The Difference Between Psychopath and Sociopath + A Sociopath claims he is "gifted"

[Mechnick]

How do you define "functional sociopathy" and how does it compare with something like Aspberger's Syndrome? Or various placement of high functioning on the autism spectrum because those individuals are low empathy and highly individualistic as well, but there is not a connection with directly anti-social behaviors or "superficial charm" and skill at navigating social environments like sociopathy has based on most definitions.

Functional sociopathy and Asperger are different. Functional sociopath is someone who in spite of difficulty somehow manage to function in day to day living.
Like Lisbeth Salander from "_The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo", in spite of trauma and abuse. Because she is highly intelligent and she doesnt internalize guilt, but fights her molesters and wins. But, its movie dramatisation. Irl it s different. The process and events are slower.

Hugh Laurie is functional sociopath, Ryan Gosling also. Johnny Depp. Hunter S. Thompson was till suicide, etc. They are all creative geniuses.

Asperger folks are different.
Asperger is neurodevelopmental disorder.

"A disease of mental health that occur during a child's developmental period between birth and age 18 resulting in retarding of the child's psychological or physical development."

"AS Is characterized by significant difficulties in social interaction and nonverbal communication, along with restricted and repetitive patterns of behavior and interests._" ~ Wikipedia

 

[PumpkinMayCare]

Interesting. The link you provided highlights punishment as ineffective, as is social stigmatisation. I cannot help but wonder if our automatic resorting to *that* for rehabilitation has something to do with it being considered 'incurable' at present, since so much of our laws and social code is based on that. It's how our society works, for now...and it seems to be incompatible with the wiring of these individuals.

In comparison, animal trainers are finding that positive reward training is way more effective and more forgiving of training mistakes than punishment, therefore yielding both better results and a safer therapy for both owner and pet. Punishment is often easier to resort to in the moment, especially if you're mad at the animal, but often produces significant backlash when improperly administered, extra unintended trauma to deal with, and..yes, due to all of this, is a lot less effective and desirable. Animals are *wired* for seeking out pleasure and rewards. It just takes more thinking things through and setting things up to make these rewards part of the training, whereas punishment...well, is easy to execute and doesn't require a whole lot of imagination, so it tends to be the go to for many. This was especially true in the past, and has significantly shifted in the last few years to favour the reward system.

Meanwhile, cats in particular, could care less about social stigmatisation, since they don't adhere to a traditional hierarchy the way that human and other pack animals like dogs do. And to be honest...I think you'll find many an Fi-user that will agree with that - I know I do

When your survival isn't dependent to anyone else, so you don't *really* need anyone else, safe for bonding purposes...why should you recognise anyone else's authority?

It'll be interesting to see where this stuff goes in the future - both in the human field and the animal one.

In reference to your 'case study': I do agree that it would be fascinating to find just how much of this is triggered by nature and how much by nurture and to really hammer down the 'switch' as such. It could mean a great deal to our society, our prison system and for that matter, their own well-being and ability to cope and rehabilitate, if we could solve that puzzle.

I've recently read an article about social stigmas around different personality disorders and how each responds to stigma. Psychopaths don't respond to stigma because they're simply incapable of feeling empathy. They do correlate with narcissists in the grand scheme of things. They do not understand why one should view their psychopathic behaviour as bad, because they don't feel remorse and they don't understand why someone would feel remorse after blackmailing/manipulating or even killing someone. Because they lack that needed empathy, as we all know by now.

It would be very interesting to know which one - genetics or the environment - has the final say in this. It's not easy to find out though because a lot of psychopaths hide their illness from society and if they are found out after committing a crime, believed psychopaths are often tested before imprisoned, to which extent they were conscious while committing the crime. That involves asking for abuse or other traumatas that might have happened in the believed psychopaths life. And often enough they claim to have experienced abuse. The problem is, if there are no medical journals of bruises or other injuries it's hard to believe a psychopath that abuse really happened. Asking the parents or whoever raised them is pointless most of the time of course; not many abusers admit to their abuse. And since being brought up in harsh environmental circumstances may lead to a lower sentence, it makes it even harder to know if the claims are true. Some attorneys do advice their clients to lie for their own benefit. So it's hard to tell how big of an influence abuse and traumatas are to developing psychopathy.

Though there are lots of people who expierenced trauma and abuse and don't become psychopaths, so the genetic influence must always be there. That's my opinion. I've read quite a lot of studies about PTSD and it's correlation with traumas and how not everyone develops PTSD. So, that just underlines my opinion.

 

[Z Buck McFate]

Ok, explain functional sociopathy.

What exactly do you find to be a can of worms?

Admittedly, I could have worded this better.

I definitely would have been more careful about wording if I knew it was something that would get people so worked up.

eta: (I even incited some righteous indignation in [MENTION=6643]Fluffywolf[/MENTION].....which I don't think I'd ever seen happen before, and I didn't know was possible. I was going by a different understanding of "psychopath", I think. Which is weird, because I pulled my understanding from quite a few different places about it. But anyway. Yeah, worms.)

It's important to define emotional empathy and cognitive empathy, when talking about a psychopath's empathy, if no one has brought this up. My internet really sucks right now, or I'd do it.

And I too was under the understanding that past attempts to teach empathy only resulted in increasing cognitive empathy (which helps them effectively manipulate) without increasing emotional empathy (actual caring). If there have been more successful recent attempts, I'd love to see proof of it.

 

[Mechnick]

Admittedly, I could have worded this better.

I definitely would have been more careful about wording if I knew it was something that would get people so worked up.

Sorry, Scorpio Midheaven here. We are psychiatric diagnosticians, not psychotherapists.

 

[Mechnick]

Admittedly, I could have worded this better.

I definitely would have been more careful about wording if I knew it was something that would get people so worked up.

eta: (I even incited some righteous indignation in [MENTION=6643]Fluffywolf[/MENTION].....which I don't think I'd ever seen happen before, and I didn't know was possible. I was going by a different understanding of "psychopath", I think. Which is weird, because I pulled my understanding from quite a few different places about it. But anyway. Yeah, worms.)

It's important to define emotional empathy and cognitive empathy, when talking about a psychopath's empathy, if no one has brought this up. My internet really sucks right now, or I'd do it.

And I too was under the understanding that past attempts to teach empathy only resulted in increasing cognitive empathy (which helps them effectively manipulate) without increasing emotional empathy (actual caring). If there have been more successful recent attempts, I'd love to see proof of it.

There is no empathy in psychopaths. Their empathy neurons are dead.

 

[Siúil a Rúin]

Functional sociopathy and Asperger are different. Functional sociopath is someone who in spite of difficulty somehow manage to function in day to day living.
Like Lisbeth Salander from "_The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo", in spite of trauma and abuse. Because she is highly intelligent and she doesnt internalize guilt, but fights her molesters and wins. But, its movie dramatisation. Irl it s different. The process and events are slower.

Hugh Laurie is functional sociopath, Ryan Gosling also. Johnny Depp. Hunter S. Thompson was till suicide, etc. They are all creative geniuses.

Asperger folks are different.
Asperger is neurodevelopmental disorder.

"A disease of mental health that occur during a child's developmental period between birth and age 18 resulting in retarding of the child's psychological or physical development."

"AS Is characterized by significant difficulties in social interaction and nonverbal communication, along with restricted and repetitive patterns of behavior and interests._" ~ Wikipedia

Those are good distinctions. What is complicated about these issues is that a lot of diagnoses and terms get thrown around and what is actually going on could be a number of issues. It is possible for someone with Aspberger's to get labeled with a personality disorder and vice versa because a lot of this has been traditionally defined based on external behaviors.

While it's true that autism has been studied more in terms of neuro-functioning, even it is only recently being understood well, and it is in a state of continual revision. James Fallon is the first one I know of to approach psychopathy with brain scans and to study the neurology of it. Those terms, 'sociopathy' and 'psychopathy' have traditionally been defined by external behaviors, so the entire concepts are in transition, which will likely result in a lot of debate. There may end up being new terms emerge to make distinctions between definitions involving brain structure and genetics vs. behavioral assessments.

I have a person I work with who has been diagnosed on the autism spectrum, but who could actually have a personality disorder. It is so incredibly complex to parse out what is actually going on with a person. Even within the realm of personality disorders there are so many derivations, that the terminology is still in a state of development. It makes it really difficult to discuss clearly.

I've actually found that the majority of debates come down to this meta-debate:

"This concept belongs with this larger category. It has enough similarities that they belong together within the same classification"

"No it doesn't belong with the larger category, it has enough distinction to merit a different term and definition"

Basically it often comes down to semantics. Which can be frustrating because the entire problem with classification is that two things can have both similarities and distinctions, so placing them within the same category has both merit and problems. And so we have the discussion of what a 'sociopath' is and what people belong in the same category and what people require different categorization and why.

 

[Lark]

"What the experts call superficial charm, I call having a natural ability to win friends and influence people. What experts call manipulative and conning, I call an affinity for persuasion based upon an innate ability to pinpoint others personality strengths and weaknesses. What the experts decry as a lack of compassion, I call pragmatism and clarity."

And it sounds like what they'd call reframing I'd call rationalisation.

Scripts and games can "work", they can "work" real good, especially if you're not interested in the alternative and only want to objectify, use and abuse others.

Its kinda like how coke heads and other addicts are just "enjoying" themselves.

Sure they are.

 

[Mechnick]

insanity definition

Movie example of how someone becomes sociopath (after the war, ptsd-war trauma, alcoholism...), then murder his wife and ended up in a psychiatric ward for the criminally insane (suffering from Dissociative Identity Disorder)

Ramsey on Film: Andrew Laeddis Fictional Case Study


Shutter Island Case Study: A Psychoanalytic and Behavioristic Perspective | Reham Al Taher - Academia.edu

 

[Lark]

Erich Fromm

I'd say that what's being talked about as sociopathy here is the "exploitative" and "marketing" social characters, or some hybrid of them both, which are to be expected in the having mode of existence on which our societies and economies are founded/based/dependent.

Maybe at the outer reaches, like rapists, murderers, fascists and the like you have the necrophilious types but I dont think they are that common, for every Jeffery Dalmer or the like you've got a lot of lesser types which never cross over into the torturing, killing type of thing but who get ahead by conforming to and promoting the norms of which they are a product.

 

[Lark]

insanity definition

Movie example of how someone becomes sociopath (after the war, ptsd-war trauma, alcoholism...), then murder his wife and ended up in a psychiatric ward for the criminally insane (diagnosed as

I really do like the literary references (albeit movie adaptations of the same), some of the greatest sources of human self-understanding I think are from literary sources, Freud choose to cite a bunch of them literary references and stories until his followers kind of took it all up as something independent of its origins.

Still I'm not sure that reducing it all to a psychological label is always such a good idea, I thought it was once upon a time, I used to think that Fight Club was just a story about some guy who has a crisis as a result of status anxiety and loneliness resulting in a split personality/delusional personality conflict or schizophrenia but having spoken to so many people about it since them I can see it means a lot of different things to a lot of people.

 

[PumpkinMayCare]

There is no empathy in psychopaths. Their empathy neurons are dead.

There was this one interesting study about narcissists, I think it was done in the USA. (Read it in one of my study books, it's been a while tho...) They used the magnetic resonance tomography and showed those narcissists disturbing pictures. Interestingly, only ~some~ of the tested individuals showed no reaction to it whatsoever, others though did react, but to a lesser extent than a normal individual would. Meaning, a total inability to feel empathy is not written in stone.
After the research was over, the participants recieved their personal results. Those, who responded mildly to those disturbing images were asked if they ever felt guilt or empathy towards another human being. Some of them refused to answer, others answered they have done at times, at least a little bit. When asked if and why they would still go ahead and hurt someone, the answer was because their goals meant more to them then other people's feelings.
So the set of psychologists concluded, not every narcissist (and that may include psychopaths/sociopaths, we don't know yet) is completely incapable of feeling empathy, but their response to their feelings of empathy plays a role in how their disorder mainfests itself too.

 

[ChocolateMoose123]

Erich Fromm

I'd say that what's being talked about as sociopathy here is the "exploitative" and "marketing" social characters, or some hybrid of them both, which are to be expected in the having mode of existence on which our societies and economies are founded/based/dependent.

Maybe at the outer reaches, like rapists, murderers, fascists and the like you have the necrophilious types but I dont think they are that common, for every Jeffery Dalmer or the like you've got a lot of lesser types which never cross over into the torturing, killing type of thing but who get ahead by conforming to and promoting the norms of which they are a product.

Agreed. Fine line stuff here on the more subtle ends. Interesting enough, and this is just an anecdotal observation, but I have noticed in watching crime shows with interviews of those that survived or were whistleblowers that intuition, gut feelings, instincts, often unravels the machinations of these types.

Which is interesting. Mainly because those instincts, etc while biological in nature, are in the "ether" the same way lower levels of sociopathy may be. Something feels "off" about someone.

Now. Not saying every time someone has that feeling it's accurate or correct. More that, it is that instinctual sense that initiates the call for attention and further investigation of someone that may have many 'fooled' due to them fitting in greatly.

 

[PumpkinMayCare]

Erich Fromm

I'd say that what's being talked about as sociopathy here is the "exploitative" and "marketing" social characters, or some hybrid of them both, which are to be expected in the having mode of existence on which our societies and economies are founded/based/dependent.

Maybe at the outer reaches, like rapists, murderers, fascists and the like you have the necrophilious types but I dont think they are that common, for every Jeffery Dalmer or the like you've got a lot of lesser types which never cross over into the torturing, killing type of thing but who get ahead by conforming to and promoting the norms of which they are a product.

The type that is depicted is part of pop-psychology, a stereotype, often for some reason talked about as if it's some kind of higher version of the normal human being.

In the real world we have a lot more gray areas, where the borderlines blur and the personality disordered become harder to diagnose. There's barely any attention paid to the histrionic personality disordered; although ironically, it's quite a common type to encounter. That's because the dramatic behaviour and mannerisms of this type makes him look like a crybaby who is in dire need to get pempered all the frickin time, a diva, and you can't sell that quite as good to an audience like it has been done with the sociopath/psychopath in the media, movies and series. Cause where's the charme, the mysteriousness or the strategic thinking and subtle but genius manipulation and all that stereotypical character traits of psychopaths/sociopaths people are so fascinated by? Without all that, disordered people often just are... a bummer. So individuals who are more realistic or common around the personality disordered don't get the same attention than the others do.
That's a bummer.

Cause the truth is not every psychopath scores as high as the other one on the psychopathy scale. Some may fear going to jail actually and therefore rely on subtle manipulation to keep them going. I do doubt psychopaths or sociopaths would ever bow down to societys values and standards like normal human beings do. They simply do not care about such things. But I doubt every psychopaths murders necessarily. Not every murderer is a psychopath or sociopath, that's one thing that's proven already. Murder is not a criteria to be diagnosed as a psychopath. It still is about lack of empathy and immoral behaviour.
I actually have an uncle who from what I know by now was a potential psychopath. He never killed someone. But when he died a lot of his past actions surfaced. His wive found out he was married to two other woman, one lived in a different country. He had three families and six kids. And the mothers knew nothing about the other woman although his first woman had been married to my uncle for more than 20 years. My uncle's mom was born mentally handicapped. She was one of eleven kids and her family lived in extreme poverty, so of course she recieved no treatment whatsoever. When she was about sixteen she was raped by some random stranger and got pregnant - and that's how my uncle was created. So without any help and having the mental capacity of a twelve-year-old, this woman raised my uncle. And I'm writing this because she did her very best, I know, I met her. She was very childish and naive through all her life but she did her very best to raise my uncle. But when he was thirtyone and constantly getting fired, despite knowing what trouble his mother went through to raise him, he stole the money she gave him to pay the rent, ran off with it, so he could spent it on prostitutes and gamble a whole lot. I mean... how can you do this your mother? How can you possibly do this to someone handicapped, someone who's defenceless to such a high extent? How can someone do this to your defenceless mother? Total lack of morals. And this is just the tip of the iceberg, he did a whole lot of crazier stuff...
There's a lot of variety reagrding the personality disordered. Sometimes they don't neccessarily commit a murder or torture someone or become sick cult leaders, sometimes they just show a total lack of morals in different areas. And it's unfortunate that this isn't talked about at all or at least barely.

I'm sorry this reply became so long.

 

[ChocolateMoose123]

[MENTION=32520]thepumpkinpot[/MENTION]

I tend to see agree with a lot what I scanned through there. (Sorry!) Paragraph breaks are my pain-killers.

I have a relative who had the diagnosis of 'anti-social personality disorder with histrionic and narcissistic traits'.

He had everyone fooled. Violent, unpredictable, manipulative, cruel, etc. Except those nearest and dearest. Interestingly enough, it was the histrionic aspect of his diagnosis that was his 'undoing'.

The more his control slipped the more he grasped for it. In doing so, his emotional responses were far beyond the "normal" range for most and "alerted" strangers (those in the court system) to his actual character.

To this day, our family speaks of this as a godsend. That he had this 'flaw'. As if he did not, he would have been massively more dangerous. Not to those he wanted to control or hurt (he was already that person and encompassed it very well) but to his "audience".

He was a master manipulator. He got his attorney to represent him pro-bono. (Should tell you something there) among MANY others "how does he snow these otherwise intelligent people?"

Very interesting.

But, all that stuff surfaced AFTER his control was wrested from him. Which I think if a sociopath/psychopath doesn't have that happen? They can maintain what all looks to be above board.

True enough, in your case all that came to light AFTER he passed.

 

[PumpkinMayCare]

[MENTION=32520]thepumpkinpot[/MENTION]

I tend to see agree with a lot what I scanned through there. (Sorry!) Paragraph breaks are my pain-killers.

I have a relative who had the diagnosis of 'anti-social personality disorder with histrionic and narcissistic traits'.

He had everyone fooled. Violent, unpredictable, manipulative, cruel, etc. Except those nearest and dearest. Interestingly enough, it was the histrionic aspect of his diagnosis that was his 'undoing'.

The more his control slipped the more he grasped for it. In doing so, his emotional responses were far beyond the "normal" range for most and "alerted" strangers (those in the court system) to his actual character.

To this day, our family speaks of this as a godsend. That he had this 'flaw'. As if he did not, he would have been massively more dangerous. Not to those he wanted to control or hurt (he was already that person and encompassed it very well) but to his "audience".

He was a master manipulator. He got his attorney to represent him pro-bono. (Should tell you something there) among MANY others "how does he snow these otherwise intelligent people?"

Very interesting.

But, all that stuff surfaced AFTER his control was wrested from him. Which I think if a sociopath/psychopath doesn't have that happen? They can maintain what all looks to be above board.

True enough, in your case all that came to light AFTER he passed.

Depending on how smart they are. It's a complete misconception that those who are psychopathic/sociopathic/disordered in general are more intelligent than your average human being. They do mistakes as well, then get caught and face a life in prison.
He must have been quite the diva, eh. Should've gotten him a Snickers from time to time ...

 

[ChocolateMoose123]

Depending on how smart they are. It's a complete misconception that those who are psychopathic/sociopathic/disordered in general are more intelligent than your average human being. They do mistakes as well, then get caught and face a life in prison.
He must have been quite the diva, eh. Should've gotten him a Snickers from time to time ...

No Snickers. He was plenty nuts. Don't need more.

Fwiw, his IQ was above genius. He was a member of Mensa.

So, if there's a spectrum? They come in all flavors. I do wonder about the intelligence factor showing itself more in how the person undergoes the task of getting what they want.

What mistake (action) did they make to get caught? That tells me more about mindset.

 

[Siúil a Rúin]

Erich Fromm

I'd say that what's being talked about as sociopathy here is the "exploitative" and "marketing" social characters, or some hybrid of them both, which are to be expected in the having mode of existence on which our societies and economies are founded/based/dependent.

Maybe at the outer reaches, like rapists, murderers, fascists and the like you have the necrophilious types but I dont think they are that common, for every Jeffery Dalmer or the like you've got a lot of lesser types which never cross over into the torturing, killing type of thing but who get ahead by conforming to and promoting the norms of which they are a product.

Until you watch war documentaries and then you wonder...

I have encountered either first-hand or once removed two full-fledged psychopaths, and it is quite different from an emotionally disconnected person with low empathy, and suppressed anger issues who is generally horrible. In those two instances the psychopaths DO find a way to carry out their rage and commit ongoing violence. In one instance he is getting in trouble with the law, but not before creating a cult dynamic where he is beloved by many even though he is over the top sadistic with brutal physical attacks that leave people hospitalized. The second one had a high level profession which he won awards for, but which also provided him the opportunity to commit a lot of murder without being detected.

I do think some of these tendencies are latent in larger numbers of the population than we might realize, and during times of war and such it is realized in action, but not necessarily before that. I agree that the media is creating a bizarre idea about these anti-social personality disorders because it seems they are being connected with the idea of being "sexy" or something?

 

[PumpkinMayCare]

No Snickers. He was plenty nuts. Don't need more.

Now you ruined my joke. Although yours was quite witty too, I'll give you that.

Fwiw, his IQ was above genius. He was a member of Mensa.

So, if there's a spectrum? They come in all flavors. I do wonder about the intelligence factor showing itself more in how the person undergoes the task of getting what they want.

What mistake (action) did they make to get caught? That tells me more about mindset.

Actually, speaking about criminals, according to studies criminals often have a low IQ. I already answered that question according to sociopathy/psychopathy. It's a myth.

Do I know all of the psychopaths/sociopaths who get arrested? No. It's not really the main topic in psychology. We were just taught individuals with sociopathy/psychopathy aren't neccessarily smarter than your non-disordered individuals. There's also a shift in mental energy you should not forget. While us average human beings learn how to follow certain moral codes, those with psychopathy/sociopathy put their mental energy into developing good manipulation tactics and skills. That mental energy plus the fact, that they get way more experience at manipulation tactics than the average folk are two factors as to why they are so good at manipulation. But if someone's not very smart and their plans aren't sophisticated enough they will make mistakes and then probably get caught. What kind of mistakes? Use your fantasy. If psychopaths and sociopaths were that smart, none of them would ever go to jail. But nowadays it's enough to leave a little bit of DNA somewhere and whoops, you need an attorney.
I remember a surprising big amount of prisoners who were imprisoned for tax evasion were found out to be psychopaths, no kidding. And they were caught. Someone must have found out. Psychopaths aren't geniuses per se. They just learn and hone skills most people don't even want to think about. Most people don't ask themselves how they could possibly obtain something by fraud. But psychopaths do think about this like we're thinking about how we can decorate our appartment or what instrument we'd like to learn. It's normal to them. Their ways of thinking are completely different. And the crueler and more selfish it gets, they higher on the spectrum.

 

[Mechnick]

I agree that the media is creating a bizarre idea about these anti-social personality disorders because it seems they are being connected with the idea of being "sexy" or something?

They are not sexy at all. Only equally demented person can find them sexy.
Or masochist person.

I bet many from media are masochists.

Or story exploitng greedy vultures.

 

[Z Buck McFate]

There is no empathy in psychopaths. Their empathy neurons are dead.

From the first page I found:

Empathy provides a foundation for guiding our behaviors toward others. There are two distinct kinds of empathy in the human experience: emotional empathy and cognitive empathy:

• Emotional empathy, also called affective empathy or primitive empathy, is the subjective state resulting from emotional contagion. It is our automatic drive to respond appropriately to another’s emotions. This kind of empathy happens automatically, and often unconsciously. It has also been referred to as the vicarious sharing of emotions.
  
• Cognitive empathy is the largely conscious drive to recognize accurately and understand another’s emotional state. Sometimes we call this kind of empathy “perspective taking.”

Psychopaths have cognitive empathy, which is how they can effectively manipulate. They do not have emotional empathy- which in most people- is what tethers a personal responsibility to the way cognitive empathy is used. Even narcissists who aren't psychopaths have emotional empathy, it's just that they're so distracted by their own emotional needs all they see in others is a reflection of their own worth.

It seems like there's no consensus on exactly what cocktail of the above qualifies a psychopath. I know I can remember reading, in some book about narcissism, that not all narcissists are psychopaths but all psychopaths are narcissists. (Which is to say, they live a necessarily predatory existence, although if the people around them know what they're dealing with and they have an acceptable outlet to shine, then they can contribute in positive way. Like maybe James Fallon. But the other end of that spectrum is pretty ugly). I've not read anything to contradict that, except members of this forum in the other thread. (No one posted any actual evidence of it though, so I'm inclined to stick with what I've read. For the time being.)


eta: And for what it's worth, James Fallon's theory- about why some people with a psychopathic brain end up with violent tendencies and others end up like him (he refers to himself as "prosocial psychopath")- is upbringing. He was raised in a secure in loving environment.