You can sit with a sociopath and know he’s a sociopath, and sit with someone who perpetrates the behaviors of the sociopath, even as comfortably as the sociopath does, and yet know he’s not a sociopath. How? How can you know?
Is it something intuitive? I address this from a clinical perspective, not a personal or intimate one. But still, I find it somewhat interesting to feel, or recognize, this distinction, and maybe you’ll find it more relevant than I imagine.
Of course, the history says a lot. Whenever you are dealing with someone who is raising his kids with some real love, holding down a job, paying his bills, not abusing his spouse and maintaining a history (past and present) of friendships, these are indicators that whatever else he is up to, he is probably not a sociopath.
And so, strangely enough, in sitting with an individual who is perpetrating “dubious” behaviors, and is doing so perhaps even as a lifestyle versus, say, as a sudden, temporary departure from his normal self —strangely enough, in sitting with such a person, one sometimes gets the sense if this individual, in his essence, is “clean,” or “dirty?” Meaning, is his dubious behavior reflective of a corrupt essence, or does it somehow feel divorced from his essence?
Depending on the answer, one’s experience of the individual can be dramatically, significantly different and diagnostically very telling.
If this sounds simplistic, even untenable, I understand; and yet I’ve found it to be–for me, at least–a rather reliable experiential factor in ruling-out sociopathy.
I’ve worked with individuals who have done, or are doing, some pretty rotten, disturbing things, yet who clearly are not sociopaths, whereas I’ve also worked with individuals whose behavioral resumes may favorably compare to the former individuals’, yet who clearly are sociopathic.
Now what do I mean by “clean?” Of course, I don’t mean it in a physical sense. I mean that the individual transmits a certain authenticity, a certain genuineness that the sociopath doesn’t. He also possesses what I’d describe, very importantly, as a willingness and capacity to be known. Further, he possesses the capacity to really own his suspect actions: he does not deny them; is less likely than the sociopath to rationalize them; and is less likely to blame others for the liberties he takes with them.
He may, or may not, feel guilt for what he does that he knows is wrong from an ethical (if not legal) standpoint; and it’s often the case that if he doesn’t feel guilt he won’t pretend that he does; and yet, unlike the sociopath, he may feel genuinely uncomfortable with his lack of guilt.
He may say something like, “I know I should feel guilty about this, but I don’t. I really don’t. Sometimes I wonder, is there something wrong with me?” And he will say and mean this sincerely.
Conversely, there is something, as we know, very slippery about the sociopath—slippery in the way he discusses, or evades, responsibility for his behaviors. The sociopath’s emotional superficiality becomes evident in the office fairly soon; and, for that reason, one grows bored with him, soon.
If he doesn’t feign guilt or regret for his actions—that is, even if he admits to feeling no guilt, notably he is neither uncomfortable with, nor curious about, his lack of guilt. (In contrast, as I suggested, the guiltless non-sociopath tends to be somewhat more struck by, and curious about, his guiltlessness.)
The sociopath, I can’t stress enough, is not someone you can get to know. This is a subtle, very revealing experience. Something obstructs the process of getting to know him. First of all, he does not make himself knowable in a genuine sense. He is not engagable at a deep enough, and genuine enough level, to be “known.”
It is surely also true that something else, something perhaps more elemental, obstructs here: the sociopath is gapingly missing personal substance. And personal substance is required to be known.
There is emptiness there, which nothing can fill. At best the smoother sociopath can disguise this massive deficit with superficially entertaining, diverting qualities. But in the clinical setting, these disguises are less effective, their effect shorter-term.
He can’t hide for long the fact that he can’t make himself known; or that, at bottom, there is so little of him to know. If he weren’t so sociopathic, he’d feel ashamed of this, mortified.
Of course if he felt that shame, that mortification, he wouldn’t be a sociopath.
(This article is copyrighted © 2011 by Steve Becker, LCSW. My use of male gender pronouns is for convenience’s sake and not to suggest that females aren’t capable of the attitudes and behaviors discussed.)
FightAnotherDay
Whether Steve is absolutely correct or not, what I gained from this article is that when meeting some one, you should TRY to get to KNOW them deeply. I am very out-going, and like many of us victims I was more concerned about being liked by my (unknown) P than what he had to offer me.
Like Steve says, “the smoother sociopath can disguise this massive deficit with superficially entertaining, diverting qualities.” I was distracted by my P’s humor, stories, tall-tales, and pity ploys.
I of course was always “waxing”, telling my P my dreams, my ethics, my tastes.
The P didn’t share, but rather, as we know, used my openness to become my perfect match.
Thank you Steve.
Constantine
Well, I have to say that I’m not terribly impressed by a “guiltless person who is curious about their guiltlessness” – as though they deserve some kind of special pat on the back for that! In other words, a mere intellectual curiosity about feeling “guiltlessness” and lack of remorse is hardly a reason to put someone into the “nonsociopathic” category! In fact, I have a hard time picturing how someone who is TRULY guiltless (in regards to “dubious” or abusive behaviours) could be anything but that! (With the proviso, of course, that we need to further define what we mean by “abusive” and “dubious”, etc.)
Indeed, when you have a person who is both amoral and guiltless, I think I would put the predominant emphasis on that, and look scornfully on all the other stuff that as just so much in the way of “The Mask of Sanity.”
Now, that’s not to say that all abusive and immoral people are sociopaths – this much goes without saying. But “amoral” is quite a different thing from “immoral”, and a person who feels no qualms whatsoever about being amoral (rather than being simply or occasionally immoral) and abusive, well – bingo! – that’s when I think you’ve got the real item.
Redwald
One thing I enjoyed about this article, Steve, was when I got to this line:
When I read that, what occurred to me immediately was “Maybe there’s nothing there TO know!”
Then, in your very next paragraph, that’s exactly what you said, more or less!
Redwald
There are different reasons why people do bad things. Some people do bad things because their obsessions, or fears, or the rage they’re carrying, or the circumstances they find themselves in, simply overwhelm their conscience. Sometimes they feel they “had no alternative” to doing whatever they did, but very often they’re able to rationalize to themselves why they do it, and overcome their conscience in that way. Many of these people are redeemable.
The psychopath on the other hand has no “conscience” to overwhelm in the first place!
Redwald
Yes indeed. It’s not possible to fit people neatly into mutually exclusive pigeonholes. Another problem can be failing to recognize the multidimensional nature of personality disorders… or of humans in general, come to that! For instance, I’ve heard some people claim that narcissism is just a stage on the way to psychopathy. So in their minds, not all narcissists are psychopaths (which is perfectly true), but they claim that “all psychopaths are narcissists.” I don’t put much stock in that latter claim myself. Some psychopaths certainly are narcissists (Sam Vaknin is a proven example), but as far as I can see, a number of psychopaths are weak in the traits that characterize narcissism, like the desperation to feed their ego at all costs. So I tend to regard narcissism as a somewhat independent trait. Some psychopaths are markedly narcissistic as well, that’s all. You’ll just have to decide for yourself what particular collection of traits your ex had. Meanwhile, it’s enough to know he was toxic to you.
Ox Drover
Redwald,
I agree with your above post….most psychopaths are to some extent Narcissistic, but so are WE….my P son and my P sperm donor are OVER THE TOP NARCISSISTIC as well as psychopathic in every dimension, and most people I know who are VERY narcissistic are definitely toxic, and not good friends, but they might actually not be psychopaths….and again, we have to look at WHICH DEFINITION we use for “psychopath”—the points we are making HERE for OUR PURPOSES OF AVOIDING TOXIC RELATIONSHIPS–is fairly loose. We are not professionals doing a research project that we intend to publish in the AMA Journal or the Lancet but looking instead at ways to recognize the common, garden variety person who is TOXIC in respect to a relationship.
We can learn about “poison snakes” without being experts in the DNA of some very rare cobra found only under dead palm trees in some obscure part of India. LOL
dancingnancies
Steve, bang on! I always enjoy your articles because you have the gift of being able to articulate ideas very well. You’re right. Empty shells.
Yes.. the authenticity of a person, regardless of whether the person is a saint or not- comes through if they are not a psychopath. The psychopath however, is always stealing the bits and pieces of others that make them unique ( Read : Mirroring ) and present them in a overembellished facade- they don’t understand what makes others unique and valuable, they just see that they have to “appear” a certain way in order to fulfill their selfish motives. The facade is often so layed on “so thick”-some may, unaware that they are dealing with a sociopath, dismiss this as a idiosyncratic or behavioral quirk- when in reality it’s because it is NOT GENUINE! And when one becomes aware of this, it all becomes so clear. Countless Ah-Ha! moments ensue.
curious_browser
This seems idiosyncratic to me. If the patient meets the DSM-IV-TR criteria for antisocial personality disorder, they have antisocial personality disorder. If they meet the threshold of 30/40 on the PCL-R, they’re diagnosable with PCL-R psychopathy. Likewise, if they meet the ICD-10 criteria for dissocial personality disorder, they could be diagnosed with that.
This authenticity you’re describing sounds like a relative lack of the shallow affect that defines the prototypic psychopath, but this is only one item of twenty on the PCL-R. Theoretically, it may be useful to divide antisocial personalities on characteristics like this as Joseph T. Lykken does. A primary psychopath will be emotionally deficient: fearless, callous, guiltless, shallow, lacking in anxiety. A secondary psychopath may possess neurotic conflict. Lykken defines sociopaths as persistent criminals/antisocials whose behavior may be attributable to environment/upbringing than innate temperament, so a sociopath may not have the emotional shallowness of the primary psychopath.
Ox Drover
Dear curious browser,
There are so many “divisions” of personality disorders now that it is sort of like a “color chart” for shades of paint….We have of course the “primary colors” and all the shades in between, so when is “blue, blue?” and when is blue NOT blue? Actually there is I believe a definition in terms of light rays, but for our purposes of buying paint….I think too many definitions is worse than none….because now, there are so many names for different “shades of blue” that no one agrees on when blue is blue or actually what blue is, or how you figure out what blue is.
There needs to be some consistency not further division of “blue.” IMHO.
KatyDid
Oxy,
I posted a response b/c while I respect Steve Becker, I didn’t quite see his point. Rather, I disagreed. But I wasn’t able to express exactly why. With respect to Dr Steve, a liar who is able to look at himself from the third person perspective and expressing awareness that they feel no guilt is NOT a marker that shows genuine discomfort. Rather I think Dr Steves decribes a TRANSITORY phase.
Your response to curious browser captures my thought so much better than what I wrote. Right on. Oxy. Splitting hairs is not helpful. Let’s call it what it is. BLUE is blue.
I also realized that I misread immoral vs amoral, as another poster observed the word and yes, I believe anyone who is AMORAL, without morals, (synonymous to with out a conscience) is by inherent definition, spath.
(In a small irony, I used to tell my husband, “The sky is BLUE.” as an arguement to him that degrees of wrong doesn’t change that wrong is wrong.)
Katy