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.)
Katy, on the subject of amoral vs. immoral.
I think that children are born without a morality….and that what is MORAL VS. IMMORAL is a trained thing in children by the culture and the parents. What is moral in one culture is immoral in another.
For example, the men who drove the planes into the Twin Towers were doing what THEY considered MORAL. WE considered
it IMMORAL.
A person who has NO morals, no right or wrong ideas is A-moral, the prefex A meaning “Without” so an act done by a person who is Amoral may be the same as a person who does it but has a moral and does it immorally (against what they think is right) If that makes any sense.
I do think though that dividing and sub-dividing and sub-sub-dividing the definitions of personality disorders is counter productive to understanding them rather than understanding.
Stealing is an immoral act in our society. Yet, if a man steals because he is STARVING is it still “immoral”? In the old testement the Bible made a difference between a man who stole for greed and one who stole for need. They were both considered WRONG but one was punished a great deal more harshly than the other.
All I know is the spaths never have just one disorder. They all have multiple, overlapping disorders in my opinion.
Louise, it is very common that psychopaths also have ADHD and/or Bi-polar as well as psychopathy….interestingly enough, more of them are LEFT HANDED than average as well. My P son is left handed and his Trojan Horse psychopath is left handed as well, also ADHD and Bi-Polar (alll professionally diagnosed). My P son could be bi-polar and me not know it, he seems manic at times, but I have not been around him enough to know or to see enough symptoms to make a diagnosis. I would say though that he is NOT ADHD as it did not show up before he was 17 when he last lived in my house.
Wow. If I had to say one thing about my x-spath is that he did not want to be “known,” even to the point where he was reluctant to tell me exactly where he lived.
Now, this was a while ago, but my gut memory is that he actually told me he lived one town away from his real town.
I am almost sure of this and the reason why I would have remembered is that end of my Subway line is the name as his town. I know I would have remembered that.
Blue – looks like you just had a ‘aha’ moment. Funny how these things pop up in our heads. Mine did a similar thing. It was only later, like you, that it ‘came’ to me. It seems like our brains block the info for some reason. But then it comes to us and we think YES I remember.
KatyDid, Ox Drover,
In terms of avoiding bad people, yes, a granular understanding of personality disorders isn’t really necessary. Avoid people who lie, cheat, and harm others regardless of any diagnoses they may or may not have.
For scientific research and treatment, these theoretical distinctions do matter. Some of the personality disorders have nothing to do with what’s discussed on this site; for example, someone with an avoidant personality disorder is more likely to avoid you and is quite inhibited. Someone with obsessive-compulsive personality disorder may be annoying to others, but their meticulous following of rules and procedures generally means they won’t be involved in the kinds of antisocial behaviors discussed here.
Within antisocial/dissocial personality disorder itself, it is useful to subdivide along theoretical and empirical lines. Someone whose psychopathy is rooted in a callous/unemotional and instrumentally aggressive disposition may have a different treatment than a psychopathy rooted in ADHD/impulsivity and emotional dysregulation/reactive aggression. Likewise, someone whose antisocial behavior and attitudes are primarily owed to temperament is different from the kid who grew up in the ghetto and had to join a gang to avoid being stabbed to death on the way to school.
Candy;
I have had several regarding the x-spath but its the ones like these that really hit home. Again, I compare him to those I have dated after him. Good and bad, they wanted to be known. I wanted my x-spath to know me.
He even said that he “needed to be more open.”
I aslo have a brilliant idea to get some closure that I have never had…
Oxy:
Thank you. I think my X spath had to have ADHD. He could never sit in one spot for long; always on the move…probably why he can’t watch a movie; can’t sit still that long. Interesting about the left handedness. Hmmmm, something to ponder.
Ok Blue what’s your brilliant secret?
Thanks Curious Browser, That’s very helpful. I have a highly developed need to put order or reason to what I read. I now understand better and appreciate that you shared your insight.