Editor’s note: This is a more complete explanation of a proposal I made a few weeks ago.
How do you avoid a social predator? First, you have to know that they exist.
I didn’t know they existed. So when a charming, charismatic and supremely confident man swept into my life, I didn’t know that charm, charisma and overconfidence were red flags that he might be a predator. And he was. This man took a quarter-million dollars from me, cheated with at least six women during our 2.5-year marriage, had a child with one of the women, and then, 10 days after I left him, married the mother of the child. It was the second time he committed bigamy.
“He might be a sociopath,” my therapist commented, as I described his mind-boggling betrayal and duplicity.
Sociopath? I thought a sociopath was a serial killer.
Well, not necessarily. Sociopaths are people who live their lives by exploiting others. Sometimes they commit serious crimes or kill, but usually they abuse their partners, neglect their children, defraud credit card companies, indulge in drugs and alcohol, bilk customers, steal from employers, bully their co-workers and find more ways to disregard and violate the rights of others.
But you’d never know it to meet them. Sociopaths are not delusional, and they do not necessarily look like thugs. In fact, they blend easily into society and often have good social skills. Like the man I married, they are frequently charming, charismatic and confident.
And they are a huge problem. Experts estimate that 1% to 4% of the population are sociopaths. That means there are 3 million to 12 million of them in the United States. Plus, additional millions have sociopathic traits but not the full disorder.
Back in 2005, I launched Lovefraud.com to educate the public about these disordered individuals—people who have no empathy and no conscience. My first problem was deciding how to refer to them.
Multiple names for essentially the same disorder
In the mental health field, social predators may be called sociopaths, psychopaths, malignant narcissists or antisocials, depending upon whom you ask.
Research psychologists tend to use the term “psychopath.” The official diagnosis in the American Psychiatric Association Diagnostic and Statistical Manual—the bible of mental health conditions and illnesses—was once “sociopath,” but was changed to “antisocial personality disorder.” Psychiatrists and clinicians tend to use this term when describing the condition, and “sociopath” as a shorthand way of referring to a person with the condition. At least, that’s the current usage. The psychiatrists are in the process of updating their manual and have suggested yet another name for this disorder: “antisocial/psychopathic type.” (Try using that in a sentence.)
In addition to disagreeing about the name, experts also argue about what the names mean.
- Some consider a “psychopath” to be an extreme form of “sociopath.”
- Some say “psychopath” describes personality traits and “sociopath” describes behavior.
- Some see this as a nature vs. nurture issue—”psychopaths” are born, “sociopaths” are the result of bad parenting and deprivation.
- Some people use the terms depending on how a person is diagnosed. If psychiatric standards are used, the person is a “sociopath.” If the Psychopathy Checklist Revised (PCL-R), a standardized evaluation, is used, the person is a “psychopath.”
- Some think of a sociopath as someone who is socialized into an antisocial subculture, such as a gang.
In short, naming this disorder is a mess. And as the experts argue, the public is in the dark.
Confusion in the general public
Lovefraud.com gets 50,000 unique visitors a month, and I’ve collected more than 2,400 cases of people involved with sociopaths. Last year, we surveyed our readers and asked a few questions about the name of the disorder. More than 1,200 people responded. Here are the questions and the results:
“Before your involvement with this disordered individual, what did you understand the term ”˜sociopath’ to mean?”
- Criminal 19%
- Serial killer 19%
- Someone who was delusional 6%
- Person without empathy or a conscience 20%
- I didn’t know what it meant 35%
“Before your involvement with this disordered individual, what did you understand the term ”˜psychopath’ to mean?”
- Criminal 15%
- Serial killer 51%
- Someone who was delusional —13%
- Person without empathy or a conscience 9%
- I didn’t know what it meant 12%
The correct definition of both of these terms is “a person without empathy or a conscience.” This was selected by 20% of the respondents in reference to “sociopath” and only 9% in reference to “psychopath.” On the other hand, half of the readers thought “psychopath” meant serial killer, and the largest number of responses for “sociopath” was “I didn’t know what it meant.”
No support in the aftermath
Why is this discussion important? Why should anyone care about what to call people who lie, cheat, steal and abuse?
Two reasons: First of all, these social predators are probably responsible for most of the manmade misery in the world, ranging from the fraud perpetrated by Ponzi schemers, to the abusers who force their partners into domestic violence shelters, to the bullies causing turmoil in the workplace.
Secondly, once you become entangled with a sociopath, there is usually no support from legal, financial or other institutions. Why? Because most sociopaths use social interactions to find and exploit their targets. This means there is some kind of relationship between the predator and the victim, which muddies the water when the victim seeks redress.
The only effective way to deal with the trauma caused by social predators is prevention. Prevention requires education. And for education to work, we need agreement on what to call these people.
This is a medical disorder
It is not sufficient to say that these predatory individuals are “abusers” or “toxic.” We are talking about a medical disorder, a mental illness, not merely a lifestyle choice. Of all the personality disorders, only this one is defined by the affected individual’s victimization of others. The perpetrators themselves rarely experience distress because of their actions. It is the people around them who experience distress.
Mental health professionals, searching for possible causes and treatment, engage in nuanced debates with each other about definitions and diagnostic criteria. For example, are antisocial personality, narcissism and psychopathy distinct disorders, or are they different points on the same continuum of abusive behavior? In practice, the behaviors and traits exhibited by individuals diagnosed with psychopathy, sociopathy, narcissism and even borderline personality disorders overlap, so it’s hard to tell where one ends and another begins.
From the perspective of those of us who have tangled with one of these individuals, however, the clinical diagnosis doesn’t matter. Our lives were turned upside-down, we lost money, our homes, our children. We suffered PTSD or other maladies. The point is that we were involved with a disordered person, and we were damaged.
Proposal for a name
When it comes to helping people avoid exploitative personalities, it’s not a diagnostic issue, but an education and communications issue.
I propose a solution for the name problem. I propose that “sociopathy” be used as a generic, layman’s term, similar to “heart disease.” It would not be a clinical diagnosis. It would be a general description of a personality disorder in which the people who have the disorder purposely exploit others.
Let’s compare it to “heart disease.” There are various types of heart disease, like a heart attack, or, clinically speaking, a myocardial infarction. There’s also cardiovascular disease, coronary artery disease, and so on. The American Heart Association tells us to keep our heart healthy by not smoking, avoiding fatty foods, and getting regular exercise. They don’t tell us to avoid heart attacks by doing this, or avoid strokes by doing that. They provide information to protect the whole system.
With my suggestion, under the umbrella of “sociopathy,” the professionals could determine actual clinical diagnoses. They may decide that a “psychopath” should be defined as someone who scores 30 or more on the PCL-R. A “narcissist” should be someone with an overactive sense of entitlement. “Antisocial personality disorder” should describe the people who are worse than a narcissist, but not as bad as a psychopath. Other subcategories could be defined as the experts see fit.
The idea here is coming up with a general term that describes social predators so that people can be educated. It doesn’t matter if someone is diagnosed to be a narcissist, sociopath or psychopath. The idea is to avoid all of them.
Understanding the red flags
I’ve talked to and corresponded with hundreds of people who have tangled with these exploiters. Time after time I’ve heard, “I never knew that people like this existed.” This is the problem that needs to be solved—alerting the public that social predators exist. To do this effectively, one agreed-upon term is necessary.
“Sociopath” has the advantage of already being in the lexicon, without the cultural baggage of “psychopath.” People are generally aware that the word has something to do with bad behavior towards others. But, as our survey pointed out, most people don’t really know what “sociopath” means, so they can be educated.
In another Lovefraud survey about romantic relationships involving sociopaths, 71% of people said that they had a gut feeling or intuition early in the relationship that the individual was bad news. Most people said they ignored their internal warnings and continued the relationship. Why? I think a big reason is because they did not have the empirical knowledge that sociopaths existed. They saw the red flags and did not know what they meant, so they dismissed them.
In my view, settling on a clear name for this disorder, or range of disorders, is a public health issue. People have learned how to protect themselves from heart disease. Sociopaths cause physical, emotional and psychological injury, illness and trauma. We need to learn how to protect ourselves from them.
Can the ill effects from tangling with these predators be totally avoided? Probably not. But if we know that sociopaths exist, and know the warning signs of exploitative behavior, we may be able to escape before too much damage is done.
Donna, I agree about the “social predators”=sociopaths as a”generic word” to cover people of “all different personalities who qualify as SOCIAL predators….
I am not sure what is going on, I posted to this thread and it seemed to post and now that post has “vanished” so will retry to post this and see what happens.
oxy – the amazon cloud is still not functioning properly. the appearing/disappearing thread thing is part of it.
Donna,
I am in 100% agreement with everything you’ve said here. You’ve taken on a noble and world-changing cause. This could change so many lives, and even societies, for the better.
There is one aspect I hope will get more awareness as this campaign progresses: a better awareness of how child abuse and neglect can impact the less genetically inclined children and train them to become exploitative/violent where they otherwise would not have (Hare’s definition of sociopath). This message (along with the flip side of it, which is Dr. Leedom’s book) is important for society to hear. Minimizing the number of sociopaths in the next generation can perhaps be the impetus for more $$ invested in early child protection. We haven’t had any luck using appeals to morality or ethics to further the cause of protecting vulnerable children in most modern westernized societies. Perhaps getting a better understanding of the true economic impact, via an understanding of how child abuse can lead to (some) sociopathy, might.
One more point: when you’re making your appeals to high school students I hope you’ll also appeal to those youth who are not full-fledged predators but are being influenced down the wrong path by those who are, and urge them to understand where they’re being led and to care enough about themselves to step away from that influence and get help before it’s too late.
I read a great quote lately, which I’m trying to find again. Something along the lines of “Tyrants can’t be tyrants without crowd support.” Cut off their supply and their support systems and they have very little actual power.
Here’s to your efforts to educate the public and dry up their supports. Congrats again on a job very well done.
Annie,
Yes – one of the goals of the high school education is to have fewer sociopaths in the world. We hope to influence that in two ways:
1 – exactly as you suggested – encouraging kids who could turn into sociopaths to turn away from that path.
2 – explaining how sociopaths use sex to control people and propagate – if the young people catch on more quickly, maybe fewer at risk children will be born.
I know that young children are not usually diagnosed with sociopathy, but I used to work with elementary aged kids when I first started college, and some of them definitely had characteristics that would make them highly likely to develop it. Some of them were scary “not right” compared to the other children. I sometimes wonder how some of them turned out because most of the ones I worked with are now probably sophomores and juniors in college now.
Nolarn
Signs of sociopathy can be seen in children as young as 3 or 4. Often the symptoms are referred to as “callous unemotional.” In these cases, it may require absolutely heroic parenting to turn them around. Of course, many of the kids don’t get that, because their parents are sociopaths.
Children with sociopathic behavior or attitudes before age 18 are called OPPOSITIONAL DEFIANT DISORDER (ODD) OR CONDUCT DISORDER. For whatever reason the professionals must have this “problem” pre age 18 before someone can be “diagnosed” as a Antisocial personality disorder/psychopath/sociopath after age 18.
I too have worked with kids in inpatient settings that were very dangerous by age 10, and uncontrollable and without the least bit of care about hurting others. Some of them even seemed to take immense joy and glee in defying authority or rules. Some of them were also conscious that you couldn’t watch them 24/7 except in an inpatient setting and these parents were beside themselves. It is also very interesting to note that many of these children had been adopted as infants by mature, well centered parents….and finally the professionals are getting the idea that there ARE some genetics involved in this. That babies are NOT born blank slates on which the parents write for better or worse.
My P son didn’t display much problems until he hit puberty, and there is some research showing that higher testosterone levels tend to go along with more sociopathic tendencies.
That may also account for more men than women being diagnosed as psychopaths (by whatever name) or it may be that the more severe levels of “BPD” which is more frequently diagnosed in females is the female equivalent of PPD in males, though there ARE full blown score 30 or above on the PCL-R females, but more females I think who are just sub-criminal but very destructive of people they have relationships with.
The social aspect of the predators, who destroy the structure of society–the family, the business, the community–those social predators whether they are actually “high enough to score 30 and be “diagnosed” professionally, those men and women are the social ROT in every culture in the world. Then when you add in the COMPLETE Ps, the 30+’s, most of the violent crime is committed by this small percentage of the population. But almost the totality in my opinion of all man made ills and problems is by “social predators”—by bullies, by sociopaths, whatever you want to label them…I also believe that our “politically correct” carpola about “there is good in everyone” and that “everyone can change” causes tremendous damage to those victims of the social predators and doesn’t do anything but encourage and reward the predators.
The social predators present themselves as victims, when in fact they are the predator in disguise….and what a good disguise it is too. Re-injuring the real victim again. The book here in the LF store, “The Legal Abuse Syndrome” is a good example of how this happens in “family courts.”
Donna,
I think the biggest problem in educating people about sociopaths is that they can be so charasmatic and charming. It seems to be, especially in our culture, that these are traits which override our morality.
For example, Bill Clinton, he is extremely charasmatic and seems to be a skillful diplomat. He lies extremely well too. Jimmy Carter doesn’t have Mr. Clintons charm but I would say he has way better values than Bill.
We like the funny, witty, crowd pleasers when they are possibly the most damaging people because we don’t expect them to be mentally ill. Their outward appearance is a wolf in sheeps clothing. When we find out how nasty they really are, it’s so difficult to believe it because of their facade.
I do wish I would have know better, I could have a better grasp of human nature.
Oxy,
I would agree that they are preditors in disguise. They use the poor me thingy so well. There is not good in everyone, the social preditors use this fact to take advantage of the trusting nature of humanity.
They also think that we are like them, that everyone is capable of the kind of decept they take part in. They must be a pile of mush on the inside, what a horrible way to live.
Oh boy is this the appropriate place to share about what a diagnosis should be….
I”m now THOROUGHLY convinced my youngest son (if he is not sociopath labeled because of his age, he is DEF ODD).
He pulled a fast one on me this morning, created so much drama and chaos for me that I missed a very important appointment.
A friend of mine suggested that that was PURPOSEFUL to sabotage me. LIGHTBULB MOMENT!
I am so frustrated with this child and his games that I’m ready to throw him out of my house. And, well, legally I CANNOT do that in my state and IRONICALLY, even if I HANDED HIM OVER TO THE STATE FOR FOSTER CARE THEY WOULDN”T TAKE HIM BECAUSE HE WOULD BE “hard to place”. DO YA THINK????
I have had two children in the past with issues, one SIGNIFICANT that I’ve shared on this blog. I have had NO PROBLEM intervening when an issue arises. BOTH have recovered from their issue. This one is COMPLETELY different. His attitude is different, his behavior is different. He has a TOTAL lack of empathy, NO remorse or regret, uses me to play the VICTIM and sabotaged the last therapy appointment and I did nothing but REACT to him and his manipulations.
He has the ENTIRE SYSTEM snowed!!!! Like a blizzard!
Last Friday, I received an email from the school counselor (often) and she told me that my son told her that I HAVE breast cancer and then she did the whole “I’m so sorry, we really want to help you if we can” shpeel, and blah blah blah….she is a KIND person and I’m absolutley LIVID with my son that he used ME (and does) to get pity for himself, but this was just unbelievable!
I corrected her and let her know that I had a cancer SCARE a few months ago but that it turned out OKAY and that I’m FINE, and my son KNOWS that.
I told her that while I appreciated her concern, I was WELL and that my son was using this to get PITY from her and the rest of the school staff and to PLEASE not believe all the BS my son gives her. He KNOWS she buys into his BS so he goes to HER or the school Principle when he wants to get out of school, which is often.
When I make him stay, he starts abusing me over the phone and gets very VERBAL with staff to the point where they don’t WANT him there, thus, he wins again.
This morning was it for me. I’m so done, I’m beyond done. My pain about my son is turning into RESENTMENT quickly.
He has continued to try to steal my money and now I’ve found a hiding place that he hasn’t found yet. I keep it within eye shot wherever I am in the house!
This morning on the phone, he was abusive, nasty and then something dawned on me …my God he sounds EXACTLY like my exP when he’s abusive.
Two times at the school this morning, an appointment I was looking forward too, RUINED, I was pissed beyond belief.
School counselor’s suggestion: “You really do need to have a heart to heart with your son” WTF???
People do NOT get it. It is SO frustrating!!!
I’m telling you he is DIFFERENT than the rest of my children! NO EMPATHY, NO REMORSE!!! ABUSIVE!!!
I spend MOST of my time “GRAY ROCKING” my own son. Unless he does something against the law, I can’t even kick this kid out of my house!
Again, I’m on the therapy bandwagon and I’m dreading it!!!
He’ll play the new one like a fiddle too, just like the last.
And the last thought it was too much trouble to deal with.
Not only does there need to be education regarding sociopathy in general, but my GOD there sure does in the schools in that there ought to be WORKSHOPS on this stuff for staff to see children with this illness in their classrooms!
My son is mainly the smooth operator but verbally vicious at home. This morning, he told me flat out that he didn’t CARE about anyone but HIMSELF.
Welll, no shit sherlock!
I’m so frustrated. Everytime he walks in the door we cringe.
I’m so sick to death of pathology, I want to puke!
LL