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.
Kim Frederick,
Hi, I miss your wisdom and comfort that you bring to this forum. How are you?
I am doing much better than I was last time I was here. Alot less anxiety. My anxiety level was off the charts for awile.
Dear Witty,
Your comment sounds so “sane”—-very VERY good in fact, and so true. Liane did an article about how psychopathy is a continuum, like a ruler and the labels should be “graduated” some how.
It is like “smart” or “tall” or “short” or “dumb.” In fact there was a big to-do here in Arkansas a while back about if a man was “smart enough” to be executed, or if he was “mentally retarded” and couldn’t be executed for the murder he committed. IQ is on a continuum, with numbers marking the bell curve of “normal” (average) at 100 points in the middle, and about 10 points on either side so 90-110 is “average” where most people fall within that range on an IQ test. on the left side where the curve of the upside down “bell” starts to fall off when you get down to numbers about 74-75 (there is some disagreement I think in which it is) “retarded” starts and “below-average” or “slow” stops. A person by law who is “retarded” can’t be executed in Arkansas though they CAN be kept in prison for a murder. This guy was on the LINE between slow and retarded and his attorneys were trying to say he couldn’t be executed. I’m not sure just how it turned out, but the point is—if he was 74 and couldn’t be executed, or 75 and could be—is there a REAL DIFFERENCE in how smart or how retarded/dumb he was? OF COURSE NOT. The “difference” was so minute as to not matter a whit one way or another!
There is the same “continuum” with psychopaths. If you use the PCL-R to gage a person (20 questions scored 0-2 and a score of 30 means a person is a psychopath) as a psychopath or not, what about the guys who score 29? Are they less toxic by any real amount than the guy who scores 30 and has an OFFICIAL LABEL?
Well, I spoke to a researcher the other day about psychopathy in prison and he told me that the “average” score of ALL prisoners is 22 on the PCL-R and that 25% of all prisoners score 30 or higher and are labeled PSYCHOPATHS….okay…now what does that mean in terms of REAL TOXICITY in the people who are in prison? Well the Average score of “most folks” is I think 5 or less, so if you look at ALL CRIMINALS in PRISON OR OUT NOW as having an AVERAGE Score of 22 you can say to yourself, “if John had a criminal record of any kind, there is a better than average chance he has a HIGH LEVEL OF PSYCHOPATHIC TRAITS” Of course there is a chance that John went to prison with a score of Zero too, but NOT LIKELY….LOL
Back when HIV was an “untreatable” disease and more of a stigma and a death sentence than it is now, there were all kinds of laws passed about how we had to test for it, how we (medical professionals) had to get the patient’s permission to test for it (in some states) and how you had to be a certified HIV educator in order to give the test results to the patient (when I worked in Florida) and so on. Interestingly enough, in Arkansas if you have an STD that is NOT HIV I am required by law to tell your partners, but if you have HIV I can’t even tell your WIFE or HUSBAND. However, as a health care professional if I get a “dirty needle stick” with your blood, I can test your blood without your knowledge or permission if I have some to test, and if I need to draw blood to do so, if you refuse, the court will make you allow the blood to be drawn.
BBE, Charles “Jackie” Walls III who was one of THE most prolific pedophiles in criminal history (he is in prison in Arkansas now and I knew the jerk) had 1500 separate KNOWN victims, and 2 of them were his sister’s kids, one of the nephews committed suicide afterward. Jackie was also a married man with two great kids and came from a wonderful family. He worked with Boy Scouts of America for over 20 years and picked most of his victims from among their ranks. He was only caught when one of his victiims “told” and then Jackie got him to kill the parents, and when the boy was caught for the murder, he outed Jackie. Jackie got life without parole, and the prosecutor said “if we could have asked for the death penalty we would have.” This man single handedly did more damage to the many individuals and the families of his victims and his own family than anyone out side of a third world dictator that I have even read about. I wish him a long and miserable life inside the Arkansas prison system which as I understand it is one of the worst in this country.
Skylar,
I really do think that teenagers is where educating the public about toxic individuals/personality disorders needs to begin.
And because teenagers are of the general belief that nothing “bad” is ever going to happen to them it is even more important to not let that education be a lecturing type of education but to give it to them in a very REAL way that they will comprehend and hopefully remember.
I will never forget that when our local high school had a drunk driving awareness program one year how they made this very REAL for the kids. They invited a father to speak that lost his son in a drunk driving accident. On the front lawn of the high school was parked the very vehicle his son was driving when he died. It was an SUV that was so twisted and damaged that I couldn’t even recognize the make or model. The visual of that SUV maybe stays with them longer than the fathers words for these kids.
And this father bless his heart, went to various schools, towing this SUV behind him. To make his message more clear to these kids.
None of us were really taught by our parents or society the dangers of toxic people. Its time that changes. But we need to find a way where it will resonate with them. And be implanted in their memory.
Hi Kim,
feeling humourless anyway. I’m sick. sore throat, congested chest. my therapist is not any help.
I saw my dad for his birthday yesterday and he cried when he saw me. So I gave him my puzzle to cheer him up.
🙁
ok, that’s it for my pity party. thanks for letting me vent.
I loved the interesting information about trauma bonding. You didn’t put up a link so I googled Tend and Befriend. The research on vassopresin is interesting to me, but I don’t know how good the data is. Some it seems conflicting. or incomplete. (vassopresin is the male counterpart of oxytocin.)
can you post links to what you found?
Witty,
yes, that’s why it occurred to me that a drama class would be part of it. They can take on the roles and see what it’s like from different perspectives. So often, I have watched movies about psychological abuse and just thought it was stupid, because it will never happen to me. ALL THE WHILE IT WAS HAPPENING TO ME. I just didn’t get it, not at 17, 27 or 37.
BUT, I have spoken to teenagers about my story and THEY DO GET IT. They are riveted by the gory details of my P’s antics, and fascinated by my explanations for WHY he did what he did. The love understanding the motivations and then they say, “OH, I know someone like that, and her mother is a witch…” or “my ex BF tried to pull that on me, I didn’t let him” etc…
So I realize that it takes dramatic story telling to get them interested AND we need to weave the understanding of the cause of the drama into that story. If they participate in the story telling as well, it would be even more etched into the brain circuits.
Skylar,
http.//www.healing-arts.org/healing_trauma_therapy/traumabonding-traumaticbonds.htm
I hope that’s right Skylar. I had to do it by hand as I can’t figure out how to cut and paste on this PC. Techno challenged.
Dear Witty,
You are right there—teenagers don’t believe that anything bad will ever happen to them. Part of that is simply that their prefrontal cortex is not yet developed until in the early 20s, and that is the part of the brain that has the JUDGMENT.
I worked acute in spinal cord and head injury rehabilitation when my kids were in the learn-to-drive ages of 15-16 and most of the patients were kids who were injured in wrecks in cars and motorcycles. I used to ride MC and loved it, but after scooping a few people off the roads and then working in spinal cord and head injury, I decided that I would NEVER allow my kids to own a motor cycle while they lived in my house—I NEVER DID, but that didn’t keep P-son from STEALING one behind my back and riding it and keeping it somewhere else. LOL He showed me, huh?!
One time in the Rehab hospital when our census was down the night nurses (twisted sisters, all of us) decided the way to increase patient census was to have the corp that owned the hospital buy a MC factory and GIVE the bikes away, it would create more head and spinal cord injuries and fill our beds, and we could train the paras and quads to work in the factory and make more MCs and thus create more injuries to keep the hospital full and profitable. (yea, I AM as sick as Hens with my sense of gallows humor) But kids want to ride bulls and ride MC and drive fast, and experiment with booze and drugs AND drive at the same time, and so on because they don’t have GOOD JUDGMENT. Sometimes they never GET good judgment either. Look at LiLo and Charlie Sheen—
I think many people high in psychopathic traits who might NOT score 30 on the PCL-R still are LOCKED INTO THAT TEENAGE WAY OF THINKING–that lack of judgment, that lack of learning from consequences, that impulsive behavior, the sense of entitlement and invensibility that the teenagers exhibit.
I’ve known some kids that when they hit the teenage years “became” High in psychopathic traits for a few years, but then settled back into being REAL PEOPLE and having some good judgment. I THOUGHT that might be what my own P son was doing, I thought it might be as my step father called it “going over fool’s hill,” but when the time came that he should have “straightened out” and “flown right”, he was STILL the rebellious 15 year old without any judgment and “mean’er’n’a snake.”
I “should” have seen this by the time he was 17 and committing felonies, but I chose to hang on to the MALIGNANT HOPE that he would straighten out…well he did 2 of a 5 yr sentence for a home invasion robbery…said he wanted to get out, come home, go to college and live straight….BUT when he did get out, what did he do….????…REFUSE to come home, moved in with his STUPID cousin who thought he was “a good boy if it wasn’t for his “abusive mom” who had called the cops when he robbed our friends business. He just needed someone to be understanding and kind to him.” (excuse me while I PUKE!) Anyway, that SHOULD have been a clue to me that he wasn’t going to go straight. Then when he came home for a VISIT and told me to my face, almost like a CURSE “You know why I didn’t come home? Because I KNEW if I got into trouble again YOU’D CALL THE LAW.” He was PUNISHING ME by not coming home. LOL
I looked at him then and said “Well, at least you got that shit right! The rules haven’t changed.”
I realize now that was the providence of God that he didn’t come home protecting me, because if he had come home I WOULD HAVE TURNED HIM IN….and it would have been ME he killed.
It was less than 2 months after he came home for the visit that he was arrested for murdering the girl he was involved with the credit card scam with. She was only 17, and a troubled girl, living on her own, working, but getting involved in petty crime repeatedly, but she did NOT deserve to die for what she did. She did not realize that by becoming involved with an EX-con, who was on PAROLE that she was risking her life to get into crime with him, much less “rat him out” when they got caught as a way of getting herself out of a fix with her family for (again) stealing a credit card belonging to her family and going on a spending spree.
She didn’t RECOGNIZE the DANGER she was putting herself into by becoming involved with an ex-convict on parole and petty crime. I have no doubt that he postured tough guy in front of her, or that she knew he carried a gun, he didn’t hide that from his buddies (according to the police report of their testimony) so I doubt he hid that from her either. They testified that they were afraid of him. They also testified that he told them prior to her death several days that he intended to kill her and even where he intended to put her body. He even told several of them AFTER he killed her, and gave her jewelry and purse to them, and told them he didn’t bring her leather coat because it had too much blood on it. HUH???? Several of them did call the cops when she didn’t show up after that. He was taped calling another one on a jail phone to go move the body and where it was so it could be moved. DUH?? Smart criminal, huh? NOT!!!!
He really does NOT get it how others think about his behavior. He still thinks to this day that he is a SUCCESSFUL person who’s just had a bit of bad luck, that is 100% his mother’s fault for turning him in to the cops when he was 17. He is no more repentant than Ted Bundy or Charlie Manson, and just as arrogant. Just as toxic.
How do we educate the young people to look for and recognize the RED FLAGS of the Charlie Mansons? or the Ted Bundys? Or the John Does, John Jones, or the Sam Smiths?
Donna’s program for schools is a start…a TINY spark in a VERY dark night of ignorance in the universe. It also takes every one of us educating our own children and grandchildren, and the neighbor kids next door, and the ones in our Sunday school class, and those in our school rooms, starting not just at teenage years but in kindergarden and grade school and high school and college. One on one, and in every chance we get to pass on the message that no one needs to endure abuse of any kind. We need to support shelters for abuse victims, we need to pick up the phone and call CPS when we SUSPECT abuse, not only when we can prove it.
None of us can do it alone, but each of us together reaching out, one at a time, to others can make a difference. We don’t have to be Margaret Sangers or Mother Theresas we just have to be ONE INDIVIDUAL reaching out to ANOTHER INDIVIDUAL in a caring and compassionate way. Passing on the message.
Oxy,
I do think Charlie Sheen is an excellent showcase. We can follow his path to where he is now, the mask is OFF! And he’s not even a murderer or stealing…
Yea, Charlie Sheen, Mel Gibson, and I think Mel’s GF is a FAUX-victim as well, I think she is a co-abuser with him in a “Gasoline and fire” relationship–personally, I think they deserve each other!
Unfortunately, looking at drug addiction and alcohol addiction as a “disease” and giving it ALL THE CREDIT for the bad behavior of some of these people is I think VERY WRONG. AA calls them “dry drunks” who are actually former drinking psychopaths who are still psychopaths, but who mask behind being “sober,” but they still are psychopaths and abusers. I have been stabbed in the back a couple of times in work place situations by these people, so I am very leery of anyone who is an addict/alcoholic even if they have been sober for many years….HAVING ONE “DISEASE” OR DISORDER doesn’t mean you can’t have another one at the same time. Research has shown that psychopaths are also more likely than the general population to have the diagnosis of ADHD and Bi-polar and also to be left handed. The Trojan Horse psychopath had ALL three of the professionally diagnosed problems ASPD, ADHD, Bi-Polar, and left handed, as well as DRUG ADDICTED, so he had the ENTIRE load of diseases and disorders. So there were red flags a flying for sure with that man…fortunately, he is also a coward so I am no longer afraid of him even if he is out of prison and on parole.
Also, unfortunately I think for the sake of AA and NA and other 12-step programs, the “must forgive all” mind set when someone slips and uses again is a problematic thing, just like churches must “forgive all” when someone comes back and says “I have sinned and I’m sorry.” Well, we KNOW HOW THE PSYCHOPATHS can use this to their advantage in AA/NA and in Churches as well. Get people to believing their “apology” which is as false as a 3-dollar bill, and interacting with them. The ultimate breaking of the NC rule. Giving them another chance….and another….and another. But actually, even the Bible in my opinion doesn’t equate “forgiveness” with RESTORING TRUST until there is some EVIDENCE in the behavior that trust might be EARNED.
Wow, did anyone see the interview with Charlie on 20/20 last night?
It was almost difficult to watch.
There was one thing that I noticed though and can’t quite put my finger on.
In the current interview Charlie seemed as if he was almost in a manic state. That fast paced “flight of ideas” conversation that he was having almost with himself. The elevated hyper mood he was displaying.
I was thinking that either he was on drugs or that he was for sure bipolar, along with whatever else his issues might be. Not saying that in his mix of issues that a personality disorder isn’t also apparent and raising the red flags all over the place.
However I couldn’t help but think that he appeared to be in a highly elevated state that suggested manic, especially when his drug test was clean.
Also when it showed back to other interviews that he had years ago, there was a distinct difference. He spoke slowly, more clearly, (and yes still a bit grandious) but he didn’t appear to be in this agitated, elevated manic state that he was currently displaying.
So don’t go boinking me with the skillet…Lol. I am just saying that I would say this guy displays alot of untreated bipolar symtoms along with his other possibly LARGE Dx spread…..