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.
Wini, I agree with you. I was saying that “normal” (or people not disordered) fear the law. I don’t think sociopaths are motivated by anything but pure selfishness and person greed.
To try to boil it down to simplest terms is so hard because it seems so complicated sometimes. It seems odd to me that they go to the lengths they do….lie, cheat, steal, even kill, simply for attention and power and personal gain.
Tell me this, what about their children? The XP I knew overindulged his adult daughters. They are both badly behaved. One was in drug rehab and eventually finished high school and had been arrested for theft, the other was married for a short time and he still supported her but told him she only got married because he made her so insecure by leaving her (he left her mother but whatever). They manipulate each other, threaten to and discard each other constantly. They fight for his attention? What happens with that? It seems that would be more than the psychopath would want to deal with…. but he thinks they are the best things since sliced bread. Whenever we were with us they were embarrassing to me in their behavior and appearance. They were not nice girls. What happens in that kind of relationship? It was emotionally incestuous with his older daughter.
keeping_faith: My EX’s 2 daughters have NO CONTACT with their father now (or that I know of since 2006). The youngest always had contact with him … but was going over to Europe to study last time I saw her (the day of her grandmother’s funeral).
His EX-wife had joint custody of the children. The youngest lived with her mom when I met my EX. His Ex wife never talked with me. She said 2 sentences to me in her life … when she met me she said “You must be Wini”… and then the next time she spoke with me was at her EX mother-in-law’s wake when she came over to her Ex husband and I and gave her condolences to both of us, for the loss of his mother … she said “Wini, I’m sorry for your loss”. I always asked her step mom to have her contact me … but this fell on deaf ears with his Ex-wife.
The youngest (who was probably 19 or 20 at the time of her grandmother’s funeral came over to her dad and me at the wake. Gave her dad hugs and kisses and hung on to him for a while at the wake. The oldest refused to acknowledge her father and I have never had a conversation with the oldest daughter. The oldest was in college when I met their father.
I witnessed the EX wife pulling my Ex in and out of court. His view of what his Ex was doing … typical stuff, she’s not satisfied that the guy she dated before our marriage ended … didn’t marry her … her life didn’t work out the way she planned. She wants more money than the child support every month … which I would see him write checks to her every month.
So, I just assumed the oldest daughter took sides with the mom against her dad for being divorced and no longer living in the family unit.
The youngest daughter would always be with us different days or nights of the week. She’d split weekends with her mom, weekends with us. She enjoyed any sport or activities we did. My Ex doted on the youngest … she was 10 years old, I believe when I met her.
Of course, now I know everything was a lie and a con.
My EX was very good at manipulating any situation to make him look like the victim. Whether his EX was just victimized or knows about her and my EX, I have no clue. I suspect she doesn’t since she gained an enormous amount of weight, which happens when women are unhappy about something in their life that have no control over. It’s an inward destruction pattern.
Peace.
Wini,
It sounds then like the XP will basically dote over their offspring as long as they are giving them what they need in return????
He had at leat one affair that I know of prior to his divorce and recently I learned that he lied to me about that relationship too. I sense that the whole family is either dysfunctional or disordered or just psychologiacally a mess form life with him….. he insisted the wife was an alcoholic and abusive but I don’t believe that either. I DO believe she doesn’t know what she was dealing with and may have just looked the other way when he lied or cheated….. I think some people DO live like that.
Maybe eventually the daughters will see the light and not turn their heads but none of them (even as adults) seem to care about the embarrassment they cause. they just do what he has done…..BLAME EVERYONE ELSE. If they had any sense for the lies he is telling about himself I think they would reject him. But then again, who knows? He and his x had a constant power struggle over the daughters and each threatened the other that they would never see their daughters and grandchildren but quite honestly….. I think to the P I was with, he just wants to win that arguement with the x wife and cares LESS about his daughters.
keeping_faith: I know my EX has never paid his child support payments. Yes, he wrote checks to her ever month, but he never mailed them to her. He did this to show me he was a decent, good guy.
He borrowed $15,000 from me to pay the entire amount of back and future child support payments. Told me the money was in escrow … all a lie. He bought himself 2 horses, one for him and one for his other fiance. 2 saddles, a rinker boat, a new Ford Explorer for his other fiance … wined and dined her on my credit cards that went to my address down in GA. Stopped paying the mortgage the same time I filed my lawsuit against my managers.
Was he in collusion with my bosses to make me look like a derelict with the court … look your honor, this women has bilked up her credit cards, had her house foreclosed, her truck was almost repossessed … what a derelict this woman is suing our managers? Or, did he take advantage of the lawsuit I was engrossed with … and do this on his own? He’s bright enough? But, he did have business cards in his attache case of one of my managers? His grandparents farm where he grew up is next to another supervisor’s parents farm … 7 houses away … before the new houses were built, they are next door neighbors?
So, I don’t know the answer yet … I have to sit back and watch when TRUTH floats to the top.
Peace.
EWEEEEEEEEE Wini, I am so sorry. The P I dealt with makes up all kinds of stories about himself. We were building a home together. HE pressured me to put my house on the market. Luckily I didn’t. There hasn’t been a big financial loss to me but he lied, cheated and he can be prosecuted for the lies he told about himself. He tried the smear campaign with my friends and worked hard to “win” one couple we were friends with. He is now their neighbor. he lives there with his young girlfriend’s brother who was in prison recently for almost beating a man to death…..NOT MY LIFESTYLE or the kind of people I want to subject my children to.
But the P is such a decent guy…..you know, helping the hardened criminal get on his feet and all that good stuff. They are living in the house we started building… a $600,000 home (now a halfway house I think LOL and I’m sure the neighbors love that). He wanted a big home (five bedrooms and five full baths) so that his daughters could come there and live whenever they wanted. (God help me). Basically he admitted he wanted this big house to piss off his x wife. But I don’t think he can afford it on his own so maybe that greed will get him what he deserves……can you say bankrupt? I don’t think his x stripper/bartender girlfriend who is unemployed will be able to help him.
This bizarre relationship and all the drama lasted about two years. I’m still trying to forgive myself for allowing all of this to happen. I’m still having a hard time sometimes understandig the mess that they are…..doesnt’ make sense to me. Yet i was trying so hard to prove myself and get him to understand who I was but I realize now he didn’t care. It almost killed me and sometimes i feel like he has taken my ability to trust away and to completely open myself up to someone again.
Thanks Wini for responding.
Keeping_faith the names matter for some (law enforecement, tx professionals, researchers). Bascially a sociopath are ones who can change (and some have) where a psychopath can not. As Odette said in her example the person in question had always been that way. A sociopath would not have always been that way but would have become that way much later in life.
keeping_faith: It’s not your fault. It’s not any of our faults. They are what they are. I know I’m not to blame for anyone’s bad behavior. Not my bosses, not my EX, not those two attorneys I retained.
What we are finding out is greed is blinding beyond our wildest imaginations. In the Bible, it says, greed is the mother of all sins. With that said, anything goes with these sorts of anti-social personalities.
I’d just like to know where the heck they are all going? And, when they get there, then what? Do they chill out finally, put their feet up, stretch out … relax? I doubt that seriously. So, where are they trying to get to? Maybe they’re all trying to out run themselves? Who knows.
I’ll tell you. Between my bosses, co-workers, my bosses cronies, my EX … I’ve had my fill of drama in my life.
I don’t know how long you’ve been blogging on here … but the best thing to do, is pamper yourself. Get to a place where you can forgive your EX … and move on in your life with no animosity towards them .. so you can have a beautiful like to be able to love and dream and hope again … aka to enjoy it.
As for them … just pray for them … they need it more than anyone I’ve ever met.
Peace.
Blogger, I understand what you are saying yet in all that I have read it seems the terms are used interchangably regardless of how violent, or destructive the person has been. It was explained to me that sociopathy/psychopathy, regardless of what you call it is more like a scale of high or low than a “is or is not”.
It would also seem to me that people with a value and belief system (which I would think drives behavior) which is based on a need for power and control, don’t start to become that way all of a sudden as adults (although I am open here and I am certainly no expert).
Isn’t this something that happens over time based on what we learn in life and what we believe…..understanding that there is more and more research pointing toward genetics as well? Thanks for your response. I am trying to understand it all so thanks for your help. What I have learned about human behavior is that people also don’t REALLY change. We can alter behaviors for a period of time but do people really “see the light” after 50 years or so of lying, cheating, stealing and killing in order to get attention and gain power or control over others psychologically or otherwise?
Hey Wini, Just started posting here after a year of trying to figure out what the hell happened and why….. I have come to the determination that I am WAY too analytical and I wish sometimes I could have jsut realized he is BAD for me and walked away not questioning the love, the lies, the motives or asked myself “why” for one more day.
I wonder too sometimes where they all go. Hell I hope. But until then I wonder what it’s like to live in the skin of someone who does what they do and hurts others at the snap of a finger for no good reason…..but that’s why insanity is also difficult for normal healthy people to understand. There isnothing rational about that either. It is what it is right? I just wonder what they think and how they make decisions to justify the bad behavior and lies yet stand in front of you and tell you it’s all your fault……In the end, you are right…it doesn’t really matter why. I do just want to move on and have the hope I always had. Thanks for your help !
Keeping_faith Donna has a page where she talks about psychopath/sociopath. I am one of those that fall into this part she mentioned:
– Some researchers think of a sociopath as someone who is socialized in an antisocial subculture, such as a gang.
– Some people see this as a nature vs. nurture issue—”psychopaths” are born, “sociopaths” develop because of parenting and environmental issues.
I believe both of those because of both research and experience in working with/treating them.
Here is the link to where Donna talks about it on here http://www.lovefraud.com/01_whatsaSociopath/psychopath_or_sociopath.html