your own kid, it sinks in how cruel it is. Oh, heavens, will wonders never cease. I wished she had two children to understand why she hates me so much … and how as a mom, she had to split her time and love with both children, not just one. But, I couldn’t be that lucky.
Peace.
Peace.
Hello,
This is my first time at lovefraud. I was lurking the web and I found this place.
I like to comment on “More confusion over antisocial personality disorder, sociopathy and psychopathy”.
Please excuse my grammar and my volcabulary.
First I will introduce myself. My nic, Dissociate, is what I am. I have Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID). I was inflicted with this disorder at an early age. A Sociopath “gone psychopath” had caused this disorder infliction.
I understand Sociopath behavior like I know the palm of my hand. In fact during prior hospitalizations the doctors I had were like students when it came to learning about Sociopath behavior from me. I was their teacher and they believed every word I told them.
Let me explain the differences of antisocial personality disorder, sociopathy and psychopathy with brief definings. My grammar stinks so I don’t want to write lengthy so in order to not confuse and bore anybody.
Sociopath: At approximately age nine, a child when under severe mental stress will begin to Manifest. Manifest meaning the child will create it’s own man made thoughts and reasonings. Manifestation is in sense a naturally produced phenomenom which allows the subject to produce their own kind of thoughts and reasonings in order to combat life’s stressful obstacles. But the side affects of Manifestation in a crude description are that the subject will lose some of their natural given scruples. Empathy and remorse for example. A Sociopath can be considered as being a normal human being to a degree. To a degree meaning they are seedy in nature. Liars, greedy, selfish, charmers in order to either maintain friendships or to use people for personal gain, etc. Simply put it, Socios suck!
Psychopath: To describe psychopath behavior I will use my own disorder to explain what a psychopath is. Individuals inflicted with Dissociative Disorders, when they come under stress or a danger lets say, they will “trigger” and begin to dissociate. With a Sociopath, when something angers or startles them they will become psyched due to excitement and will become psychopaths.
The similarities between a Dissociate and a Psychopath are almost simular but there is a difference. A Dissociate can become violent but only for survival and protective reasons. In defining a Dissociate is an angel. But a Psychopath will become violent due to either anger or simply for the thirst of wanting to hurt somebody. In defining a Psychopath is a criminally insane person.
Personality Disorder: This term can be used in order to correlate Sociopath/Psychopath forms of behavior in with another disorder or illness while the subject is not actually a Sociopath/Psychopath. A person with Bipolar Disorder while under stress may mentally condition themselves to having Sociopath/Psychopath behavior. They become cranky around the clock people lets say. But because it is a mental conditioning the subject can be cured of their Personality Disorder behavior. A Sociopath though is practically impossible to be cured due to Manifestation.
Okay, I’m finished here.