Editor’s note: Steve Becker has a very dry sense of humor, and the following post is written tongue-in-cheek. If you have a humorous story about a sociopath, feel free to add it as a comment.
Well, thanks to the Investigation Discovery Channel, the latest estimates are that 85% of the general population is sociopathic, and likely to commit a horrific, calculated exploitation of another human being within the next three weeks.
Even leading researchers on psychopathy laud this cable channel (which, admittedly, is absolutely riveting) for getting their own estimates properly realigned. Only in the last two months, just on my street alone, two of my neighbors killed a spouse (one for insurance money, the other for the chance to be with someone else); two other neighbors, separately, kidnapped and tortured hitchhikers over a two-day period, during which both missed their kids’ respective travel soccer tournaments; my neighbor across the street, a great friend, is now believed to be a suspect in eight abduction/missing children cases since 2010; and the identical twins of another neighbor, three houses down, are believed to be responsible for the serial mutilation of dozens of dogs in the area since 2011 (they are 19, and my principal babysitters since 2009; and, because it’s so damned hard to find babysitters these days, they will remain my babysitters because apparently, at least as best i know to this point, they just mutilate and savage dogs).
And let me tell you something else–the street I live on is filled with relatively “normal” people. I’m told that what happens in my “neck of the woods” is nothing compared to the psychopathic crimes being perpetrated at a newly estimated rate of every 12 minutes around the corner, on my friends’ streets. They want to move to MY block.
Last month, my best friend learned that his wife of 16 years, a strikingly stable, well-adjusted individual (I still regard her as such), while mixing herself screw-drivers at night, was mixing him vodka-anti-freezes. He lies in critical condition at Overlook Hospital in Summit, NJ, but his wife is still a great neighbor and, admirably, visits him daily in the CCU unit (albeit one assumes she is scoping out chances to slip him some extra poison to finish him off.)  Last week, when I visited my buddy in the hospital I warned him firmly to beware his wife’s visits, but he’s in a coma, so I doubt he heard me.
It’s gotten to the point where I, myself, have become a bit paranoid. Recently I went to my internist, feeling weak and lethargic, just not myself, and asked him, “Could it be antifreeze, doc?,” to which he replied, “Well, how much antifreeze have you been drinking, Steve? More than a glass a night?”
Ha ha. He’s so funny. A real rip.
Anyway, it’s all very sobering. It seems you really can’t trust anyone anymore, not your neighbors, friends, kids, spouses, family, co-workers, not even yourself. Everyone, or almost everyone, it seems, thanks to the disconcerting revelations of ID Discovery, Â is a sociopath.
(This article is copyrighted (c) 2013 by Steve Becker, LCSW.)
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Admittedly the news is full of IT—PURE CRAZINESS anymore!
My daughter and I laughingly refer to Investigation Discovery as “The Death and Destruction Channel”. It definitely should only be watched in very small doses.
Yes, I definitely think Steve Becker was taking a poke at the network with his tongue firmly planted in cheek. I understand where he’s coming from. This network is all day, every day tales of horror. I used to enjoy watching the documentary- and investigative-style shows like 48 Hours. The shows with the dramatic re-enactments of murders and other brutality were never good for me. I could see how a person could easily begin to look for boogeymen behind every curtain.
This isn’t to say that anyone, especially those of us here, should bury our heads in the sand. We all know bad people exist and thankfully we’re all learning to look for early red flags now.
I just really look forward to Steve’s articles because they are always so full of scholarly research written in a down-to-Earth way. But, I will have to just let him have fun with this one, I guess!
I can’t watch those shows. I used to like to watch the mystery “unravel” on certain shows. But, when I got PTSD, I reached a point where I just couldn’t handle it.
Hi all — I used to post under a different name that had my actual first initial in it. You never know.
Anyway — to be totally fair, I have to give Investigation Discovery credit for their show about stalking. That one at least highlights a crime that too many people seem to think isn’t a real threat, or only happens either to celebrities, in the movies, or both. There’s an Ann Rule book called “Every Breath You Take” about a spath who eventually ordered his ex-wife murdered, even though she was completely out of his life and had moved from Texas to Florida in order to stay that way; he just couldn’t bear the idea that she’d “won” by getting custody of their kids in the divorce. This freak called a bail bond agency (he had managed to have her arrested on bogus child-abuse charges, thanks to a neighbor of hers who sympathized with him), employees of his own company, and eventually his 11-year-old daughter — to whom he had signed away parental rights! — in order to get the clues he needed to track his ex down in order to have the hit performed. There are some persistent sons-of-[things] out there.
The other stuff, I agree, is sensationalized to the point of ridiculousness, like “Deadly Women,” which goes as far back as the 19th century for examples of female murderers. But I have to credit them for bringing attention to stalking. The presenter of that show is an attractive, successful woman, in fact a psychiatrist, who was stalked, and she makes it very clear that stalking happens to everyone in all walks of life. Not enough people know that stalking is as prevalent as it is, and is not, NOT romantic.
Allergic: Interesting. I can’t handle much of those shows because of my PTSD. But, anything that helps people (especially legislators) see that stalking is life threatening is the right thing to be shown on TV.
I doubt that any legislators are watching these shows but I could be very wrong. If they are, it is to learn how to get more power, not to help constituents. Constituents now equal targets to slime for votes.
Well!! I had a fine day at the beach today with a dear friend who is a psychiatric nurse practitioner. Words of wisdom from a lady who has been around the block a time or two….she told me to be very wary of anyone looking for a PURSE and a NURSE. I will certainly take it to heart!!! No $$ ever to be “loaned” and no falling for pity plays!!
Its a jungle out there!!
Thanks so much Steve – great observations. The problem is, they don’t use the term “sociopath.”
When I was interviewed for the premiere episode of “Who the (Bleep) Did I Marry?” (which was the highest rated premiere in Investigation Discovery history), I said, “There are people in the world who have no heart, no conscience and no remorse, and they’re called sociopaths.” The producers cut out the last phrase about sociopaths. So even though Investigation Discovery portrays an unending parade of mayhem, they don’t identify the root cause – a personality disorder called sociopathy.
It may be that the show’s producers feared that phrase they edited out could be interpreted as “making a diagnosis”, or possibly as “being inflammatory” or “creating public prejudice against those with mental disorders” ?
That possibility occurs to me because I’ve come across those same accusations at other sites I read and post at, that are set up to discuss the issues faced by the adult children of personality-disordered parents (specifically, parents who have Cluster B personality disorders, which I personally think of as “kissing cousins” to psychopathy.)
Particularly at the “Psychology Today” website blogs about borderline pd (blog articles written by psychologists, psychiatrists, and by lay-persons) the open and frank personal stories shared by readers of these blogs, of their own experiences of childhood mistreatment, abuse and neglect endured at the hands of their Cluster B pd parents seems to attract a lot of outraged commentary by those who feel that sharing these personal experiences is somehow attacking and fomenting prejudice against those with personality disorders.
The advocacy groups for the support of the mentally ill can be kind of militant, I guess.
It must be hard for a TV show to strike a balance between discussing very real, very serious, very uncomfortable social issues like mental illness and yet remaining “politically correct”.
Actually, the TV producers are concerned about liability issues. Saying someone is a sociopath can lead to a defamation lawsuit. Producers of these shows are in the entertainment business. Even though explaining what is really going on – that sociopaths live among us – would help their viewers, they aren’t interested in that.
We are all, to some extent,narcissists; or at least should possess some narcissistic qualities. We must love ourselves, that is a good thing when kept in proportion. When we love ourselves, we take care of ourselves and our needs.
Sad part is when a spath enters our lives, they manage to get us to stop loving ourselves. I am not sure how they do it, but they do. I am not saying we all give all our love to them, in my case that certainly was not true. Once they get us to lose our self esteem, our sense of self love, our sense of self worth, we become a lesser person. That does NOT mean we become spaths, it just means that we care less about ourselves than we should. We settle to survive instead of thriving to survive.
I disagree with the title of the piece and its conclusion.
There is a *qualitative* difference between the “normal” (aka, relatively mentally healthy) and the “psychopathic” (aka sociopathic or antisocial pd) brain-mind, which shows up in a characteristic way of perceiving the world, interpreting incoming information or processing it, and reacting to this information or acting on it.
The main differences: most people have the quality of or capability of experiencing the traits of empathy, compassion, and remorse, and most people have a conscience; those with Cluster B pds and/or psychopathy don’t have these traits.
In fact, recent scientific studies appear to be showing that the actual brain structure, the wiring and/or the chemistry of the psychopathic brain is different than those of non-psychopathic subjects.
I agree that everyone has a dark side, and everyone can engage in narcissistic, manipulative, lying, self-serving behaviors every once in a while, to a mild degree, but most people feel badly when they do something like that.
Psychopaths never feel badly about hurting other people, and feel entitled to do whatever it takes to get them what they want, when they want it, even if it means stealing from someone, hurting them or even killing them.
I believe it was Dr. Robert Hare who wrote that those with psychopathy tend to regard other people in the same way that a cat regards a mouse. A cat would never put itself in danger or sacrifice itself to save the life of a mouse, bring a mouse food, nurse a mouse back to health, none of those things. Other people are just prey to a psychopath; good for a momentary distraction (the way a cat will cripple a mouse and then bat it around for a while, for sport) or good for a small snack.
And yes, I know there are exceptions; there are always stories of this or that wonderful, big-hearted mother cat who adopted a baby rat or squirrel or rabbit and nursed it along with her own kittens. But that is the exception rather than the rule.
What I can agree with, though, is that it does seem that the actual number of psychopathic individuals in the general population is increasing. That doesn’t surprise me, because I have read studies that one of the traits of psychopathy is that they are driven to have a lot of sex with a lot of partners, so psychopaths tend to leave a trail of progeny behind them. So if there are spaths out there out-producing the normals by a large ratio, then yes, eventually our population will reflect a high percentage of psychopathy. And maybe “eventually” is *now*.
I agree. If this article was written tongue in cheek, it wasn’t obvious to me. I’m not familiar with his other writings, so I took this one at face value (as a straight/serious/sincere opinion piece.) Like you, I hope that he is joking about allowing a neighbor who is into animal torture/mutilation to babysit his kids. That does sound too bizarre to be true.
Alright.So it’s “entertaining” to pay for the latest Armageddon or World War movie or play gory video games—but you’re still considered “normal” by society.Now when you start lying,charming the pants off someone,exploit,etc,you have a lizard brain.I see nothing,absolutely nothing charming about lizards!What I do envision with all this talk about lizard brains,is a space movie with those lizard critters…euweee,positively evil! Psychopaths don’t come from lizards…they’re brought up the wrong way in alot of instances.In the case of their children,their mothers are never prepared for what they’re faced with!
These “lizards” (actually, I like lizards so I prefer to just call them evil) are born that way. They are not just brought up the wrong way although that can contribute to the evil.
I came across a site called “EnPSYCHOpedia”, which seems to be a massively researched compilation of current studies, theories, and opinion about the nature of psychopathy (sometimes aka sociopathy, and not exactly the same as antisocial pd) and found a discussion on the causes of psychopathy; the following is an excerpt from that discussion:
“Failure of Nurture – Bonding?
Many researchers are biased toward – and cling to – a “nurturing failure” explanation for psychopathy. Regarding this, Meloy notes:
…[T]he importance of biology in … psychopathy should not be dismissed (Raine, 1993; Cooke, Forth, and Hare, 1998)… Studies have shown that psychopathy has a negative curvilinear relationship to neglectful and abusive childhood family experiences (Marshall and Cooke, 1999).
In other words, those persons who are severely psychopathic were less influenced by family factors when they were growing up; whereas those with low-to-moderate psychopathy were strongly influenced by family experience.
Neuro-imaging (PET) also suggests that functional deficits measured by radioactive glucose among samples of murderers with extensive criminal histories are more pronounced among those from good rather than poor home environments (Raine, Stoddard, et al., 1998) [42]”
So, if I understand this article correctly (and the researchers like Dr. Robert Hare that are referenced in the article) nature + nurture is involved in creating a psychopath, but in different degrees depending on the extent of the genetic component vs the extent of the invalidating environment in each individual case.
Dr. Hare (or one of his colleagues) also touches on this point in the Canadian documentary “Psychopath”, in which he comments (and I’m paraphrasing from memory here) that as many criminal psychopaths come from good homes (and had caring, involved, “normal” parents) as there are psychopaths who come from horrific, abusive or negligent homes/childhoods.
Here is a link to this documentary, the first part (1 of 10)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qm1S_n0V5kk&list=PLsfK2kCQzM1-YbzkbwYpq1soc-35Nwxxv&index=1
Hi Babs:
Your information is accurate according to undisputed research.
I am reading a book written last year and the author cites multiple studies from around the world that used MRIs and other ways to actually see where the parts of the brain “light up” or don’t “light up.” The studies continue to make it very clear that sociopath/psychopath tendencies are genetic and that, just like a birth difference of any kind, their brains are physiologically different. If the parents recognize it early and the parents do not have any problems of their own that are overwhelming, some can be “nurtured” to understand the difference between right and wrong. However, this is very rare and nearly impossible to do. It also is very damaging to parents who were/are at a loss. It is not their fault unless they were abusive and made it worse. My spath claims one of his earliest memories is of throwing a rock at a baby and hurting it and that the neighborhood was in an uproar and that it was “bad.” He may, or may not, have made this story up. I will never know. When I ask him how his parents handled the situation, he doesn’t remember. He also shares that no one in his family ever hugged or said they loved each other. Yet, he claims he was given every single thing he wanted and he lived with his mother until age 32. From what he says, she did everything he wanted and he sees this as “love.” I am wondering if she was just fearful of him after his father died and did everything he wanted to avoid rages and abuse. I can certainly relate to a possible fear she may have had of her own spath son. She died long before I ever met him, so I can’t check with her. But, there are good people on this site who are parents of sociopaths and they tried everything and the sociopath’s brain could not be tamed or trained with anything any of them tried.
Ad more studies are conducted, they prove that the brain is where it begins and ends for most sociopaths. The studies I am reading about reveal that they don’t even FEEL any consequences or fear of consequences. They also do not FEEL positive reinforcement the way a normal child would. My understanding is that they do not feel in parts of the brain the way non-sociopaths feel. They only understand enough about how others feel feelings to use them to get lizard (amygdala) needs met. The way they reach towards the top of Maslow’s Hierarchy are completely different than the way non-sociopaths work to reach the top.
Even the most serious consequences do not stop sociopaths/psychopaths. IE: Serial killers know if they are caught, they are likely to receive the death penalty, yet their brains compel them to kill multiple people anyway. They do not feel feelings as others. From what I am reading, they only understand the definitions of feelings in others. But, their brains do not show signs of FEELING the feelings of people with non-sociopath brains. I have been reading about studies where they show slasher, and other disturbing photos or film footage to psychopaths and non-psychopaths. Different parts of the brain light up or do not light up consistently with the sociopaths in comparison to non-sociopaths. Upsetting images do not upset them in the least. However, and this is where is helps us, psychopaths are faster and recognizing facial CUES in normal people. They can “read” empathy, sorrow, vulnerability, trust, etc. faster than non-psychopaths! So, they can use that quick (and unfeeling) scanning ability to read us and use us based upon quickly assessing our feelings (or what they would call weaknesses).
The more we know and share about the scientific research about sociopaths/psychopaths, the more we can understand what we are dealing with. They have a brain disorder and it IS proven to have a genetic component. The author of the book I’m reading even worries that the reason spaths cheat and are into so many sex addictive and risky sex behaviors so much is because their brain mutation is trying to procreate itself more than non-spaths! Scary and a good reason to protect from having children with a spath. I will watch your link as soon as I get a chance. Thank you.
Please share the title and author of the book. I like to keep up on the scientific data. Thank you.
Babs,
Good video,thanks for posting it! I didn’t see the rest in the sequence.It just seems like there are so many theories;no real answers!To anyone who has suffered from these monsters,it is no longer an “interesting theory”!It just seems to me that atleast the dangerous ones ought to be kept off the streets permanently…the others ought to have to check in and their whereabouts and MO be known at all times!