One reason why many of us found ourselves victimized by sociopaths is because we did not know that dangerous personality disorders existed.
We may have heard of crazy people, but we assumed that we could spot them because they looked and talked crazy. We may have heard of psychopaths, but we assumed they were serial killers or some other type of obviously hardened criminal.
We did not know that people existed who could convincingly proclaim their love, cry tears of sadness, and make glowing promises for the future, all simply to exploit us. We did not know that these people were called sociopaths and/or psychopaths.
In my opinion, a big reason for the public’s unawareness of, and confusion about, this dangerous personality disorder is the lack of agreement in the mental health profession about naming and defining it. How can you educate the public about these social predators when you can’t even decide what to call them?
Range of names
Research psychologists in major universities use the term “psychopath.” The main reason is that they run their studies using the Psychopathy Checklist Revised (PCL-R), developed by Dr. Robert Hare.
The PCL-R is recognized as the gold standard for evaluating the disorder. The instrument includes a list of 20 characteristics. An individual is rated 0, 1 or 2 on each item, and the points are added up for a total score. A person must score 30 to be diagnosed as a “psychopath.” For more on the PCL-R, read Researchers minimize the psychopathy problem.
Psychiatrists and other clinicians follow the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, now in the 4th edition. At the moment, the official term in the manual for this malady is “antisocial personality disorder.” Psychiatrists use the term “sociopath” for short.
Currently, the DSM-IV recognizes 10 personality disorders, divided into three clusters—A, B and C. Cluster B covers dramatic, emotional or erratic disorders. It includes antisocial, borderline, histrionic and narcissistic personality disorders.
All of this, however, is in the process of change—the 5th edition of the manual is now being written. A year ago, a draft of the new manual was posted on the Internet, and the public was invited to comment. For the most part, the diagnostic criteria were much improved, but Dr. Liane Leedom and I had problems with a few of the descriptive statements. Read our views in Lovefraud’s comment about sociopaths for the DSM-5.
My biggest problem with the revision is that it creates yet another name for this condition, “antisocial/psychopathic type.” Personally, I think this term is ridiculous. I don’t even know how it would be used in a sentence. Do we say that someone is an “antisocial slash psychopathic type”?
Selecting “sociopath”
When I was first developing Lovefraud.com back in 2004, I had to decide which term to use. After some informal market research, I selected “sociopath.”
The main reason was that “psychopath” was just too scary. Hollywood and the media portray psychopaths as deranged serial killers. I worried that people would not believe they had a psychopath in their lives, because he or she had never killed anyone, and would therefore dismiss all of the information about this disorder.
My reasoning was supported by last year’s Lovefraud survey. The survey asked the following questions:
Before your involvement with this disordered individual, what did you understand the term “sociopath” to mean?
- Criminal: 19.2%
- Serial killer: 19.4%
- Someone who was delusional: 6.4%
- Person without empathy or a conscience: 19.7%
- I didn’t know what it meant: 35.3%
Before your involvement with this disordered individual, what did you understand the term “psychopath” to mean?
- Criminal: 15.0%
- Serial killer: 51.2%
- Someone who was delusional: 13.4%
- Person without empathy or a conscience: 8.9%
- I didn’t know what it meant: 11.5%
Fully half of the 1,378 survey respondents believed a psychopath was a serial killer. I think it’s safe to assume that this level of misinformation pervades the general public.
Overlap
So the experts argue over terminology. I’ve even had two college psychology professors contact me to tell me that I’m using the wrong name. Although they didn’t seem to be aware of the disagreement in the field, I am, and I summarize the disparate views on the Lovefraud.com page, Psychopath/sociopath.
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. Many Lovefraud readers simply describe the individual they were involved with as P/S/N, for psychopath/sociopath/narcissist. Others say that the individual has a “cluster B” disorder. Of course, no one knows what that means, but it is less prejudicial and more likely to be believed.
Proposed name
I propose a solution to the name problem. I propose that “sociopath” become the general term for a social predator, someone who exploits others.
In the general category of “sociopath,” there can be subcategories that reflect the different types of exploiters. “Psychopath” can be defined as someone who scores 30 or more on the PCL-R. “Narcissist” can be someone who uses others, but doesn’t necessarily set out to cause them harm. “Antisocial personality disorder” could describe the people who are worse than a narcissist, but not as bad as a psychopath. Other subcategories can be defined as the experts see fit.
“Sociopath” has the advantage that it is already in the lexicon, but does not carry the cultural baggage of “psychopath.” People are generally aware that the word has something to do with bad behavior. But, as our survey pointed out, the largest number of respondents didn’t really know what “sociopath” meant, so they could be educated.
“Sociopath” could be analogous to the term “cancer.” There are many types of cancer—lung cancer, skin cancer, colon cancer—but we all know that cancer is bad and we take precautions to avoid it. We don’t smoke. We use sunscreen. We eat fiber.
Here’s a key point: For many people, the harm caused by sociopaths is completely avoidable, if we take precautions.
Some of us were unlucky in that we were born to a sociopathic parent, or into a family that contained sociopaths. We were stuck in those situations until we could find a way to get out.
But the rest of us invited the sociopaths into our lives. If we knew that these predators existed, if we knew the warning signs, we never would have done it. We could have avoided the trauma that they caused.
In my view, settling on a clear name and diagnostic criteria for this disorder is a public health issue. People have learned how to protect themselves from cancer. With education, we can learn how to protect ourselves from sociopaths as well.
Blogger,
you are right they target anything they can get. What is important is to stay ahead of them. Humility is the key. We can be grateful for our talents but not take credit for them. Then the spaths have no hooks.
It’s not an easy thing to do, and not the magic spell either. We need a formula or algorithm that will completely neutralize the spaths. Well, I can dream, right?
It never hurts to dream and such a good dream too. 🙂
I’ve been reading this blog for a while and I made this account to comment on this post.
I see it in the world today, and its very popular, this sense and desire that you can protect yourself from eveyrthing; that you can be “smart” and side step every mishap. Well, in the case of sociopaths its not the case.
Yes they take advantage of everything and anything, but trying to learn to behave in a way that protects you from sociopaths is kind of like making yourself a pseudo-sociopath. The way they work themselves into your life is to seem as normal as possible. There is no protection because you would end up being hyper vigilant to normal behavior and which would then infect every area of your life, making you the sick person.
You’re best bet for dealing with intimate contact with a sociopath is to find some sane context to put the events of your relationship in. You weren’t stupid, you weren’t weak and 9 times out of 10 you weren’t their first. You were in love with someone who is/was very sick. Hope they get better, don’t beat yourself up, and don’t expect it to happen again with another person.
Personally, I don’t think Sociopaths are like Peadiophiles. I don’t think they are born that way and I don’t think they can’t be helped. My expierence is that “love sociopaths” (and I think there are different kinds) have insanely tragic traumatic backgrounds from a very early age.
I’m gonna shut up now. This subject gets me really worked up for reasons which may be obvious. Thanks for reading.
Blogger T
I don’t think “healing” is possible for these freaks.
Where I’m at right now (negative) not sure it is for ME either.
I’m done. Just tired. The whole spathy thing just wears my ass out.
I think I’d rather be sunning my plumbed up, wrinkling ass on a beaach on Cabo.
So there ya. Negative nancy HAS arrived!!!
LL
Skylar,
If you’re still on, your question didn’t make sense to me. “How damaged do I want to be?” Don’t understand why you’d ask such a thing. I don’t want to be damaged at all.
My point was there is damage from people who aren’t spaths or narcissists. But that what we need to educate pre-teens and teens about is that while incidents aren’t a reason to break off a relationship, PATTERNS are. We need to teach how to recognize an escalating abuse PATTERN.
The pattern was there in my marriage, but b/c the abuse was emotional and covert (at least at first), I only saw his abuse as inconsiderate or thoughtless, rude and hurtful. It took hindsight to see it was a pattern of contempt. And it was a physical assault that woke me up to the real danger I was facing. I was lucky but I could have been too late.
Ineedayadira –
“My expierence is that “love sociopaths” (and I think there are different kinds) have insanely tragic traumatic backgrounds from a very early age.”
With respect, that may have been YOUR experience, but it is NOT the experience of all, or even most, according to the extensive research on the subject.
My own ex-husband, the Superspath, was the second spath I had married. I can tell you with absolute conviction and after many years of close contact with the immediate families of BOTH of these monsters, that NEITHER of them were EVER abused in any way, shape or form. They are the only ones in their respective families who are not non-abusive, normal, loving, healthy, well-balanced human beings. From my point of view (because I always check out the families for clues), this only helped to conceal their true natures.
Let’s look at the current choices, starting with root word meanings:
Path or Pathy = suffering, feeling, sickness
Psych = mind
Socio = social
All these word-parts and combinations thereof are far too generic to be comprehended or taken seriously as accurate terms for this malady. As for “psychopathic”, it IS too often interchanged with “psychotic”, the meaning of which is worlds apart.
Then there’s the DSM definition of Anti-Social, 1 of 4 Cluster B Personality Disorders, which takes into account merely behavioral manifestations, omitting criteria that would define a diagnosis of either sociopathy (if such were possible) or psychopathy. Plus the term itself is fraught with misconnotation for the obvious reason (i.e., ANTI-social, really!?). Then there’s the matter of Cluster B overlap to add to the confusion.
One school of thought is to better educate professionals and the public as to the proper meanings of all these terms; another is to use terms that require less explanation. There are pros & cons to either way of thinking; unfortunately the debate appears to polarize those who would otherwise unite in an effort toward eradicating the problem.
This devastating disease has gone through a diverse variety of name-changes through the centuries, and for good reason, as it’s been a perplexing phenomenon to pin down. So I hesitate to suggest that a new name be proposed, however, perhaps that is the answer to end this controversy, maybe once and for all.
It is tough on those of us seeking knowledge and understanding, much less spreading the word in an effort to enlighten others, to have so many words and meanings swirling around. To add insult to injury, using one word with some who thumb their noses to it and another to those who may take offense just leaves the target who is trying to heal in yet another, sometimes debilitating, quandary.
Oh yes! I just spoke of this to a sociologist, and a psychologist. They know science uses different terminology. It is painful because I don’t think professionals know what it really is, in my experience. Many do not believe that Criminals are just Criminals. Their head is filled with nature or nurture. They should forget with the why and start with the now. I believe I have been abused by profesionals in the psyche/system because they are in denial about the Sociopaths. They will diagnose a wife with a horrible diagnosis rather than believe her husbands shiny exterior of a sociopath is a con-game. It is free will. It is a choice.
ILOVE SocioSib. Thank whoever made that up!! I am a SocioSib. Glad to know you are out there and I am not alone.
“Psychopath” is too close to Psychotic. Actually people who are completely Psychotic, are out of touch with reality. But they can come back. They can be very nice and never harm a soul. Stop letting Sociopath’s hide behind a mislabled diagnosis. Stop letting them give Mental Illness it’s bad name. They are mistaken for ADHD and other benign diagnosis’.
“Criminal Mind” is what Stanton Samenow calls it in his book, “Inside the Criminal Mind.” Forget the WHY and CURE for now. Of course his description of a cure is a long arduous process. The Sociopath probably won’t want to do it. But the book is a great one on learning about Sociopaths.
I need Healing and Hope for the future. Peace
Thank you all for your comments. They have helped me to refine my thinking.
I am suggesting that “sociopathy” be used as a generic, layman’s, umbrella term, similar to “heart disease.” It would not be a clinical diagnosis. It would be a description of a personality disorder in which the people who have this 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, etc, etc. There could be similar clinical diagnoses, and technical terms, for the various types of sociopaths. When it comes to the actual clinical diagnoses under the umbrella of “sociopathy,” I’d leave that to the professionals.
The idea here is coming up with a general term so that people can be educated. 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.
When it comes to educating people about exploitative personalities, it’s not a diagnostic issue, but an educational and communications issue. From the perspective of those of us who have tangled with a sociopath, narcissist, whatever, 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 toxic person, and we were damaged. Who would say that it’s okay to get involved with a narcissist, but stay away from a psychopath? No – the idea is to avoid all of them.
The point is to agree on a term so that we can at least educate people that exploitative personalities exist.
I’ve talked to and corresponded with hundreds of people who have tangled with these predators. Time after time I’ve heard, “I never knew that people like this existed.” This is the problem that I want to solve – at least alerting the public that they exist. To do this effectively, there needs to be agreement on what to call the problem.
I do not believe it is sufficient to simply say, “avoid abusive behavior.” There are situations in which abuse is an aberration—perhaps the person behaving in an abusive way is under extreme stress, and once the stress is resolved, the behavior stops. This is vastly different from a person who lives his or her life by exploiting others. There needs to be a name for the disorder.
Can the ill effects from tangling with these predators be avoided? Probably not entirely. But if people are at least aware of the warning signs, they can recognize them when they start to see them.
Here’s a preview of the data that Lovefraud is collecting in our survey: 71% of people said that they had some kind of gut feeling or intuition early in the relationship that there was something wrong with the individual. Most people said they ignored their internal warnings. 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.
If people know that exploitative personalities exist, what the red flags are, they have a much better chance of getting out of the encounter before it’s too late.
Donna, your “refined thinking” has helped “refine” mine!
I wholeheartedly agree that labeling it at all ”“ and agreeing on a label ”“ will go far in aiding education on the subject. That is why it is so frustrating and confounding that the “name” controversy exists, as it hinders the cause.
The explanation you put forth, comparing it to the general labeling of “heart disease”, makes too much sense. It would behoove those adamantly sticking to “psychopathy” to take note of the point.
Still, both words are problematic, as one is easily confused with “psychosis” and the other has no mention in any references acknowledged in the field (i.e., the DSM (any number) & PCL (any version)). Plus, they are each general words when analyzing the roots, and carry historical, controversial baggage.
Maybe something more descriptive would work, such as “exploitive” (a word you used well), or “disempathic”, or something else, as that mainstream umbrella under which Psychopathy and any or all the Cluster Bs would fall.
Disempathic Disorder?
Pervasive Exploitive Personality?
Disempathic Exploitive Syndrome?
Edited to add:
A case can certainly be made for keeping both “psychopathy” and “sociopathy”, using the former as the professional diagnosis using the PCL and the latter as an umbrella term encompassing a myriad of exploitive & disempathic traits or diagnoses, since both terms are currently in use, and so much time & effort has been put forth by learned & dedicated individuals & entities to educate professionals and the general public about them.