Sociopath

[Scrawler]

There's a definition of a sociopath here (http://www.mcafee.cc/Bin/sb.html)
Has anyone had experience with this type?
Not the serial killer type, but the common, every day variety.

Like this:
"Most people with a conscience find it very difficult to even imagine what it would be like to be without one. Combine this with a sociopath's efforts to blend in, and the result is that most sociopaths go undetected.
Because they go undetected, they wreak havoc on their family, on people they work with, and on anyone who tries to be their friend. A sociopath deceives, takes what he (or she) wants, and hurts people without any remorse. Sociopaths don't feel guilty. They don't feel sorry for what they've done. They go through life taking what they want and giving nothing back. They manipulate and deceive and convincingly lie without the slightest second thought. They leave a path of confusion and upset in their wake."

[DavidZahir]

From what I've read, a sociopath never learns on a visceral level that other people are real. You know that moment in Home Alone when the kid tries shaving for the first time, and then does the beginner mistake of immediately applying aftershave? Remember how everyone in the audience cringed? That is what a sociopath doesn't do, not naturally. And as a result, emotionally there is no more inherently alone person on Earth. They feel (not as a conscious belief) that they are the lone human being surrounded by millions of walking mannequins. The sociopath learns to behave like a mannequin, but of course never becomes one and feels no guilt or compunction about anything done to a mannequin. Other people aren't real. They're robots. Hurting one is impossible. Damaging it has no more moral impact than breaking a lightbulb.

It is a vastly lonely and unhappy existence, especially if said sociopath is even vaguely aware on any level of what they are missing--of the full range of human interaction which humans beings are designed to experience, but which the sociopath never does.

[Wiskel]

As a psychiatrist I've had some experience. Sometimes through working with the families or children, and occassionally i come across an adolescent that's showing all the signs. I have previously worked in a secure psychiatric hospital for a short time as a junior doctor. Plenty of people with antisocial personality disorder in there.


The definition you've linked is a good one...but there is no such thing as a textbook person or personality. Everyone is a little unique. Also, every item on the checklist is a spectrum, not a yes/no answer. It's not the case that someone would either have "normal" empathy or none, they might have none, a tiny tiny bit, a little bit, some, loads, shedloads etc.

Were there any specific questions you had?

Craig

[Rowan]

There's a definition of a sociopath here (http://www.mcafee.cc/Bin/sb.html)
Has anyone had experience with this type?
Not the serial killer type, but the common, every day variety.

Like this:
"Most people with a conscience find it very difficult to even imagine what it would be like to be without one. Combine this with a sociopath's efforts to blend in, and the result is that most sociopaths go undetected.
Because they go undetected, they wreak havoc on their family, on people they work with, and on anyone who tries to be their friend. A sociopath deceives, takes what he (or she) wants, and hurts people without any remorse. Sociopaths don't feel guilty. They don't feel sorry for what they've done. They go through life taking what they want and giving nothing back. They manipulate and deceive and convincingly lie without the slightest second thought. They leave a path of confusion and upset in their wake."

Yes, I used to work with one... she was our group secretary. This is very accurate: "A sociopath deceives, takes what he (or she) wants, and hurts people without any remorse. Sociopaths don't feel guilty. They don't feel sorry for what they've done. They go through life taking what they want and giving nothing back. They manipulate and deceive and convincingly lie without the slightest second thought.
They leave a path of confusion and upset in their wake."

This woman was a pathological liar and manipulation/deception was her middle name. If she couldn't deceive or manipulate you she would sabotage your reputation (personally/professionally). She was known to buy people gifts to 'win them over' or convince them that she was a good person, etc. Even when caught in lies she'd keep up the charade - resorted to crying, etc. etc. etc.

We were so glad to see the back of her!!! :tongue

[backslashbaby]

Yes, I knew one for years who was so smart it took knowing her closely to watch her missteps. But man were those missteps indicative of a scary, scary lack of conscience.

She was very charming, but after seeing the missteps, you could see the pure manipulation involved. There were other things I learned that she did that she did without me and would know not to tell me - things done openly if she was around more immoral folks [usually theft or cruelty].

It's like a whole other species, imho. I am certain that she would murder someone if she knew she wouldn't get caught - like those women who marry for $$ and then off the husband.

Feel free to PM me if you want anecdotes. I'm actually afraid to post them online because she is so scarily vindictive, and I'd be afraid she'd know I was talking about her!

[smcc360]

Feel free to PM me if you want anecdotes. I'm actually afraid to post them online because she is so scarily vindictive, and I'd be afraid she'd know I was talking about her!

But what if one of us... IS HER? :eek:

I once read that emergency service workers (police, soldiers, firefighters, paramedics, emergency room doctors and nurses, etc.) display some signs of sociopathy in their interactions with victims of injury or tragedy. The author seemed unsure whether the profession caused the mindset, or if borderline sociopaths sought out such employment.

I don't believe it, though. Like all pat explanations, it falls apart on further examination.

[Scrawler]

Were there any specific questions you had?
Craig
I think my questions are just about someone's interaction with this type of person. My experience has been that they are masters at deception and have most people convinced they're "nice people".
I appreciate your replies!

[backslashbaby]

Quote:
Originally Posted by backslashbaby
Feel free to PM me if you want anecdotes. I'm actually afraid to post them online because she is so scarily vindictive, and I'd be afraid she'd know I was talking about her!

But what if one of us... IS HER?

Nooooo! It's you, isn't it?

*runs screaming far away from AW*

[Chase]

I once read that emergency service workers (police, soldiers, firefighters, paramedics, emergency room doctors and nurses, etc.) display some signs of sociopathy in their interactions with victims of injury or tragedy. The author seemed unsure whether the profession caused the mindset, or if borderline sociopaths sought out such employment.

I don't believe it, though. Like all pat explanations, it falls apart on further examination.

That sends shivers down my spine. The three sociopaths I had/have the misfortune to know and barely survive were an operating room nurse, a dental assistant, and a firefighter/paramedic. I know plenty of great people in those jobs who are sane, loving humanitarians--but that trio makes me want to seek the relative soft fuzzy comfort within a feeding frenzy of sharks.

The part about them not having a work ethic may be the penchant of some, but that doesn't stop the most clever of them from charming their way through schools and employment on the Peter Principle.

While you are any kind of subordinate, a co-worker, or his/her immediate superior, your life will be a virtual hell . . . and everyone around will fully believe it's all your fault.

[Wiskel]

But what if one of us... IS HER? :eek:

I once read that emergency service workers (police, soldiers, firefighters, paramedics, emergency room doctors and nurses, etc.) display some signs of sociopathy in their interactions with victims of injury or tragedy. The author seemed unsure whether the profession caused the mindset, or if borderline sociopaths sought out such employment.

I don't believe it, though. Like all pat explanations, it falls apart on further examination.

It's good to question that statement. There's a necessary degree of detachment that's needed if you're going to deal with someone in a dreadful state....a certain mindset.

Sometimes you need a confidence bordering on arrogance. You have to believe you're doing the right thing and that it's for the best. You can't let yourself get too caught up in sympathy (which is close to empathy), you do what you have to do.

My own experience of this is more to do with surgeons. They can be some of the most arrogant people you'll ever meet, but there are people who'll carry this detachment on when the crisis is over, and those who'll collapse back to normality as soon as they're behind closed door in the mess.

My own story of this, the time most people would have thought i was an arrogant arsehole was during my time as a junior physician. We had a crash call on a gynaecological ward at about 3am on the busiest weekend near christmas that i've ever worked. The hospital was so full that any patient who needed a bed was wherever a bed was...the gynae ward had every type of illness you could imagine on it...including an elderly paranoid woman who was delirious.

This woman thought the crash team had come to get her. She started running around the ward screaming and throwing things at us wile we were trying to do CPR. She kept bursting through the curtains and it was dangerous....but this woman was about as scared as anyone i'd ever seen. We had a small team at the crash with gynae nurses who hadn't done a real crash in ages. We didn't have the staff to calm the elderly woman and run a successful crash.

I bet we looked like a bunch of sociopathic idiots. The only way through that was complete detachment and stopping the danger this woman posed with the minimum number of staff. We had a nurse march this lady into a side room and keep her there, doing her best to calm her but knowing that stopping her interfering was the immediate life or death problem and had to override the calm and reassuring nursing care that she needed.

There have been other times when i've stepped over a man who was lying on the floor of a psychiatric ward knowing that he was faking being in pain and believing that the only way to help him was for him to learn that he could get the reassurance he wanted by talking to us and he wouldn't get it by rolling around on the floor. another sociopathic doctor moment to any observer.

I guess my point is that no one moment defines an antisocial personality. it's a pattern that repeats over and over, and it's the domiant pattern for that person. Anyone at all is capable of having a sociopathic moment in the right circumstances....and those circumstances would usually be stressful to the point where overthinking them would harm your ability to function.

Craig

[backslashbaby]

OK, I can probably safely tell one anecdote to illustrate the kinds of things I mean.

She told me, laughing about it the whole time, about how clever she was as a little girl. Her much older *relative* moved in because he lost his job in another state. She said that he took away all of the attention from her. But she thought he was funny and liked him.

Still, after a couple of months, she told her parents that he had molested her and tried to get her to do drugs. He got kicked out. She got more attention than before. Win, win, yes?

Chills went up my spine, seriously. I knew that the parents had been estranged from the person for years but didn't know why.

[DeeCaudill]

There's a very readable book on sociopaths in the workplace called Snakes in Suits by Robert D. Hare and Paul Babiak.

[veinglory]

I would suggest not depending on lay diagnoses of personality disorders.

[backslashbaby]

True.

And if anyone in the know wondered about Histrionic, Borderline, etc., with the anecdote I gave, yes, I would think the girl had more than just Antisocial PD... y'all'd have to tell me. I have an undergrad degree in Psychology that included Abnormal Psych, of course, but I am definitely not a clinician.

The craving for attention is not a symptom of APD, as far as I know. That is important to point out, imho, now that I think about it. Of course, please correct me if I'm wrong on anything [any time] - I'm totally for being corrected, really :)

[RAMHALite]

From what I've read, a sociopath never learns on a visceral level that other people are real.

Very well said! That's one of the core characteristics of the sociopath/psychopath. Many feel that it is a result of their lack of attachments during infancy and early childhood. It is through the process of attachment to parents or other caretakers that we get pulled out of our original self-involved state and cross the bridge to the world of other people, whom we start to experience as separate thinking and feeling beings and not merely as extensions of ourselves.

Sociopaths tend to experience others as falling into two groups: schmucks and others. "Others" are those whom the sociopath can't con; schmucks are those on whom the sociopath can get over. Sociopaths try to make everybody into a schmuck. They very often succeed, because they are skilled at manipulation and deception. They have an uncanny ability to size up a situation and see how far they can go. They can read others with remarkable skill. They never accept blame and always deny, minimize, and distort to exculpate themselves.

Does therapy help? Not only does it not help, it has the opposite effect. In a Canadian study, researcher Marnie Rice and others examined sociopaths (psychopaths) who had received therapy in prison vs. those who had not. Therapy actually increased the recidivism rate. The explanation was that the sociopaths who got therapy simply learned what to say in order to be a more convincing manipulator and criminal, and so committed more crimes, eventually getting caught. They did not come to appreciate their fellow huiman beings more as a result of therapy; they only appeared to.

--RAMHALite

[Ruv Draba]

Sociopathy and psychopathy are either two names for the same thing, or two names covering things that overlap very closely. I'd like to talk about psychopathy here, because it's recognisable as a common human trait, while people don't normally describe sociopathy that way. Hopefully it will add some insight.

Everyone has the capacity for psychopathy. It's within all of us to see the world as objects. It's a predatory talent if you will, to withdraw our empathy, exploit a situation for our own ends and to work without remorse. You can actually induce psychopathy in people just by telling them certain stories.

It's also an asset for certain tasks. A previous poster mentioned areas like trauma. It's also an asset in military command, policing, parenting, emergency services, self-defence, and in my industry, project managers often demonstrate high levels of psychopathy.

But... most people can't live their lives that way. If we're psychopathic for too long it grows uncomfortable. We want to extend empathy, redefine ourselves in connection to other people, reconnect with our family and tribe, check how other people are seeing us. If we don't, our compassion evaporates and our morality crumbles.

A pathological psychopath typically can extend empathy but never feels that he must. The self-doubt and conscience nagging that causes us to reconnect with other people simply doesn't afflict him. This is why therapy doesn't work. Therapy becomes a learning experience -- how do others see me, and how can I use that?

The amorality and lack of empathy in sociopathy derive from this sort of thinking. It's easy to lie if you have no empathy. You just have to believe in yourself -- and if yourself is all there is, why wouldn't you?

Psychopaths don't necessarily want attention but they do need to feel that they're in control. As long as the world follows their expectations they're happy. When they lose power they'll ruthlessly try and reclaim it -- or else they'll redefine reality so that it doesn't matter any more. Psychopaths have extraordinary levels of belief, and often attract neurotic and borderline personalities who need such belief to feel secure. They'll frequently manipulate such people to maintain their sense of power, and some are happy to be manipulated.

In my work I encounter a lot of psychopaths. Some surveys indicate that the incidence is around 5% for men and 3% for women. But in the workplace they tend to cluster around where the power is -- and that's where I tend to work, so I meet far more than 3-5%. I can usually tell when I'm near a psychopath's lair from the concentration of neurotic and borderline personalities nearby. I sometimes think of a vampire with entranced victims. :)

Hope that helps.

[backslashbaby]

Yep; it helps me :)

And she was so exciting and wild and fun and charming at a time where that was the #1 thing I was looking for - fun, reckless times with someone with ooomph.

Oh, she was reckless alright!

PS - and it's fine if I'd have to be neurotic. I certainly was neurotic - I was an anorexic/bulimic cutter at the time, yes. It was years ago...

[Judg]

I sometimes wonder about my sister-in-law... ;)

[Wiskel]

You can actually induce psychopathy in people just by telling them certain stories.


Hope that helps.

You can't.

You can create a situation where someone's actions to an observer may appear to be lacking empathy, or you can temporarily stress them to a point where their normal way of dealing with something goes out the window.

You could create a situation where someone believed it was ok to act in a way they normally wouldn't. The experiments where volunteers were paid to administer electric shocks to people when they answered a question incorrectly comes to mind. The actors recieving the shocks were told to act as though in great pain and the volunteers giving the shocks often carried on giving them as it was all "an experiment" and so ok.

You could pay someone so much that they'd do something the didn't believe in, or you could make an action the lesser or two evils and allow them to justify an action that way. you could even make them feel they had no choice, for example by threatening a loved one.

What you can't easily do is change someone's personality or core beliefs, and one isolated action does not a psychopath make.

Either term you used really applies to a personality type, not an action.

Craig

[Ruv Draba]

What you can't easily do is change someone's personality or core beliefs, and one isolated action does not a psychopath make.Psychopathy is a function of mind, and we all have unacknowledged inner psychopathy. Whatever inner psychopathy we have can be brought out.

If you doubt this, I suggest that you look at the creation of child warriors in Africa (http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25524812-5001986,00.html). Would you consider children cannibalising their weakest and torturing their own families to be fair examples of psychopathy?

If we also have empathy and sympathy then that can be brought out too.

[Wiskel]

Psychopathy is a function of mind, and we all have unacknowledged inner psychopathy. Whatever inner psychopathy we have can be brought out.

If you doubt this, I suggest that you look at the creation of child warriors in Africa (http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25524812-5001986,00.html). Would you consider children cannibalising their weakest and torturing their own families to be fair examples of psychopathy?

If we also have empathy and sympathy then that can be brought out too.

I think we're only disagreeing on semantics, not human nature. I wouldn't use the word psychopathy in the way you do.

I would disagree that psychopathy is a function of mind. I would say it is a deficit in other functions of mind, such as empathy.

Almost all of us have inner cruelty, inner callousness.....or any number of similar traits. They can be drawn out as you describe.

Psychopathy, in the context of psychopathic personality disorder, is describing the absence of empathy, not the presence of cruelty. I don't think you can bring out "the absence of empathy" in someone who is empathetic, but you can bring out cruelty, callousness, or any one of a hundred other unpleasant things in just about anyone.


I wouldn't consider judging anyone as a psychopath based only on their actions. A child warrior who tortures their own family may indeed be a psychopath, or they may be a child capable of empathy who is in a terrifying situation they can't control. In that case you could call them cruel and callous and dangerous, but I wouldn't label them as a psychopath.

Craig

[Ruv Draba]

I would disagree that psychopathy is a function of mind. I would say it is a deficit in other functions of mind, such as empathy.Psychopaths have been demonstrated to have empathy. For instance, they can read emotions on others' faces just as well as anyone else. They simply don't use their empathy when making decisions.

And yes, any of us can be induced to do the same. :(

It's not what we'd like to believe, but alas, it's still true.

[shawkins]

When I was an undergrad I read a book called The Mask of Sanity that had a lot of interesting anecdotes about non-violent sociopaths. A couple months ago I tracked down a PDF of a later edition from the author's web site, but I haven't read it yet.

Question for the professionals though--do I remember that the book was discredited for some reason? Or controversial or something?

[dgiharris]

I think my questions are just about someone's interaction with this type of person. My experience has been that they are masters at deception and have most people convinced they're "nice people".
I appreciate your replies!

IMHO, the mistake most of us make when thinking about psychology is to put things in categories of right and wrong. What I mean is that we define 'normal' by what the majority does and not so much by what is right or wrong.

Sociopaths just happen to have viewpoints and or a mindset that differs from the majority. And thus, their actions will be a logical extension of their beliefs.

When you say 'deception' that implies a certain amount of 'wrongness'. Instead of 'deception' I would say 'adaptation'.

If you were going to write a sociopath. If you do it from the standpoint that they are 'wrong' then IMHO you may fail to capture the true essence of the character and instead deliver a caricature.

But if you write the sociopath as 'right' since each of us believe we are 'right' then the character should come across as more 3-d and real.

THere is a popular story/riddle that gives some insight into the mind of a sociopath. I'm probably going to screw this up but I'll do my best from memory.

Susan attends a funeral of her friend, Ralph. At the funeral she meets a wonderful man who is the Ralph's brother. They talk and she discovers that she likes him, he is funny, sexy, intelligent, etc. etc. Of course during the funeral she makes the rounds, meeting the family, friends, and other guests.

One week later, Susan kills Ralph's sister. Why did she do it?

Most normal people when faced with this story/riddle guess a variety of reasons. Perhaps Susan was in the will, perhaps Susan hated Ralph's sister. Perhaps someone paid Susan to do it, etc. etc. Of course, the most common answer is 'this question makes no sense.'

Most serial killers give the same or similar answer highlighted below.

Susan liked Ralph and wished to see him again, thus, she would be able to interact with him at another funeral.
Now, the above answer doesn't make any sense to normal people, but it makes perfect sense to a serial killer. There are probably better examples, but my point being, it isn't so much a matter of right or wrong as it is about an alien mind. A mind that differs from the norm. The bigger the difference, the more 'alien' its logic. But there will still be a logic there. Just from a different point of reference.

Of course, I am NOT a psychologist so take my opinions with a grain of salt.

Mel...

[Judg]

I understand the logic. And I think it's wrong.

My antagonist is a sociopath. And I got deeper in his head than any other character. I left value judgments up to the reader. But just because the character thinks he's entirely justified doesn't mean he is. Lack of empathy is not merely another way of looking at the world. It's pathological.

Yeah, I know I'm old-fashioned, but I think relative morality is a crock. A very dangerous crock.

[Ruv Draba]

I understand the logic. And I think it's wrong.

[...] Lack of empathy is not merely another way of looking at the world. It's pathological.Yep. We can't have society without ethics, there's no ethics without morality, we can't have morality without compassion, and there's no compassion without empathy.

Sociopathic behaviour damages relationships, minds and social function. 'Live and let live' certainly isn't an option with violent sociopaths, and often it's not an option with non-violent ones either. 'Contain and isolate' is often what you have to do -- not because of who they are but because of what they do.

[dgiharris]

I understand the logic. And I think it's wrong.

My antagonist is a sociopath. And I got deeper in his head than any other character. I left value judgments up to the reader. But just because the character thinks he's entirely justified doesn't mean he is. Lack of empathy is not merely another way of looking at the world. It's pathological.

Yeah, I know I'm old-fashioned, but I think relative morality is a crock. A very dangerous crock.

Believe it or not, I do agree and am not a proponent for relative morality. Its just that many people have never really given much 'thought' to why something is right or wrong and as a result will be inconsistent in their application of morality to various situations. Also my point was that for most cases, we define 'right' or 'wrong' from the norm vs a true derivation of 'right' and 'wrong'.

But I do think that in order to write a character such as this, doing so from morally relative frame of reference (i.e. thier POV) should lead to a better character, otherwise, you may end up with a caricature IMHO.

Mel...

[Scrawler]

When you say 'deception' that implies a certain amount of 'wrongness'. Instead of 'deception' I would say 'adaptation'.
I'd call it deception and I'd call deception wrong.
By deception I mean a sort of pretending.
Pretending sincerity. Pretending feelings. Pretending to care- For personal gain, to exploit.

[Judg]

Believe it or not, I do agree and am not a proponent for relative morality. Its just that many people have never really given much 'thought' to why something is right or wrong and as a result will be inconsistent in their application of morality to various situations. Also my point was that for most cases, we define 'right' or 'wrong' from the norm vs a true derivation of 'right' and 'wrong'.

But I do think that in order to write a character such as this, doing so from morally relative frame of reference (i.e. thier POV) should lead to a better character, otherwise, you may end up with a caricature IMHO.

Mel...
Ah, we're not as far apart as I thought. I quite agree - deviation from the norm is not a true standard of morality. That's just social conformity, which can be negative or positive, depending on what you're conforming to and a host of other factors.

In my case, we get to see the antagonist through his own eyes, through his admirers' eyes and through his enemies' eyes, so I hope it isn't too much of a caricature. But then, it's rather difficult to write a sociopath as a well-rounded character, because they aren't that well-rounded as individuals. Complex, perhaps, but that's not quite the same thing. I did try to introduce an opportunity or two to actually feel some empathy for him, and that's about the best I could do. It still doesn't exonerate him in any way, although it does make one of his betrayals a little easier to swallow.

And I now realize I'm guilty of a little derailing. Sorry about that. I haven't known any genuine sociopaths close up myself, so I can't share anything of value for the original poster.

[blacbird]

Psychopaths have been demonstrated to have empathy. For instance, they can read emotions on others' faces just as well as anyone else.

That's not real empathy. Empathy is the capacity to feel something of what the other person is feeling, not just the ability to interpret it in a Machiavellian intellectual manner. In fact, at the extreme end, the sadistic sociopath actively enjoys the recognition of a victim's anguish. Google "Randy Kraft, Robert Berdella, Richard Kuklinski, Gary Heidnik, Ian Brady, Myra Hindley" for some examples.

caw

[Wiskel]

Psychopaths have been demonstrated to have empathy. For instance, they can read emotions on others' faces just as well as anyone else. They simply don't use their empathy when making decisions.

.

Empathy isn't an all or nothing trait. It's a spectrum.

I have enough empathy that I'm not going to go and kick a puppy, but not enough to make me vegetarian, and definately not enough to make me break into labs in the middle of the night and free animals.

People are all over the spectrum. Some will happily start a fight with a man but never hit a woman. The next person will hit his wife and kids. the next might kill a stranger but wouldn't dream of harming their own family....and so on.

When I say the absence of empathy, I don't mean no social skills at all, or zero empathy, just not enough. Not enough compassion. Not enough ability to feel someone else's pain. not enough to stop them when they weigh up the pros and cons of a choice.

The reason I dislike linking psychopoathy and cruelty / criminality together is that a psychopath doesn't have to have been sadistic or dangerous or criminal to meet the criteria for a diagnosis. There will be some business people who find their job easier because they don't really care if their actions hurt others so long as they make money. They will never get diagnosed, because as others are pointing out, society only really points and stares if you do things that break the social norm. Being a ruthless business exec is a good way to do things that might not be "good" but that leave you respected and admired and rewarded.

By the medical definition, there will be psychopaths in every walk of life, but we risk corrupting the word because most times the public use it in common language it's in relation to criminal violence and it gets mixed in with "sadist"", "criminal" and possibly even "complete nutjob". :)

Craig

[aquatico]

In the UK, "psychopathic disorder" is a legal term not a medical one. There is no such thing as a pscyhopathic personality disorder in the American and European diagnostic manuals, which do not quite agree if an antisocial personality disorder in the USA is the same thing as a dissocial one in the UK. As Wiskel said, medically speaking, there will be people with antisocial and/or dissocial personality disorders in every walk of life, but he is not correct to call them psychopaths, who were originally referred to as moral imbeciles because they were assumed to be criminally insane. In fact any personality disorder can be described as a psychopathic disorder, including borderline personality disorder, which women are more likely to be diagnosed with than men, although anyone who challenges a psychiatrist may find themselves labelled as such.

[veinglory]

You can lack empathy and do no harm to anyone. And if a person does no harm to anyone they are okay with me.

Frankly I think in fiction we are talking about people who are jerks and/or people who are dangerous.

Psychiatric diagnosis are more-or-less doomed efforts to describe in objective, if largely arbitrary ways, the types of people who can be dangerous and the ways they can be jerks. They are not universal or consistent truths of any sort and may not (as described in the DSMV) be used to profile or predict the behavior of individuals.

I think novels deal with psychiatric illness in a generally poor, stereotyped way. They take these tangled efforts of the current generation to deal with human complexity (Freudian, humanist, psychiatric etc) and treat these systems like reliable truths--and then add moral judgements to them. They are to psychiatry what Frankenstein is to GMOs.

That is why most students of psychology spend the first year of training learning that everything they think they already know is wrong, so that in the second year they can begin with a helpful and honest degree of pure ignorance rather than a mosiac of fallacy and moral panic mythology. They are then ready to realise how very little we have so far acheived when it comes to understand the human psyche as a collective or individually.

[/rant]

[Ruv Draba]

That's not real empathy. Empathy is the capacity to feel something of what the other person is feeling, not just the ability to interpret it in a Machiavellian intellectual manner.I believe that you're talking about sympathy. Psychopaths don't have any. But they can understand others' emotions.

[RonjaCecilie]

I'm convinced that my father is a sociopath. He always lies, has no sense of remorse what so ever, he isn't able to see things from other peoples perspective. He can never see that things are his fault. He never think that he has done something wrong. He CAN'T do anything wrong, in his own eyes.

He's gotten three kids with three different women. I'm the youngest, my two older siblings are the same age, but have different mothers. He denied one of them, and still does even though I've taken a DNA test with her. It's a 99,99% chance of us being siblings. He believes that this is a conspiracy against him.

He has a debt of over a million NOK, that we think he denies. He's been known to gamble. He lives of his girlfriends money.

I don't have any contact with him, and haven't had since me and my brother found out that we have a sister (March 09). He's been a bad influence in our lives, and we all struggle with mental problems. I'm depressive, have obsessive–compulsive disorder and anxiety, my brother has big problems with commitment, and doesn't trust anybody, my sister has social anxiety and a fear of being rejected.

So yeah.

[Ruv Draba]

I have enough empathy that I'm not going to go and kick a puppy, but not enough to make me vegetarian, and definately not enough to make me break into labs in the middle of the night and free animals.
Empathy is the capability to share and understand another's emotions (http://absolutewrite.com/wiki/Emotions) and feelings. It is often characterized as the ability to "put oneself into another's shoes," Empathy does not necessarily imply compassion (http://absolutewrite.com/wiki/Compassion), sympathy (http://absolutewrite.com/wiki/Sympathy), or empathic concern (http://absolutewrite.com/wiki/Empathic_concern) because this capacity can be present in context of compassionate or cruel behavior.
Compassion is a combination of empathy and sympathy. To be compassionate about a puppy you need to understand that a puppy yelping is a sign of pain, then you need to care that another creature suffers. Psychopaths can have plenty of empathy; just no sympathy. The example of Hannibal Lecter, while fictional, is an excellent illustration.
The reason I dislike linking psychopoathy and cruelty / criminality together is that a psychopath doesn't have to have been sadistic or dangerous or criminal to meet the criteria for a diagnosis.That's true.
There will be some business people who find their job easier because they don't really care if their actions hurt others so long as they make money. They will never get diagnosed, because as others are pointing out, society only really points and stares if you do things that break the social norm.The first part is true; the second is not. You can find a lot of psychopathy in the personality of many sales executives, for example. It is also diagnosable. Hare (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hare_Psychopathy_Checklist) for instance, uses two factors: "aggressive narcissism" in the personality and "socially deviant lifestyle" in the case history.

Examples of aggressive narcissism include:

Glibness/superficial charm
Grandiose sense of self-worth
Pathological lying
Conning/manipulative
Lack of remorse or guilt
Shallow affect
Callous/lacking empathy
Failure to accept responsibility for own actions(Those are often very successful traits in a sales executive, for instance -- which is perhaps why you can find so many more psychopaths in that work than in other work.)

Examples of social deviance in case history include:

Need for stimulation/proneness to boredom
Parasitic lifestyle
Poor behavioral control
Promiscuous sexual behavior
Lack of realistic, long-term goals
Impulsivity
Irresponsibility
Juvenile delinquency
Early behavior problems
Revocation of conditional releaseThere are other diagnostic criteria though...

The American Psychiatric Association's (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Psychiatric_Association) Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diagnostic_and_Statistical_Manual_of_Mental_Disord ers#DSM-IV-TR_-_The_Current_Version) (DSM-IV-TR) uses Antisocial Personality Disorder (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antisocial_personality_disorder)(Code: 301.7). Diagnostic criteria include:

Failure to conform to social norms (http://absolutewrite.com/wiki/Norms) with respect to lawful behaviors as indicated by repeatedly performing acts that are grounds for arrest;
Deceitfulness, as indicated by repeatedly lying, use of aliases, or conning others for personal profit or pleasure;
Impulsivity (http://absolutewrite.com/wiki/Impulsivity) or failure to plan ahead;
Irritability (http://absolutewrite.com/wiki/Irritability) and aggressiveness (http://absolutewrite.com/wiki/Aggressiveness), as indicated by repeated physical fights or assaults;
Reckless disregard for safety of self or others;
Consistent irresponsibility, as indicated by repeated failure to sustain consistent work behavior or honor financial obligations;
Lack of remorse (http://absolutewrite.com/wiki/Remorse), as indicated by being indifferent to or rationalizing having hurt, mistreated, or stolen from another.Finally, the World Health Organisation has an International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ICD), which describes it as Dissocial Personality Disorder (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dissocial_personality_disorder). In version 10, it's coded at F60.2 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dissocial_personality_disorder):

Callous unconcern for the feelings of others and lack of the capacity for empathy (http://absolutewrite.com/wiki/Empathy).
Gross and persistent attitude of irresponsibility and disregard for social norms (http://absolutewrite.com/wiki/Social_norms), rules, and obligations.
Incapacity to maintain enduring relationships, though having no difficulty in establishing them.
Very low tolerance to frustration (http://absolutewrite.com/wiki/Frustration) and a low threshold for discharge of aggression (http://absolutewrite.com/wiki/Aggression), including violence (http://absolutewrite.com/wiki/Violence).
Incapacity to experience guilt (http://absolutewrite.com/wiki/Guilt) and to profit from experience, particularly punishment (http://absolutewrite.com/wiki/Punishment).
Marked proneness to blame others or to offer plausible rationalizations (http://absolutewrite.com/wiki/Rationalization_(psychology)) for the behavior bringing the subject into conflict.
Persistent irritability (http://absolutewrite.com/wiki/Irritability).As a writer I find all these versions helpful, but prefer Hare's version because it gives us both an inside and an outside view in detail. I like the DSM version least, because it's so much about criminal case-history that it overlooks non-criminal behaviours that stem from the same personality pathology.

Being a ruthless business exec is a good way to do things that might not be "good" but that leave you respected and admired and rewarded.For certain executive jobs that's true; for others it's not. Psychopaths have a high rate of creating businesses that fail, and riding businesses into the ground ("aggressive narcissism" forgets to take into account personal weaknesses and the needs of others). Strong psychopaths make poor CEOs, although many CEOs have some psychopathy.

By the medical definition, there will be psychopaths in every walk of life, but we risk corrupting the word because most times the public use it in common language it's in relation to criminal violence and it gets mixed in with "sadist"", "criminal" and possibly even "complete nutjob".Also true. Psychopathy is a particular kind of thinking that can incidentally create cruelty, criminality, betrayal and other asocial behaviours.

[DavidZahir]

I'm reminded, reading this thread, of the strange case of Jeffrey Dahmer. Here was a man who committed heinous acts of torture and murder, literally regarding his own orgasm as more important than any human life. And yet--he was not a sadist. He derived no pleasure from the pain itself and (unlike Bundy and Gacy and others) when caught, declined to play any "games" with his captors. He was this almost totally dysfunctional person, a necrophile and alcoholic who experienced only tiny amounts of pleasure by resorting to the most extreme of acts--some of which were so extreme he had to become drunk to commit them (like dismembering his victims).

Methinks it is amid those tiny bits of understanding that the most "real" characterization lies. Or part of it, anyway.

[Wiskel]

You can find a lot of psychopathy in the personality of many sales executives, for example. It is also diagnosable. Hare (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hare_Psychopathy_Checklist) for instance, uses two factors: "aggressive narcissism" in the personality and "socially deviant lifestyle" in the case history.




An excellent post. I think our viewpoints are similar, but perhaps i didn't explain myself clearly enough when i said business execs would never be diagnosed. I didn't mean it couldn't be done. I meant it wouldn't be done.

Human behaviour and personality is so complex a thing that any attempt to define it in absolute terms is gong to be futile. That doesn't stop society from trying though....but it only really wants to define people it doesn't like. The drive to label Mother Teresea as personality disordered for being compassionate and self sacrificing on a level way beyond the norm never materialised. Society likes you if you have too much of certain traits, and hates you for having too much of others.

Society judges behaviour before it judges personality.

Society dislikes violence and crime. behave like that and it might send you to see a doctor who will diagnose the cause of your problem behaviour. It doesn't dislike sucessful business people. It doesn't send them to a doctor. A company CEO might start to try to diagnose a poorly performing salesperson, but won't try to do the same to its star performers. I wasn't implying that people with dissocial personality disorder made good business execs, just that lacking empathy and compassion might make it easier to make money from someone's misfortune. That a person with a diagnosable personality disorder might be able to do well in that arena and be praised by society instead of being sent to the doctor.

Even the section I've highlighted from your post acknowledges someone can be as narcissistic as they like as long as they're not aggressive, and that society reserves the right to point and stare and lock them up if they have a a "socially deviant lifestyle." That's a very vague term.

Society really doesn't like sexual deviance....or it's more accurate to say society's views are quite changeable. Go back in history and being a single mother might get you admitted to psychiatric hospital. A little more recently being gay might. Currently, paedophillia might. Believe it or not, a recent amendment of the english mental health act removed a clause that had been inserted to prevent people being sectioned for deviant sexual behaviour. The clause was removed to allow paedophiles to be detained. It's removal takes away the legal protection that someone gay had to prevent them being sectioned for nothing more than their sexuality....it's a good job that society no longer thinks being gay is a "socially deviant lifestyle."

Society is a fickle thing. Medicine reacts to society by defining the human behavioural traits that society doesn't like. Society then uses the medical terms to lock people up.

There are many other ways of defining deviance. Religious societies might define it as sin. Educational models might define it as ignorance. Western society likes to define it as criminal or illness. It likes to try to define something as an illness when society wants to lock someone up before they've done anything dangerous.

The medical model doesn't exist in isolation. it exists as part of a society that wants to lock up people it doesn't like. that's why the corruption of words like psychopath is a problem, and why I would challange a statement that says you can make someone a psychopath by telling them certain stories. that's the kind of statement that makes society think it's ok to ban certain stories.

Generally, so long as we're both saying that humans are too complex to fit into any existing classification system then we're agreeing with each other.

Craig