A relationship with a sociopath occurs within the context of a person’s life. People do not stop growing and developing after adolescence. In fact, adult development is lifelong. Developmental psychologists say that early adulthood is the time that people come to grips with their needs for intimacy, love and friendship.
Once this developmental dilemma of “intimacy versus isolation” is addressed, mid life adults move on to the “generativity versus stagnation” phase. Mid life is the time when people build their lives and contribute meaningfully to society. In this phase, adults seek satisfaction through productivity in career, family, and civic interests. Generative adults create a path to meaning and purpose in their lives especially if their intimacy needs are also met.
The reference at the bottom of the page says “Generativity is an extension of love into the future. It is a concern for the next generation and all future generations. As such, it is considerably less “selfish” than the intimacy of the previous stage.”
Older adults grapple with the notion of “integrity versus despair.” Older adults often look back on their lives and assess their accomplishments in the realms of relationships and productivity. Each of us hopes to have a balance sheet that favors “integrity” and a sense of pride in a job well done.
Sociopaths derail the development of other adults in their lives. Furthermore, these developmental phases do not exist for sociopaths. Sociopaths do not care about real intimacy, productivity and integrity. They only care that their momentary needs for power and control are met. Thus they want the appearance of intimacy, the appearance of productivity and the appearance of integrity.
When you consider the impact on you, of victimization by a sociopath you have to consider how your adult development has been affected.
Were you left isolated without intimacy? Was your trust in others so destroyed that intimacy is difficult for you? Was your productivity affected? Did you lose the reputation you took much of your adult life to build? How can you still maintain a sense of integrity?
In my encounter with a sociopath, I lost much of what I had attempted to generate with my life. As a result, when I at times, ruminate and lament, my thoughts are that I wasted my talents, and allowed myself to be used to victimize others. I do not ruminate about lost love.
The impact of the lost generativity for me, was reduced by my continuing to pursue discovering a sense of purpose for my life. Although I lost many important relationships, those that remained became even more important and I resolved to work at them, especially my relationships with my children. Parental relationships are important for adults because they are intimate and productive as we nurture and mentor the next generation.
I have observed that most victims ruminate about lost love as opposed to lost productivity. It is good to remember that while intimacy and love are very important, generativity is also important. I spoke with a new friend this week, a woman in her 40s who was victimized by a con artist. During our discussion, she said that she had a hard time letting go of the sociopath because he represented the love relationship she always dreamed she would have.
My guess is that he specifically chose to victimize her because she told him of her dream of a solid intimate relationship. He knew he could “hook her” with her dream.
In mourning the loss of her dream and her present lack of intimacy, my new friend had neglected to work on the middle adult task of generativity. She has a good job but does not really feel fulfilled in that job. She has the desire for something more. Furthermore her teenagers are off to college and her parent role is changing.
I challenged her to work on generativity and consider building a greater sense of purpose and meaning in her life. She is clearly very talented and did have some good ideas for community service that would benefit both herself and her community. It is also critical to note that my new friend does work hard at keeping an exercise program and eating right.
She challenged me to think about the meaning of life. I do still hope that I will one day share life with someone special. I believe that although walking hand in hand on the beach with that special someone, enjoying the moment is important, there is more to life than that special relationship. If we find ourselves in a circumstance where romantic love is not available, we have to get satisfaction from other intimate relationships and from our life’s purpose.
My new friend gave me a valuable gift that I share with you. That is the knowledge that victims have the most time letting go when the sociopath has blocked or set back their journey toward adult development.
For more on the phases of adult development see Eric Ericson
It depends on your definitions. I know a sociopath that has recovered. I know of more than one. I know of zero psychopaths that have recovered. One of the problems with the whole topic is terminology.
Many years ago, I was diagnosed with a personality disorder–BPD. As many of you know my history, it’s easy to see how the severe abandonment issues developed. I have worked hard to overcome this condition, and it will be a lifelong journey. But it is workable. The reason is because BPD is still love-motivated. They understand what love is, even though it’s (sadly) through the loss of it. Having BPD is like living with a broken heart X 1,000. The pain of loss of love is very severe and is the underpinning of the disorder. It is still a kind of backwards love motivation. They may put their loved ones through hell but they can eventually recover and learn to love.
The sociopath, however, does not experience love, or the pain of the loss of love. They have no idea what real feelings are, so they have to fake them. The underpinning of the sociopathic personality is deceit. It is not to scheme how to have love in their lives, but how to have power, sex, money, etc. They are simply not motivated by love. They don’t care about right and wrong, only getting caught. What would be the motivation of someone like this to get better? If they were given the choice of experiencing real feelings over a boatload of money, which do you think they’d choose? I’d say the money.
SG I disagree with you to a point. If you use psychopath in place of sociopath I would agree.
I was using the terms interchangeably. I’m not sure what the difference is; I’ve seen the terms used interchangeably in everything I’ve read.
To me one of the differences between a sociopath and a psychopath is age of onset. For a psychopath that would mean in childhood (prior to age 10) where as a sociopath that would not apply. Both might meet criteria for ASPD as adults and both would meet criteria on the PCL-R but the sociopath would only meet the PCL-R score while he was actively offending but later in life may not. A psychopath is much more genetically influenced where are the sociopath is much more influenced by the environment (gang members are one example).
From what I have read, although many clinicians and lay people use the terms interchangeably, researchers, who study psychopathy, make a distinction between the sociopath and the psychopath. The way I understand it is that the sociopath may on the surface resemble the psychopath, and doesn’t care for social norms, feels no loyalty or sense of obligation to society at large and breaks the rules of society, that in certain situations they are able to better form relationships with some degree of caring involved, and can sometimes be loyal to certain groups and actually feel some degree of guilt or remorse for those they care about and have harmed. So, they act like a psychopath in some areas, but not in others. While the psychopath is not capable of feeling guilt or empathy at all.
Or as Donna has posted here:
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.
http://www.lovefraud.com/01_whatsaSociopath/psychopath_or_sociopath.html
For those on the receiving end it really does not matter much which term is used, it is all painful and causes a lot of damage no matter if they are a sociopath, psychopath, or ASPD. For researchers, treatmentment professionals, and law enforcement it does matter though.
It is really good to know this distinction, as I have been using the terms to mean one in the same, and I assumed we all were here. I really don’t know in the case of my ex which one he is because I will never know age of onset.
Exactly. At the time my ex P was beginning to unmask I had only heard the word psychopath used in movies referring to serial killers, so that is what I associated the word with. And I had never heard the word sociopath until I caught it on some show in reference to Scott Peterson. But I knew my ex was a “really bad person”. So regardless of whatever dianostic label they might fall under if a person is causing you emotional, financial, or physical harm, the term “really bad person” still works for me.