Five and a half years ago I started a quest to understand sociopathy/psychopathy and antisocial behavior. Long before that, in 1981, I attended a lecture by Dr. Sarnoff Medick at USC. During that lecture, he presented the results of his research. His research on adopted children indicates that antisocial behavior has a strong measurable genetic basis. His studies did not single out anyone “diagnosed” a sociopath/psychopath they only examined antisocial behavior in parents and their biologic and adopted offspring.
Remembering these studies, I read them again and found many others demonstrating the genetic basis for antisocial behavior and sociopathy/psychopathy. Also at the beginning of my quest, I read Without Conscience by Dr. Robert Hare. (If you have not read it, I strongly recommend you do so.) That book teaches us about a category of people “psychopaths” who are without conscience and are antisocial. According to Without Conscience, psychopathy can only be diagnosed by professionals who using the PCL-R find a person scores over a certain cut-off. That book also makes reference to the genetic basis for “psychopathy.”
Questions about antisocial behavior, sociopaths and psychopaths
Reading all this material, I immediately questioned if psychopaths are a separate category of antisocial people. Many experts say “psychopaths” represent 1% of the general population and 25% of the prison population. I also wondered what the other 75% of the prison population would be considered. To my dismay I found several studies showing that many maximum security, very antisocial and violent criminals would not be considered “psychopaths” according to the PCL-R.
Three things about the research reports troubled me then, and also now. First of all what good is it to tell people there are a category of dangerous “psychopaths” out there and then in the next sentence to say that only trained professionals can tell who “they” are? Second of all, there are many very antisocial and violent individuals who “professionals” say are not “psychopaths.” In fact, studies of pedophiles indicate they are less likely to be “psychopaths” than other sexual offenders. What? Excuse me? Thirdly, while saying psychopathy is genetic, scientists imply that it is 100% genetic and that is simply not true. No study has found the disorder is 100% genetic.
These 3 issues lead me to focus on antisocial behavior again as opposed to a specific category of people, psychopaths or sociopaths. If we focus on antisocial behavior we can clearly identify people who commit a large number of antisocial acts. For these people harming others has become a way of life and is not something they do only occasionally. It does not take a professional to identify antisocial behavior or harm.
The focus should be first on antisocial behavior, then the personality traits of those who show a lot of it
Many experts agree with the idea that our focus should be on antisocial behavior first, then we should try to understand what characteristics very antisocial people have in common. In their book The Psychology of Criminal Conduct, Drs. Andrews and Bonta state, “A general Antisocial Personality Pattern may be more relevant than psychopathological models of antisocial personality. If we limit ourselves to the personality traits and behavioral patterns of highly antisocial persons, then we have little need for concepts such as APD (sociopathy) and Psychopathy.”
Dr. Hare also states in a recent paper, “In any case, the use of a threshold or cut score for “diagnosing” psychopathy is problematical, given recent taxometric evidence that the PCL-R (Guay, Ruscio, Knight, & Hare, 2007) and its derivatives (Edens, Marcus, Lilienfeld, & Poythress, 2006; Walters et al., 2007) measure a dimensional construct. Cut scores are useful for communication among researchers, but of necessity are somewhat arbitrary when used for diagnostic purposes. The real issue is not how difficult it may be to reach a given “threshold” but how variations in the psychopathy dimensions relate to variables of interest, including normal range personality processes (Hare & Neumann, 2008; Lynam & Widiger, 2007).
In other words, in his scientific writings, Dr. Hare says that the best use of the PCL-R is to describe the personality traits of people we have otherwise categorized. Using it to “diagnose” psychopathy is “problematical.”
Where do we go from here and is sociopathy/psychopathy still a relevant concept?
Sociopathy (antisocial behavior) and psychopathy, or the cluster of personality traits that those with antisocial behavior have, are still very important to understand. First most people do not habitually engage in harmful antisocial behavior. It is important for us to understand all the factors, from personality to social circumstance that contribute to habitual antisocial behavior, or sociopathy.
Psychopathy represents a cluster of personality traits that are commonly found in very antisocial people (sociopaths). There is no cut-off score for determining “a psychopath.” It is more correct to say that high scores on measures of psychopathy indicate the presence of psychopathic personality traits to an extreme degree.
Let’s go ahead and call a spade a spade and categorize sociopaths
Is there any way to categorize sociopaths? Yes I say there is. There are distinct categories that people who are very psychopathic fall into, obvious examples include: con artists, rapists, child molesters and career criminals. Less obvious examples include: pathologic liars, unscrupulous sales people, and the perpetrators of domestic violence.
Your basic bad relationship choice
I also want to point out that most individuals who are your basic “bad relationship choice” are more psychopathic than the average person. So it is OK to call them psychopaths for the sake of convenience. The category, “bad relationship choice” includes people who repeatedly cheat on their mates, lie to them, and manipulate them. Hear me if your lover cheats on you, lies to you all the time, tries to destroy your reputation, takes your money, manipulates you and/or tries to control you, he or she is very psychopathic. That is not normal behavior. People who love one another are supposed to take special care of each other. Get away from that psychopath now before you are destroyed!
The good news
Did you make a “bad relationship choice”? Do you know a pathological liar? If you answer yes to these questions you do not need me or any specially trained expert to tell you the person you know is very psychopathic- a psychopath and a sociopath. If you want to review the set of personality traits that pathological liars, “bad relationship choices,” con artists, rapists, pedophiles, and career criminals have in common, see What is a sociopath? and Dr. Robert Hare’s symptoms of psychopaths. Use the list of personality traits to decide for yourself just how psychopathic that person you know is.
I don’t think they feel any discomfort for their behavior. Anyone with a conscience would not behave the way they do. I didn’t have a label for him until after he was gone. It is the personality trait’s that label them a S/P/N And learning about bad personality trait’s that are toxic and “bad relationship choices” has made me reconsider all my relationships. And make changes to get toxic people out of my life and avoid them in the future. But no they don’t feel remorse or bad for hurting anyone – it is all about them….and that is hard for decent – good -people to comprehend…. they are alien’s from there own world – not from our’s….
Hello everyone, this is really a great discussion. I think this kind of work is really pioneering –
I think one way to identify a psychopath is to find out if they dream. The probable psychopaths in my orbit specifically said they never dreamed, except the most primitive kind of fear-nightmares. Same with the alcoholics and recovering alcoholics.
This may be due to defective wiring between the emotional brain regions and the higher-order thinking modules (like, “pontine myelinolysis” in severe alcholism — damage to brain white matter).
Other mammals who lack this white matter wiring are platypuses and human infants up to about 18 months or so.
Of course I don’t have any data — but I thought it was interesting that Clark “Rockefeller” (if anyone was following that story out of Boston) said in an interview that he doesn’t dream.
My X (P) never dreamed, I asked him if he ever dreamed and he said no. Several blogger’s here have commented on how they looked when sleeping – dead – coma – alien – angelic – evil. I dreamed about him last nite.
Wini-I think you are right. I love the insight you gave me because it was really confusing to me. Of course, he is saying that he can wipe his hands clean of his actions because “he can’t help it”. His actions are in the stars or where ever he choose to blame for him abondoning his child. He can’t help it, because the moon was full in his zodiac sign or because the other women is a witch and cast a spell or because it is true love and he can’t help “true love”.
My ex sociopath used to talk of lucid dreaming. I think it is the dream state where you are partially awake and can control the dream. Brain studies of the sociopaths brain waves show that they function slightly above the sleep state but below the normal brain waves of functioning adults. It must of felt that his waking life was a dream. Hence the lucid dreams.
bird: I think all our EXs have a big problem with thinking and believing they are perfectionists. On whatever level of perfectionism they are at … they can’t do (live life) because they can’t accept responsibility for anything … always blaming others before and after a failure. It’s your fault that the relationship didn’t work. It’s your fault that they looked at someone else to live with or date or sleep with. Not theirs. It’s your fault that you got pregnant, had the child. Not there fault. Never their fault. It’s your fault that you could marry. It’s your fault that the relationship went sour. It’s your, your, your fault. Read all these blogs, everyone is saying the same things … different scenarios but basically the same thing … that their EXs blamed them and moved on. They are stuck in their perfectionist minds … judging and not doing life. Wanting a relationship, needing people to be involved in their lives but hating us at the same time. They can’t love us more than a few days … only while the newness has them enthralled can they be with us. When that newness wears off and the real humans come into focus … they are off (maybe only in their heads at the moment, not telling us what changed, not even admitting it to themselves) so they go looking for the new attraction, any new attraction. They play the chasing game with everyone until the newness runs out … then off again. Never having to look at their own insecurities – always pointing the blame on the other partner(s) … never looking at themselves to blame for their own neurosis … oh, no can’t do that “I’m perfect” so it has to be you.
What do you think?
Bird: I too am in total disbelief at the totally lack of insight that these things have. My ex gaslighted me, so I thought I was convinced that I was totally ill.
There was a point where I was drugged most of the time. I was in bed for about 16 hours a day on a mattress on the floor with no tv (and still believing I had a prince charming), I was suicidal and he would leave me, in fact for days saying he had to work. Amazingly, I got through that. I don’t even no how.
When I became more functional, I looked at that point in my life as a horrific nightmare that I didn’t want to repeat. I was still with my s/p, and he was upset that I was actually living. He said to me, “I liked it better the way it was before. At least I also knew you where home waiting for me.” I reply to him…”That was the worst time in my life…I wanted to die!” He simply said…”Oh…right?” I can’t even comprehend it and it was my life. What I myself witnessed and lived. It created the situation and only saw the advantage and loss for himself.
Swivelchair,
That’s an interesting comment about a sociopath not being able to dream. I would think it has something to do with a disconnection from their inner life and feelings? The sociopath that I dated cannot even sleep more than a few hours at night. He claimed this was from a head injury he received while fighting as a soldier in Iraq. However, it turned out he was faking his entire injury! I figure anyone who is living such an incredible lie (lying to his wife, lying to me about his wife, lying to the army, etc.) would probably have trouble sleeping at night, wouldn’t you think? Is sleep dysfunction a part of the personality disorder?
Swivelchair: What I found interesting that my EX too didn’t require much sleep. Complaining that he couldn’t sleep. The other thing I noticed is that he had to have his feet weighted down with blankets. Folded up blankets (maybe 3 or 4) weighing down his feet. Another, I dated also had a weird bounce to his step … his heels never touched the ground … like he was floating up all the time. I don’t think any of them are grounded, hence, weighed down your feet … the other one can’t put his feet squarely on the ground as he walks … hmmmmmmmmmmmm, there just may be something to this … floating aspect to them. Not grounded firmly in REALITY. My EX could walk up a ladder upright and walk right on to my roof. Never thinking twice about that he could fall. Never holding on the the side to the ladder … as if he were going up stairs to another landing of your house. Same thing, he worked on roofs of churches were he lived … do you realize how steep most older churches are. That too, he’d just walk up the ladders and walk right onto the roof of the church. Are you kidding me … I still climb a ladder … one rung at a time with both hands on the sides of the ladder … when I make it to the top … I’m stuck as to how am I going to get on the roof. Somehow flip my leg over to the roof and pull myself up. NOT going to work … so I guess I’ll have to hire someone. My EX told me that all I have to do is walk up and on the roof. Fat chance? I am very grounded on this planet knowing if I slip and fall, I’m in traction for quite a few months … no thank you.
Praise the Lord for this site! I am at about 2 months of No Contact with my ex-S of 1 and a half years. I had to go to the police and report him for his sick and twisted texts and phonecalls to myself and my 15 year old daughter. He is a firefighter in another city, but he was so narcisstic EGOTISTICAL and outrageous when the police officers spoke to him, that even the police realized he was bizarre and dangerous despite his “hero” job status. They tried to charge him with harrassment and stalking but he managed to slip threw the cracks like the typical sociopath. I was the perfect target. A single,low income, working mom with no local family and not much support. I ended up pregnant with the S (I’m 46 years old , it was quite unexpectedly). When I asked the S if he would do things differently than he did raising his other daughter from a previous marriage (he was a non-participatory “parent”) he exploded into a psychotic rage aimed at myself, the unborn baby and my teenage daughter. (NEVER question a S!!! )I live in a Backward Mormon town so I had to drive myself 5 hours with my daughter to obtain an abortion (at 6 weeks), which haunts me to no end. I could not raise the baby at 46, being low-income and alone. He was being completely psychotic threatening to “disappear or fight me tooth and nail ” for custody of the baby. He wanted me to quit my job,foreclose my house ,pull my daughter from school and be completely dependent on him. For so long I ignored the huge EGO i couldn’t stand,and all the other red flags…I wish so much I had dumped him long before… I blame myself so much for not breaking up before this all happened, and the abortion brings me such grief… I had broken up 2 times before but he cried and manipulated and I fell for it.. What a horror story to tell!!
Dear stormee: Fear no more, we are all here for you. Any time you want to blogg with any of … jump right in … who ever is on line will blogg back with you.
Peace. Thank god you and your daughter are away from him. Keep up the NO CONTACT with him. No matter what he pulls … don’t think you are ever talking to a “nice” guy. NOT.