Is there any kind of medication that can help a sociopath? help make them change?
Who diagnosed this person to be a sociopath, and what type of sociopath is this person?
Get yourself a copy of “Without Conscience: The Disturbing World of the Psychopaths Among Us” by Robert D. Hare.
And no, there’s no cure. They won’t change. Run like hell.
Nowadays “antisocial personality disorder” is the term preferred over sociopath. I would definitely recommend not diagnosing someone with this unless you have had the input of a trained professional who understands the nuances of the DSM IV. But if you really are dealing with someone who truly has Antisocial personality disorder, no, there is no cure or treatment that will make them “normal”. I have also heard it said that therapy is actually contraindicated in antisocials since it often just feeds their pathology instead of helping anything.
The “treatment” is basically for healthy people to avoid the person or, if it’s one of the antisocials who commit crimes, placing the antisocial in prison so they can’t hurt innocent people (although not all antisocial PD people commit crimes and not all criminals are antisocial, there is a lot of overlap).
Just FYI, Robert Hare and other professionals in the field of sociopathy/psychopathy do not believe that APD is a complete descriptor of the condition. In my readings, and in the training I did with Hare, he pretty much described the condition as a combination of APD and Narcissistic Personality Disorder.
The PCL-R assesses both behavioral and historical factors (the APD part) and the mindset, thought process, and emotional factors (the NPD).
The rest of your post gets a +1 from me.
will read this book…thnx
about therapy, we have found this to be true.
How do you know someone is truly sociopathic or has an anti-social personality disorder. Is there a specific checklist? There are people I know that seem kinda difficult in many ways, so I wonder if i truly know anyone with this disorder or they’re just your general all around asshole. Can a sociopath turn off his / her bad behavior or is it something that’s always “on”, that they can’t control.
Another good book is “The Sociopath Next Door,” by Martha Stout. She claims that statistically, about 4% of people in the US are sociopaths but most of them fly under the radar. It was a fascinating (and scary) read.
Edit: She also states that no treatment works and the only good solution is to run like hell and have nothing to do with the person.
Is there any difference between a psychopath and sociopath?
The only real way is to have them diagnosed by a professional, and that’s often not your run-of-the-mill therapist. The best person to diagnose sociopathy/psychopathy/APD is a specialist in the field - a forensic psychologist, for example.
There is a checklist for psychopathy/sociopathy, called the Psychology Checklist - Revised, but that’s only available for trained professionals at a certain level of credentialing.
Yes, sociopaths/psychopaths can turn off their behavior. It’s more like they can adapt their behavior to the needs of the current situation if they recognize that the adaptation is beneficial to them in the short term.
Stout’s book is more readable, IMO, than Hare’s, but she takes a lot of her data from him. It’s definitely a good book.
Another I recommend is Snakes In Suits: When Psychopaths Go to Work, co-written by Paul Babiak (an industrial/organizational psychologist) and Robert Hare.
If it isn’t clear by now, OP, Hare is The Man when it comes to this issue.
That is a subject of much debate in the forensic and clinical psychology community. In my personal professional opinion, not much, but I know that there are others on the board who might have different opinions, and more experience in the field. I’ll wait for them to chime in.
There are checklists of behavioral characteristics in both DSM-IV and ICD-10 for antisocial/dissocial personality disorder. These criteria are general and could potentially be applied to nearly anyone; what makes an evaluation pathological (versus being “your general all around asshole,”) is the persistence and degree of impairment of normal function, e.g. someone who is a true sociopath is incapable of empathy, remorse, or normal restraint of irritability. Some (but not all) sociopaths can control their behavior sufficient to pass for “normal” in casual relationships but will ultimately reveal their nature in more intimate relationships or under the influence of drugs and alcohol. The criteria between different personality disorders is overlapping, and in the proposed DSM-V all of the current “Cluster B” disorders (antisocial, narcissism, borderline, histrionic) are all lumped into a Type based upon character rather than behavior. (The nuance between character and behavior is somewhat lost on me, as character is determined from behavioral cues, but this is probably of import to professional diagnosticians.) The Cluster B disorders are generally regarded as being untreatable by either medication or therapy.
Some people are “difficult” because they have relationship issues like trust and authority, or fears and anxiety, or because they’re just plain defiant, but most people ultimately want to belong to a group and gain the approval of others. Sociopaths just don’t care about approval or inclusion except insofar as it suits their own needs, and may often maintain a view of the world is radically skewed, either holding a sense of entitlement with needs as far more important than the needs or even basic safety of others, or have an exaggerated sense of persecution and and rejection, beyond the level of neurosis.
I’ve known a few genuine sociopaths, and they are just not people you can reason with on the basis that they will be willing to do a thing for you or exhibit a “better nature”. Their emotional calculus is just about what they can get from you, and they will keep returning to the well until driven off. You can’t help such people; all you can really do is isolate yourself from them and triage relationships with them and people influenced by them.
Stranger
The way most people use the terms, not really. When Dr. Stout uses the term “sociopath,” she’s pretty clearly talking about what the aforementioned Dr. Hare and his predecessor Dr. Harvey Cleckley called a “psychopath,” an extremely antisocial and narcissistic personality type characterized by a certain constellation of traits, especially a profound lack of conscience and empathy. However, “sociopathy” is a problematic term because people commonly also use it as a synonym for antisocial personality disorder, or ASPD, which as Kolga says is similar to psychopathy but not at all the same (they were supposed to be, but the DSM criteria for ASPD, while useful, don’t adequately describe the construct of psychopathy - it’s a long story). The easiest way I can think to compare them is to say that psychopathy is like ASPD on steroids.
Very true, unfortunately. There are current attempts at developing therapies to treat psychopathy in forensic settings with strategies intended to appeal to their self preservation rather than their sense if compassion, but at present the only therapy for psychopaths that works is “iron supplements” - iron in the form of bars.
I think I’m one. I fake caring, I do what is expected from me. When my ex sweet baboo left me, I acted all upset, but I didn’t really care. Whatever, go away and stop bothering me. The only thing I really care about is rescue. Animals are more important to me than humans in my mind.
This is a very big problem for me. People want to be my friend, M wants to be my lover, but I honestly don’t care. As long as long as I get my happy monents, I just don’t care.
Is this what you are talking about?
Hervey Cleckly, dangit, not Harvey. I hate autocorrect.
This sounds more like depression to me (armchair psychologist). Sociopathy isn’t just not caring, it’s actively hurting or taking advantage of others for your own benefit, no matter how small. Pathological lying. Reckless, spontaneous behavior with no regard for consequences. I don’t think you’d give a crap about animals or anything other than yourself if you were really a sociopath. They don’t really feel emotions beyond a primitive kind of rage or short adrenaline highs when they’re either denied something or gain it. The books I’ve read emphasize that sociopaths value self-gratification above all else and don’t care who they hurt to get it. But they’re very good at hiding just how obsessed with it they are, made all the more successful by the fact that normal people can’t even fathom this kind of conscience-less behavior.
And self-awareness that their behavior is abnormal and wrong is not a feature of the disorder, either, so if you think you have it, you probably don’t. The thought would never occur to a sociopath that there was something wrong with them.
That and the fact that you care so much for animals – most sociopaths get a thrill out of torturing them. (In fact, it’s one of the major signs)
tears now. I’ve been so worried about this for so long. I know that I’m not normal. I don’t feel like other people do. I really don’t care. Animals are innocents, they deserve better. I don’t like children, but I do the right thing when I find one wandering around. I give homeless people money. I do what is expected of me, but I really don’t care about people.
I think I should log off now. I need adoration and affection, and telling this sort of stuff won’t get me what I want.
Aw, hon, please don’t cry. Is there any way you could see a therapist? Seriously, it might help you deal with all of this. I don’t think you’re abnormal or anything. Whatever it is, you’re NOT a sociopath, that’s for damned sure.