A sociopath is someone who has a pervasive and persistent disregard for the rights and feelings of others. This disregard is manifested in the antisocial behavior sociopaths show. While we usually think of antisocial behavior as criminal, not all antisocial acts are illegal. A person who slips up once is not a sociopath. Sociopathy is a lifestyle.
Since humans are designed to live in society, a healthy personality has prosocial inclinations. Therefore, people who are pervasively antisocial are disordered in the sense that they are not the norm (thank God). Although antisocial behaviors are observable actions like lying, stealing and assault, there are personality traits that cause antisocial behavior. It should come as no surprise that people who have a sense of entitlement, over-rate their own greatness and have poor self-control are more likely to hurt others and show pervasive antisocial behavior.
The American Psychiatric Association has defined a group of personality disorders it calls “cluster B”. According to a recent paper* by German psychiatrist, Christian Huchzermeier, M.D., “ The cluster includes disturbances of personality that go hand in hand with emotional dysregulation phenomena, a tendency towards aggressive—impulsive loss of control, egoistic exploitation of interpersonal relationships, and a tendency to overestimate one’s own importance.”
The disorders of “cluster B” go together because what underlies them is a disturbance in three developmentally acquired abilities I have called The Inner Triangle. These abilities are:
Ability to Love
Impulse Control
Moral Reasoning
These abilities that a child gains during development are a triangle because the development of each depends on the other two. A child begins to acquire ability to love in the first year of life, impulse control begins in the second year of life. At two years of age there is already a link between ability to love and impulse control. Children with the best impulse control also are the most loving/empathetic. Moral reasoning begins in the third year of life and its development depends on a loving nature and impulse control. Similarly the most moral kids are also the most loving and self-controlled.
I think of the cluster B disorders as different manifestations of damage to the inner triangle. I think of sociopaths as individuals who completely lack ability to love and have impaired impulse control and moral reasoning.
Given the Inner Triangle, it should come as no surprise that it can be difficult to find people who have only one cluster B personality disorder. For that reason individuals with antisocial personality, narcissistic personality, borderline personality and histrionic personality often have symptoms of the other disorders. If someone gets a diagnosis of only one of these, it doesn’t mean that the person doesn’t also have one or all of the others. The person making the diagnosis simply thought that the one chosen best described the person. You should know there is a gender bias in diagnosis such that women are often labeled “borderline.” These women can also be sociopaths who leave a trail of victimized friends, lovers and children in their wakes.
A recent study reported in Behavioral Science and the Law, “The Relationship Between DSM-IV Cluster B Personality Disorders and Psychopathy According to Hare’s Criteria: Clarification and Resolution of Previous Contradictions” examines the relationship between psychopathic personality traits as defined by the screening version of the PCL and Cluster B personality disorders. The authors of this study were careful to examine people who had only one cluster B disorder. They found psychopathy to be associated with all cluster B disorders.
The authors conclude:
“One clinical implication of our results, nevertheless, is that in cases where a cluster B personality disorder is diagnosed a high psychopathy value is to be expected, especially where antisocial, borderline or narcissistic personality disorder is involved. The PCL score is a better predictor of subsequent events, such as problems during (criminal) custody or a relapse into delinquency, than a diagnosis of a DSM-IV personality disorder, especially in forensic populations; therefore, an additional investigation with the PCL should be carried out, if a cluster B personality disorder has been diagnosed.”
It is important for Lovefraud readers to be aware of this study especially if there is a divorce/custody proceeding or a cluster B personality disorder has been diagnosed. Many people might think that if the partner has been “diagnosed borderline” or “diagnosed narcissistic” that means the partner is not a psychopath/sociopath. This study suggests otherwise. IF YOU ARE INVOLVED WITH SOMEONE WHO HAS THESE YOU HAVE TO CONSIDER THEIR HARMFUL BEHAVIOR AS AN INDICATION OF PSYCHOPATHY/SOCIOPATHY. There are some people with cluster B, histrionic, borderline and narcissistic disorders who are not highly antisocial. But if the person is lying, cheating and manipulating, that is antisocial behavior. This behavior in the context of any cluster B means the person is potentially very dangerous. As the authors state:
“Screening for PCL-based psychopathy can also be important for general psychiatric patients with a DSM-IV personality disorder, so that potential difficulties in the course of their treatment can be anticipated and this comorbidity can be targeted in the planning of therapy. Patients with both a DSM-IV personality disorder and PCL-based psychopathy can exhibit behavior that is particularly dangerous to therapy (Stafford & Cornell, 2003).”
If you have been diagnosed with borderline personality and reading this frightens you, I am sorry. You can improve by working on your inner triangle. Talk to your therapist about DBT a treatment that is very effective in improving the state of the Inner Triangle in people who are motivated to do it.
*The reference for the paper discussed is Behav. Sci. Law 25: 901—911 (2007).
So many of us have said, “How can we tell if he’s an N, S or P? The definitions all seem to blend together.”
You say: “Many people might think that if the partner has been “diagnosed borderline” or “diagnosed narcissistic” that means the partner is not a psychopath/sociopath. This study suggests otherwise.”
This makes so much sense: The grandiose narcissist who has all those psychopathic behaviors of devaluing and discarding, not to mention even more dangerous behaviors of abuse.
One comment about the potential borderline/sociopath overlap: Anyone who has been diagnosed with borderline personality disorder and is concerned they might therefore be sociopaths, I would suspect that just by virtue of having such concern, they are not. A true sociopath, I think, at the very least would not care. Might even be proud. They don’t think there’s anything wrong with them anyway. Right? So they wouldn’t be here reading unless they had some ulterior motive, like to mess with our minds or show off. Remember…who was that guy?…had his own blog?…said he’d been diagnosed as a sociopath?…thought he could never get caught, although seems like he was…oh yeah, Perfect Monster. He made for interesting, perhaps enlightening reading (to whatever extent anything a sociopath says can be believed), but he obviously hadn’t the slightest desire to fix whatever might be “wrong” with him. He was quite proud of himself, and all he got away with. He knew that others perceived there was something wrong with him, but he didn’t care. The only thing he cared about was getting caught, which I think is the norm for sociopaths.
Guaranteed, my ex would have no interest in this website or therapy or fixing himself. The only reason he ever went to therapy was for some ulterior motive. Like after we separated. He was vacillating, at times wanting to come home (I was still in bargaining/ denial and was desperate to find a way for him to do so), but mostly trying to find a way to end the relationship for good without looking like the culprit. Only way he could figure to do that was by trying to make it look like he really tried. Like by going to AA. And going to counseling. He gained nothing from the counseling, a source of women and NS from AA.
Gillian:
I twisted myself into a pretzel dealing with S’s never ending problems, never ending demands, never ending complaints.
I tried my damndest to get him into counseling. Oh, he made the right noises about going into it — when he knew he had pushed me to my absolute limit and he feared I was going to walk.
I still remember the night I drove him off. He said “You’re always pushing therapy on me. Well, that referral you got me to X Hospital? One of my exes made me go there and it did nothing!”
You’re right — unless they can get something out of it, its wasted on them, because they’re perfectly happy with their lives. As for getting caught, I don’t even think that matters to them unless then end up being sent to prison.
Matt,
My husband, whoa, I wrote that automatically, I mean ex, has remarried, to a woman a lot younger (her parents are my age) and completely clueless. He has her convinced I am a lunatic, a bitter ex-wife, but he still fears she (or her parents) will learn the truth. He has so many plates spinning in the air: they work together and he has slept with many of the women they work with; he is master at knowing who will keep his secrets. But it’s dangerous for him. He likes the danger, adds to the excitement, but he’s never before had someone (me) who was completely onto him before. And what he got away with for 18 years is beyond belief. He slept with many of his co-workers (and his new wife’s) while carrying on a 4 year affair with a woman he planned to up and leave me for but did not–at least not like he planned (he ended up ultimately dumping that woman too, this past July, three months after he’d moved in with the woman he’s now married to)–because two days before his planned date of departure, I figured everything out. Then he could not go ahead as planned, at least not as far as he was concerned, because he had the rest of his family (and co-workers) bamboozled as well. He was not willing to look like the culprit, culprit being too mild a word, scum of the earth is more like it.
Years ago he and I went to counseling for problems we were having with his then-teenage son, who was a pathological liar (surprise!) I later diagnosed as a sociopath (still didn’t these traits in my ex). Anyway, the LCSW psychologically tested both of us. I don’t remember my results; probably your garden-variety neuroses, but I do remember my ex’s. I remember Gary, the counselor, saying (and he’d been a therapist for almost 30 years) that in all the years he’d been counseling people, my ex was “the most psychologically together person he’d ever seen in his office”!!!!
But part of his scam now is going to AA. Serves several purposes. One, and probably the main one, is that is serves as his personal trout farm, is you get what I mean. He goes to meetings all over the place. So this one won’t know about that one and that one won’t know about this one. Two, it’s huge ego strokes. I’ve told an al anon friend that he will probably be one of AA’s main speakers in a couple of years, he’s that good. He often leads meetings, and back when I used to still talk to him he’d tell me about all the compliments and praise he received. The third thing is that, to the degree he has to admit being a scumbag, he can claim he’s changed, he’s a new man–let’s see if I get this right, he said this many times to me–“God is doing for me what I was unable to do for myself.”
Oh yeah, he’s got the lingo down pat. Back in June, just before our 18 year old daughter graduated from high school, he told me that he’d had a “white light experience” (a la Bill Wilson, I suppose). He knew I’d been checking out the cell phone calls and text messages he sent and received. And there were literally hundreds a month! He had another cell phone, one on his then-gf’s (the one he married) plan, but he kept the one he had with me until the contract expired last August (so his gf wouldn’t see those phone calls). He was so out of control, that even after I’d throw names of women in his face, he would tone it down for a few days, then be back at it again. White light experience. Right.
gillian:
So, God is doing for him what he was unable to do for himself. Hmmm. I was taught to believe that God helps those who help themselves. Silly me. I forgot we’re dealing with sociopaths. They get everybody else to do their work. Guess I shouldn’t be surprised that your ex-S can get God to do his bidding.
The only white light experience I want to see my ex having is the one on the final journey. Oh, wait. Wrong direction. He’ll be going head-first into the flames of hell.
Liane:
“A child begins to acquire ability to love in the first year of life, impulse control begins in the second year of life. Moral reasoning begins in the third year of life and its development depends on a loving nature and impulse control.”
The parents of my S left him behind in his native country with his older and younger siblings when he was somewhere between two and three years old. His mother returned for them 6 months later.
Would that early “abandonnment” have accounted for his sociopathy or were the indicia already established in his personality?
I’m inclined to believe the latter, since I believe there’s a strong genetic component with these people. But, there’s a part of me that believe his parental abandonnment might have fed into his becoming an S, not that that excuses anything.
Indiboblue:
My S knew all the lingo from Cocaine Anonymous. Used it as a weapon when necessary.
Then, the minute he conned his PO and his group therapy leader to let him out of his therapy ahead of schedule, CA went by the boards.
I agree. The 12 step programs are good. But, they are hunting grounds for Ss.
Gillian: Remember the warning about “Too good to be true”? Gary, your couples counselor should have remembered that one. He said, ” that in all the years he’d been counseling people, my ex was “the most psychologically together person he’d ever seen in his office”!!!!”
So, as gifted mimics, they get past the professionals. Robert Hare has said the same thing. So why should we be surprised that they get past OUR defenses.
I’m so glad we have this website to work with each other to piece out the truth.