mentally ill or??

[undergroundpanther]

I get really frustrated at the repeatition of the old stigma that comes from having sociopaths treated as if it is the same thing as a mental illnesses that have nothing to do with the problem of having no consience, like depression or schizophrenia. Mental illness as it is used as a catchall term for 'psychological distress' or troubles in life also perpetuates the myth mentally ill people are violent.

We who suffer mental illness/psychiatric injury are not violent , but sociopaths/psychopaths are more likely to be violent than all the rest of the people labeled mentally ill..

Sociopaths/psychopaths do kill ,do crime & abuse others.. Some addicts do this sort of sociopath type behavior also.


Here is another example of failure to note.. what's the DIFFERENCE:
A thread with a title like THIS On the greatest no less...

"Ten Rampages by Mentally Ill People Who Bought Guns" ...
+8 votes : By spin

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x177197

Stigmas like that above,are from the result of having sociopaths/psychopaths labeled as "mentally ill" for centuries.
This mindless perpetuation of this violence stigma of mentally ill being linked to criminally 'violent' or abusive people has got to stop Everytime I hear "psdycho" or the killer was "nuts" looney" etc..it linkks mental illness to violence and perpetuates stigmas...

Thinking about this issue..I found it very callous how the Psych experts who write the DSM books themselves continue to not notice this injustice written into the DSM. A big failure to make a clear distinctions, to note the DIFFERENCES. The stigma that comes from lumping the mentally ill in with sociopaths psychopaths,in the DSM has an effect that legitimizes & fuels the public's fearful and ignorant reactions to mental illness!!


http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=276x11089

Being mentally ill myself,I am well aware of the stigmas against people like me.They are perpetuated even among mental health professionals regarding a denial of their own bigotries and fears. Stigmas they project..onto clients who are not violent, but because of stigmas will get treated as if they were violent or second class humans... Stigma has harmed my sanity and probably a lot of other non-violent mentally ill people out there as well. Stigma is there even where the people supposed to help you get better are. From Psychiatrists to case managers at P.R.P.'s,can be bigots, high functioning sociopaths/psychopaths or projecting (countertransferance) on their clients because they also fail to notice the difference.

Some beliefs and stigmas will follow you on the "inside" and the 'outside..My last encounter with this in the helping profession was unjust and harmful to me.Sometimes the mental health professionals are as cruel ,fearful and callous as the most bigoted and ignorant people on the outside.Sad thing is they often get away with it.

Mentalism..
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mentalism_%28discrimination%29
http://www.patdeegan.com/blog/posts/mentalism-micro-aggression-and-peer-practitioner
http://www.metaphoria.org/ac4t0508a.html

[HEyHEY]

1. So you're saying psychopaths aren't mentally ill

The disregard for human life and sick fetishes for making lampshades out of people's skin isn't a mental illness?

[H2O Man]

19. No.

Not in the traditional sense.

[HEyHEY]

26. So psychopaths are a new kind of mentally ill person?

Look, point I'm making is that mentally ill is mentally ill. Whether you're violent, depressed or what-have-you. Pussy footing around the words and purposely trying to separate mentally ill psychopaths from mentally ill people with depression etc... is just an exercise in wasting time being politically correct. I'm mentally ill and have no problem with people using the same term to describe me that they use to describe Ted Bundy. Both of us have a problem with out melon. It's not about casting generalizations.

[joeunderdog]

43. Many MH professionals would disagree.

There's a difference between having an illness that you did not choose and having a defect of the personality that is marked by a propensity to make destructive decisions.

[Statistical]

29. The DSM-IV would disagree. Then again it is only written by mental health professionals.

[Last Stand]

41. Character Disorders (Axis II) are not considered major mental illness.

They are not excuses to avoid criminal responsibility. They are what make career criminals go to jail.

Jail is full of character disordered people who chose not to conform to society's laws.

[PufPuf23]

2. The diagnosed mentally ill are more likely to be victims than perps,

Of course there are exceptions.

The best book I have ever read about human evil is Scott Peck's People of the Lie.

[Little Star]

13. May I agree on Dr. Peck's People of the Lie. Great book.

[janet118]

18. Peck has an Interesting perspective on evil . . .

Lying is its source and often the people who actually commit evil acts are just unwitting pawns of the liars.

[Electric Monk]

3. People with mental illnesses are MUCH more likely to hurt themselves than others

with the exception of sociopaths and psychopaths, who pretty much by definition are hurting others but not caring.

Manic depressives, straight up depressives, schizophrenics, paranoid schizophrenics... They still care, in their own ways. All of those are much more likely to hurt themselves than others around them.

[dkf]

11. Should they have access to guns?

[Obamanaut]

4. If these folks from the OP (...sociopaths/psychopaths...) are NOT mentally

ill, why are they treated by mental health professionals rather than, say, a podiatrist, shaman, or chiropractor?

[HEyHEY]

5. Because we have to constantly over-specify EVERYTHING

Just to make sure that no one could ever possibly be offended. What are you, new here?

[Electric Monk]

6. Who is "we"? I thought you lived in China. nt

[HEyHEY]

7. I wasn't aware that kicked me out of the human race

God dammit, every day is a new surprise.

[Electric Monk]

8. Alrighty then, enjoy being vague and misunderstood if it works for you. nt

[HEyHEY]

27. Vague? So you've never seen "we" used in a rhetorical sense?

Now I just wonder how that happened. And if you actually wonder what I meant by "we" and weren't just being a pain in the ass, then maybe you need to elaborate and stop being so vague.

[undergroundpanther]

9. The psychopaths

and sociopaths avoid therapy and when they get therapy become worse. Can you explain why?

“What I have the most trouble relating to,” Lockwood told me, “and the Phoenix kids might be indicative of this sort of thing, is the kind of cruelty that happens just out of boredom. I’ve had quite a few cases where I ask a kid, Why did you blow up that frog or set fire to that cat? and they don’t respond with answers like ‘I hate cats’ or ‘I didn’t see that as a living thing.’ Their answer is ‘We were bored.’ And then you have to ask yourself, Well, what about alternative pathways to alleviating this boredom? I have difficulty grasping what would be the payoff for setting fire to a dog.”

Neuroscientists are now beginning to get a fix on the physical underpinnings of empathy. A research team at the University of Chicago headed by Jean Decety, a neuroscientist who specializes in the mechanisms behind empathy and emotional self-regulation, has performed fMRI scans on 16-to-18-year-old boys with aggressive-conduct disorder and on another group of similarly aged boys who exhibited no unusual signs of aggression.

Each group was shown videos of people enduring both accidental pain, like stubbing a toe, and intentionally inflicted pain, like being punched in the arm. In the scans, both groups displayed a similar activation of their empathic neural circuitry, and in some cases, the boys with conduct disorder exhibited considerably more activity than those in the control group. But what really caught the attention of the researchers was the fact that when viewing the videos of intentionally inflicted pain, the aggressive-disorder teenagers displayed extremely heightened activity in the part of our brain known as the reward center, which is activated when we feel sensations of pleasure. They also displayed, unlike the control group, no activity at all in those neuronal regions involved in moral reasoning and self-regulation.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/13/magazine/13dogfighting-t.html?_r=1&ref=magazine&pagewanted=all

Psychopaths/sociopaths have no empathy .They are for lack of a better term seem like addicts addicted to brain chemical rewards.it does not matter if it is status seeking or burning a dog or beating up a child,or getting rich & snubbing the poor to death,getting praised or whatever else as long as it produces pleasure sensations they will do it over and over like a drunk domestic abuser every friday and not care who or what damage their pleasures and power tripping abuses cause to anyone else.

Also From what I observe, like many addicts the abusive plkeasure seeking pushed by a hyper reward system can risk, erode or even lose their integrity and to do that they kill their own empathy to get high.
Addicts can destroy their capacities for relationships because to the addict getting their high is more important than anything else .Sociopaths/addictive abuse will ruin their lives until they admit they want to stop doing it,cause it's going to kill them, send them to jail,lose custody etc.etc. ,and even then they can lie to themselves or swap one addiction for another one and still jazz up thier brain reward system .Like smoking for booze,booze for jesus,crack to wealth hoarding,power tripping to politics, unaccountable abuse of power to rape, rape to having a secret human skin lampshade collection.Maybe some addictions can start out as curiosity or to self medicate emotional pain but once hooked it seems ,over time it requires higher doses, bigger thrills, more domination, more perversity is required to get high again..

So addiction ultimately may be a partial basis for the erosion of empathy and moral reasoning in sociopaths.If the consience is eclipsed enough and for long enough ..it may end up resulting in a life of boredom due to the death of empathy and deadness of emotional life .Seems some sociopaths quit being so dangerous as they get older..Maybe this is because thier brain reward system is dead? Or they can't compete and do the shit they got off on before when in older more vulnerable bodies...Until that over sensitized reward system gets desensitized enough to stop rewarding the sociopath the addict in sociopathy is always seeking a high and rewards.

Marquis De Sade wrote about the exhaustion of pleasure.I think it can illustrate this process..


Anhedonia is often experienced by drug addicts following withdrawal; in particular, stimulants like cocaineand amphetaminescause anhedonia and depressionby depleting dopamineand other important neurotransmitters. Very long-term addicts are sometimes said to suffer a permanent physical breakdown of their pleasure pathways, leading to anhedonia on a permanent or semi-permanent basis due to the extended overworking of the neural pleasure pathways during addiction (particularly as regards cocaine). In this circumstance, activities still may be pleasurable, but can never be as pleasurable as they are for people not addicted to those drugs with the same intensity for the same amount of time.
http://www.lumrix.com/medical/psychiatry/anhedonia.html


Trauma causes ahedonia..so does addiction,so does depression.

I think the only way to get past the endless chicken and egg arguments about sociopathy trauma,etc.and stop the cycle is to stop child abuse and domestic abuse,abuse of power in all forms and separate the abusers addicted to sadism and abuse of others
from non -abuser & victims/survivors who are empathetic.


The addicts that have destroyed their own capacity for empathy and have no consience left will perpetuate the traumas on others that creates problems that lead to an escape through addictions,ever increasing until the abuser's pleasure centers are exhausted into ahedonia and this deadness and boredom in the abusive addicted type sets up non-sociopath and people witth hyper sensitized reward centers to be victimized by the reward seeker.They either become survivors with a lot of damage, or people that if hurt enough may turn sociopathic due to negitive stress and biological brain vulnerabilities caused by being addicted to their own brain's over sensitized 'reward system' and perpetuating this whole mess..that addictive quality of sociopathy and psychopathy needs to be studied because it keep this cycle of abuse in families and national policy going.Eventually I think it will come to having to seperate abusive and sociopathic addicts from non-sociopaths and traumatized people who still can care about others enough not to abuse them or power. How this will be done..I have no clue.

Just some random thoughts I had on the topic here.

[Obamanaut]

10. To repeat the question, if they are NOT mentally ill, why are they treated

by mental health professionals when they are treated, rather than some other type professional?

Mental health professionals generally treat those with some sort of mental ailment, they do not generally treat people with bunions or varicose veins.

If it is true that sociopaths and psychopaths, when treated, are treated by mental health professional, then they must indeed have some sort of mental ailment, or they are ill mentally.

[HereSince1628]

12. Why chiropracters and dentists don't treat sociopaths...

probably because CORRECTIONS OFFICERS ARE DOING MOST OF THE TREATMENT.

Society has agencies whose jobs are to sweep these people off the street and seclude them.

Down below I've included some characteristics of sociopaths

Let me state here, that these characteristics can occur in the apparently mentally well (Osama bin Laden, Dick Cheney). In the mentally ill, these characteristics broadly overlap with symptoms of other disorders. On the one dimension of aggressive behavior, it is not only part of anti-social behavior it also is found in people who have:

ADD/ADHD, Borderline Personality Disorder, Conduct Disorder, Delerium, Dementia, Depression, Explosive Anger Disorder, Mania, Substance abuse, and temporal lobe epilepsy.

Almost every reader of this post will know someone with one of these disorders, because in sum, their occurrence includes well over 20% of the population on any given day. Most of the people you and I know who fall into the above diagnoses wouldn't be considered sociopaths or anti-social.

Yet the occassional burst of anger, frustration, or temper tantrum is scary to many if not most people. Particularly when it comes from someone other than a pre-teen. And it lands many young adults, mostly males, in prison rather than in treatment. That is a function of society and it biases not only the judicial system but also the mental health-care and medical systems.

Misunderstanding and misdiagnosis remain very common surrounding behavior that is seen as anti-social and scary. And the misdiagnosis includes a healthy dose of gender bias. An example of this that is frequently cited is the statistical differences between gender for the diagnoses anti-social personality disorder and borderline personality disorder. Patients with both disorders 'misbehave.' In both disorders the misbehavior can include inappropriate anger and aggression. Anti-social personality disorder is mostly diagnosed in men (about 75%). Borderline personality is mostly diagnosed in women (about 75%). This gender difference is quite odd, both from a biological perspective and from a psychological perspective, and has often been remarked upon by psychologists.

It's widely considered a consequence of the public's fear of anti-social behavior in men and acceptance of the same behavior in women. Consider social belief systems which all too commonly include something like this--a girl is gonna stomp her foot and pout while a man is going to break things (maybe people). For an example of the awareness and concern about gender biased misdiagnosis of these 2 mental illnesses I suggest you read page 49 of Elliott and Smith (2009) Borderline Personality Disorder for Dummies, Wiley Publishing. In short, in their example a woman misbehaving and demanding the bartender not cut her off probably won't have the cops called to remove her nearly as soon as a man demanding the same thing.

Our society is far to willing to mistreat and incarcerate the mentally ill and way too reluctant to provide treatment.




Characteristics of sociopaths...

http://www.mcafee.cc/Bin/sb.html summarizes some of the common features of descriptions of the behavior of sociopaths.


* Glibness and Superficial Charm

* Manipulative and Conning
They never recognize the rights of others and see their self-serving behaviors as permissible. They appear to be charming, yet are covertly hostile and domineering, seeing their victim as merely an instrument to be used. They may dominate and humiliate their victims.

* Grandiose Sense of Self
Feels entitled to certain things as "their right."

* Pathological Lying
Has no problem lying coolly and easily and it is almost impossible for them to be truthful on a consistent basis. Can create, and get caught up in, a complex belief about their own powers and abilities. Extremely convincing and even able to pass lie detector tests.

* Lack of Remorse, Shame or Guilt
A deep seated rage, which is split off and repressed, is at their core. Does not see others around them as people, but only as targets and opportunities. Instead of friends, they have victims and accomplices who end up as victims. The end always justifies the means and they let nothing stand in their way.

* Shallow Emotions
When they show what seems to be warmth, joy, love and compassion it is more feigned than experienced and serves an ulterior motive. Outraged by insignificant matters, yet remaining unmoved and cold by what would upset a normal person. Since they are not genuine, neither are their promises.

* Incapacity for Love

* Need for Stimulation
Living on the edge. Verbal outbursts and physical punishments are normal. Promiscuity and gambling are common.

*Callousness/Lack of Empathy
Unable to empathize with the pain of their victims, having only contempt for others' feelings of distress and readily taking advantage of them.

* Poor Behavioral Controls/Impulsive Nature
Rage and abuse, alternating with small expressions of love and approval produce an addictive cycle for abuser and abused, as well as creating hopelessness in the victim. Believe they are all-powerful, all-knowing, entitled to every wish, no sense of personal boundaries, no concern for their impact on others.

* Early Behavior Problems/Juvenile Delinquency
Usually has a history of behavioral and academic difficulties, yet "gets by" by conning others. Problems in making and keeping friends; aberrant behaviors such as cruelty to people or animals, stealing, etc.

* Irresponsibility/Unreliability
Not concerned about wrecking others' lives and dreams. Oblivious or indifferent to the devastation they cause. Does not accept blame themselves, but blames others, even for acts they obviously committed.

* Promiscuous Sexual Behavior/Infidelity
Promiscuity, child sexual abuse, rape and sexual acting out of all sorts.

* Lack of Realistic Life Plan/Parasitic Lifestyle
Tends to move around a lot or makes all encompassing promises for the future, poor work ethic but exploits others effectively.

* Criminal or Entrepreneurial Versatility
Changes their image as needed to avoid prosecution. Changes life story readily

[pipi_k]

15. Corrections officers aren't treating them.

Like you pointed out, they're sweeping them off the streets and secluding them. The ones who have committed crimes, anyway. That's not treatment.

The question that's being asked really does need a serious answer.

If people with certain conditions that make them do crazy or awful things aren't mentally ill, then what are they? Normal?


What I find disturbing about this whole "they aren't mentally ill" thing is that people who are getting upset about it seem to be saying that it's not a mental problem which drives people to do awful things, but Evil itself. If they're not mentally ill and they're not normal, then they must be Evil.

The Devil made them do it.

And if that's the case, then maybe the truly Evil should be treated with exorcisms, beatings, torture, etc.

??????

[HereSince1628]

16. Exactly, they spend most of their time getting no treatment

The statistics I remember are that something less than 60% of the men in prison are not mentally ill.

That suggests that nearly half of them are mentally well, and in turn suggests that nearly half of them were convicted of crimes (not all violent BTW). So a SOCIALLY significant proportion of the population would seem to commit anti-social acts (i.e. violations of social norms/laws/regulations).

Of all crimes committed, not everyone gets convicted and not everyone ends up in prison. That's greatly influenced in American society by economic and social standing (Wall Street Bankers got bonuses for very anti-social behavior that has ruined millions of lives and probably caused thousands of deaths).

I am not into magic thinking. I don't believe in demons, and I don't believe that a spirit of pure evil pervades someone to do criminal or even unethical/immoral things. But I believe a person can make a decision, even an irrational decision, to commit an act (even a violent criminal act like an assault or murder) without being 'mentally-ill.'

My relevant education to behavior is from ethology and animal behavior, so I tend to see behavior as free of things like evil. That training also biases my conception of behavioral control into systems that involve stimulus, perception, cognition/integration (including sorting, prioritizing, choosing (in other words mental processes that determine significance and cognitive motivation that released certain actions)and the pathways and physiology that produced the action/behavior. In my model of mental illness, a person lacks, biologically or due to inappropriate learning, the ability to properly, perceive, integrate and select an appropriate behavior from among other less appropriate behaviors. I deem it possible that a person determined to commit a crime could do all of those things properly (if not according to the law). When deficits in biological development, diet, learning and cognition cause departures from normal thinking and result in aberrant/inappropriate behavior, particularly behavior that is harmful to oneself (in one way or another) I see the possibility of nearing a general definition for mental illness (but again, I'm not trained in psychology).

I've noticed that psychologists and social workers include other additional things in determinations of mental illness. Typically mental illness requires a condition that isn't quickly transient. Partly this seems to be because observable repeatable symptoms must be present to be diagnosed, and partly because one mis-act doesn't represent mental illness, anymore than a hiccup in response to drinking carbonated beverage represents a disease.

Moreover, mental illness often includes in it's definition the notion that the mental disorder interferes with the person's life in some way. Hiccups typically don't destroy health, and even the decision to do terrible violence on other people, needn't indicate mental illness. Consequently, Adm. Yamamoto of Japan, Osama bin Laden, and Dick Cheney (who BTW has many characteristics of someone who is a sociopath and who actively advocated war and thereby the killing thousands if not tens of thousands of Iraqis) might not be considered mentally ill because that behavior didn't interfere with the otherwise successful living of their lives (yes, even if Yamamoto was killed in combat).

Although each of us may view acts with different levels of repugnance: lying about the impact of social security on the national deficit, gaming the mortgage market, driving while intoxicated, getting in a fist fight, killing one person (murder or lawful execution) or many people (attacking Pearl Harbor, or the Twin Towers or Bombing Baghdad), or inciting people to do such things (Adolf Eichmann, Dick Cheney, Glenn Beck, etc). These acts, moral or not, legal or not, can and have been made with a fully functional perceptual/cognitive/motor systems, aka a mentally-well minds.

A person whose mind misperceives due to some defect in processing stimuli, a person who has a brain lesion that interferes with normal brain function, or a person who acquired in life a decision making schema with wrongly prioritized behavioral choices (perhaps a result of living in abuse or having undependable parenting during their formative years) do not have a fully and normally functional p/c/m system--those people are mentally ill.

[HereSince1628]

23. The short comments on your question

You asked "If people with certain conditions that make them do crazy or awful things aren't mentally ill, then what are they? Normal?"

It depends on what you mean by a certain condition. Some 'certain conditions' do equal mental illness.

Crazy=awful=mental illness is a false equivalence. Indeed, that chain is one of the things that advocates for the mentally ill see as unjust and stigmatizing. BTW, the mental health community doesn't seem to use "crazy" in a formal way in it's publications unless they are objecting to the use of the word by the general public.

An awful behavior isn't necessarily a symptom of mental illness.

An awful act isn't always done by an awful person.

A person who does an awful thing has probably acted outside the social norms. In this sense a person doing something awful didn't behave normally, however, the emphasis here is on the act being non-normative not the actor.

[Last Stand]

42. To ovesimplify, mental Illness can be characterized in 2 ways.

Major mental illness is a disturbance of thought and/or mood--distortions of reality and instability or inappropriateness of affect, etc. These are Axis I disorders.

Character Disorders are dysfunctional personality styles marked by poor choices, unstable relationships, lack of empathy and so forth. There are a number of very distinct diagnoses within this group. Psycho/Sociopathology fall into this category. These are Axis II disorders.

Both can benefit from MH treatment, although character disorders tend to be less addressable with medication as they are not formed by a "chemical imbalance" like Axis I disorders. Personality/character disorders are essentially the product of trauma or development gone awry. "Fixing" these problems doesn't happen too often. The symptoms of these character disorders are often seen subjectively by the people who have them as part of who they are, unlike the (often) ego-dystonic symptoms of someone who suffers with mood or thought disorders.

And in response to your question, while the Mental Health system is the tool available to help those people from either category described above, the criminal justice system does not see personality disordered people as having the kind of grossly impaired judgment deserving of a Criminal Insanity free pass. Character disordered individuals are, in the mind of the Court, often times people who may have all the right reasons (childhood trauma) for doing all the wrong things, but who do not have the right to make the poor choices that they make in breaking laws.

There are exceptions to all of this, of course, but that is a a real world portrayal of the distinction between the Axis I and II disorders.

[pipi_k]

14. Just a couple of observations...

you said:

"I think the only way to get past the endless chicken and egg arguments about sociopathy trauma,etc.and stop the cycle is to stop child abuse and domestic abuse,abuse of power in all forms and separate the abusers addicted to sadism and abuse of others from non -abuser & victims/survivors who are empathetic."


There are many people who have been abused who do not grow up to be abusers themselves.

There are many people who have no past history of having been abused who DO grow up to be abusers themselves.


In that case, how would stopping the cycle prevent abuse?

[HereSince1628]

21. Psychology often works from correlative evidence not known mechanism

That's an unfortunate truth. It's also true that although not ALL correlations are causative, SOME are, even if the psychological community hasn't yet figured out which.

The prevalence of exposure to chronic abuse and neglectful parenting is present in the overwhelming number of people who are diagnosed with PTSD-chronic aka cPTSD. Chronic abuse and neglectful parenting is highly correlated to borderline disorder, but not every abused kid becomes borderline or every borderline was abused.
This sometimes-but-not-always thing is certainly puzzling, certainly of research interest and undoubtedly important to understanding mental illness. It is why mental illness is seen as an outcome of mutlifactorial processes.

Consequently, with respect to treating the mentally ill much of psychological medicine doesn't deeply explore underlying mechanisms. Rather looks to changing outcomes regardless of the enigmatic causation. The primary correlations being sought in mental health clinics are high correlations between treatment methods and good treatment outcomes. The system thus produced does indeed seem to involve a lot of trial and error.


That not all children who are abused get borderline illness which manifests as self-cutting, suggests that borderline illness presents in multiple ways (based on the diagnostic symptoms, potentially over 196 different combinations!).

Complicating things in another way, some symptoms of mental illness like cutting in borderlines can result with equal finality from divergent psychological processes and probably different causes. Thus there isn't a strict one-cause one-effect in such problems.

[H2O Man]

24. Your posts on

this thread are simply outstanding. I've been without sleep for far too long to be able to respond to them adequately, but will attempt to add a few thoughts.

Even the two words -- sociopath and psychopath -- suggest two different "causes" of thinking and behavior among a specific group of people. "Socio" suggests that society produces such individuals, while "psycho" suggests the individual's brain. As one of my supervisors (and former teachers) told me, that's like wondering if the color green is the result of yellow or blue, rather than both.

For many years, I did both individual and group work, inside the county jail and in the clinic, with forensic clients. Anyone who was similarly employed from before, say, 1995, knows that some of the changes in diagnosing a sub-group of forensic clients came about due to what insurance companies would or would not pay for. If sociopathy was not a true mental illness, no insurance company was going to pay to have anyone "treated" for it. Hence, it became part of anti-social behavior disorder.

Even on a forum suchas DU, many people now believe the two are identical. With a self-confident pride, they "link" to an "official" definition. But none of the experts in the field believe that the two are exact. The easiest difference to explain is that the vast majority of ASPD folks have a code they live by; it may be distinct from the larger society's code, and they might not always follow it to a "T," but it's there. The sociopath has no code of honor.

With both education and opportunity -- and usually treatment for substance abuse -- ASPD people can be integrated into the larger society. They may continue to view a neck tie as a dog lease, and have a different value system than most of their co-workers and neighbors. But they can be productive, worthy members of society. A large percent of my best friends would have, by today's standards, been diagnosed ASPD in the 1960s - '70s; all are good people and good citizens today; none are sociopaths.

[undergroundpanther]

31. yep

That is EXACTLY what I am trying to say.
I agree, some still have a code,a set of internal limits on themselves they will not do to others.They are the ones that can live among us ok,sorta.They may need to be supervised when free, Depending what that code they follow IS.

Sociopaths have no internal limits or codes on what they do and so cannot be trusted anymore,these people I HATE.

So Instead of torturing them in solitary for life sentences and risking escape or a boondoggle on a parole board ,and having wardens risk their lives because the sociopaths are bored,and want to stir up some shit to get a buzz..I support the death penalty for sociopaths because some things that sociopaths do ,means they cannot live around others and so give up their humanity.they are too dangerous to live unsupervised too dangerous to be supervised.
And I know even for sociopaths,solitary is torture, I have been through it myself, but not in jail. I am 100% against torture.Death is not torture. In a grave is the only way a sociopath will be unable to keep from harming others.And death is far more kind than what some sociopaths do to others they harm who are not a threat, or who are kids etc.that gets them caught by the cops.Those they victimize however will carry scars of the pain inflicted on them, pain that often will torture them forever. Sometimes justice is a form of public safety.

[undergroundpanther]

35. Yes

I agree and understand your points. I have Cptsd.usually I just type PTSD since I have features of both. It is not easy to deal with it it makes everything hurt.I try my best.I do not hurt people who are not attempting to hurt me though.


I did hurt a kid once in second grade. I stuck a fork in a bully who had been flipping my lunch tray for 6 months. I tried to reason with this kid,I asked him to stop I dunno how many times,I went to every adult in the school asking them to stop this bully and they didn't help me,at all.I did all the stuff a kid is told to do when another kid is bullying them.

So one day I could not take it anymore..I was sick of being hungry all day and going home had it's own threats to deal with,so getting food was not always an option for hours and I was so tired..So I forked him..he would not stop it any other way.Afterwards nobody bothered to ask me why I forked him or what was happening in my life since I had no lunch for months.My grades suffered.So I had no other choice all other options were ignored by people I asked to help. So what could I do?.


One of the ways I cope with my cpstd is by trying to understand why bullies target people and I wonder if there is way to keep others from getting sick /hurt from people that have no internal rules that stop non-sociopaths from harming others.
I know to function I have to stay away from sociopaths,psychopaths,narcissists and authoritarians.I have to have strong clear boundaries and I can detect bad for me people a mile away.Some slip through my detection and the damage they do is painful,but at least now they don't get very far with their shit anymore.

If there is any way to identify levels of harmfulness in certain personalities ,maybe educating as many people as possible about dangerous people about boundaries,the harm bullies cause and the traits of abuser.So at least get people to detect and avoid toxic people that will hurt them. Maybe the more aware people are of this issue the less the abusers will get away with it. Maybe it can help people to not get into relationships with sociopaths or abusers and decide to leave hurtful ones sooner rather than later ,or at least protect kids so they don't get traumatized to have their lives stolen by abusive assholes..

It's a quest of mine to ask why.To ask questions,share my thoughts because this problem of abusers is a big key I think to a boatload of "un-solveable"problems in our society and if enough are aware of it,It may be part of a solution to why things are wrong in how we live and relate to each other & the world.

[undergroundpanther]

33. I agree

Most abused people never abuse others.This is TRUE.


But allegedly some studies point out some abused kids do go on to inflict abuse as adults..if they aren't lying about it, to get pity..in jail.

I wonder how many of these abused kids were without a consience or had a weak one already to begin with. Had sociopath ways before the abuse ?

I wonder if is it sociopath kids who become the adults who go on to abuse others??
As I wonder is it the non-sociopath abused kids who grow up to not abuse anyone else.

I would love to see the results of such a study.

[bobbolink]

28. I am, for obvious personal reasons, focusing on your part about the lack of empathy.

Do you remember the article fairly recently about how affluent people cannnot relate to emotions in others, whereas poor people can? I thought that highly instructive.

"Psychopaths/sociopaths have no empathy .They are for lack of a better term seem like addicts addicted to brain chemical rewards.it does not matter if it is status seeking or burning a dog or beating up a child,or getting rich & snubbing the poor to death,getting praised or whatever else as long as it produces pleasure sensations they will do it over and over like a drunk domestic abuser every friday and not care who or what damage their pleasures and power tripping abuses cause to anyone else.

This so parallels what I have been saying to a local clergy who is having trouble understanding how it feels to be on the bottom of society's ladder, and being treated like scum by those who profess to be "helping" and "compassionate". He is slowly getting it, but I am going to stick your words in his face. :evilgrin: Thanks, Panth... as always, you are so spot on that you are rocking some very highly touted boats!

I am grasping your definitions, and the differentiations. However, I am still working on the gap the affluent people cause by assuming "mental illness" where there is anguish, and NOT seeing any problem with their own ways they can hurt those they see as beneath themselves, and not give one flying fig. I have been using "mental illness" because it equates to what they put onto others without any understanding whatsoever, but I am now wanting to sharpen this distinction.

Your previous posts on bullying certainly come very close to describing this phenomenon of "helper" and "helpee", but I would like to hear more from you on this as you are inspired.

You contribute so much to DU! I really sux to be so far ahead of the curve, and sometimes I don't know how you manage to keep steady in the face of it... you have my admiration!!

:hug: :loveya:

[undergroundpanther]

30. bobbie

you are one of the people that I write for here. Just wanted you to know that,cause even if you don't agree or having trouble you do try to put information other posters as well as I to good use,to create or gain back what we all lost so long ago,that we dare not speak it's name.

Love you bobbio!

[bobbolink]

44. thanks, panth. I don't disagree... not at all. You are presenting things I very much

want to know, and I am trying to integrate them with what I know and with what I experience. If you can speak to those things, as I posted before, that would be great.

I defintely agree that it is a hard struggle to get back what we have lost... and probably the hardest part if even beginning to recognize the loss! I dare say that most probably don't.

Your respect and support and love mean so much to me! :loveya:

[H2O Man]

20. Because they

tend to be referred to forensic evaluations by courts.

Take your point, and turn it around: how many sociopaths, without a court order, ever seek therapy?

[undergroundpanther]

34. very few

to none.Sociopaths avoid therapy,like the cops.In fact therapy makes them worse.. I guess because they figure out how to manipulate others with it.

[MadHound]

17. Umm, I'm pretty certain that sociopaths and psychopaths fall under the heading of mentally ill,

:shrug:

[hunter]

22. There's a stereotype of a violent mentally ill person...

... just as there is a stereotype of a "violent black man."

All these stereotypes are harmful for the same reason.

The stereotype of the violent mentally ill person is very harmful to people who, as a group, tend to be less prone to violence and more likely are the victims of violence than the general population.

Both our prisons and our mental health care systems are overloaded with sociopaths who ought to be kept separate from the non-violent victims of our dysfunctional society.

[H2O Man]

25. Right!

A society such as our's ALWAYS has to have someone or some group(s) to blame for its low level of being.

[Forkboy]

32. Error: you can only recommend threads which were started in the past 24 hours

I'd rec this if I could. :(

[undergroundpanther]

36. Hi forkboy

You know every time I see your name I think of getting you one of those HUGE metal forks sold at Pier One.it would be great for the day when people light up the torches and grab the pitchforks..*smirk*


bad pun

[bobbolink]

37. The ones I saw have only two tines, .....

....so they are Tooks.

:rofl: :crazy: :hug:

[Forkboy]

40. LOL...everyone should have a huge fork!

Granted, I'm biased. ;)

:hi:

[nadinbrzezinski]

38. Sorry but they ARE in the continuum of mental disorders

and are in the Diagnostic Criteria that Psychiatrist use.

There is stigma, but that has nothing to do with a particular disease, or disorder or whatever name you want to use. The stigma has to do with the society, not the continuum of disorders.

It if makes you so damn angry try to change the diagnostic criteria used by Psychiatrists... and it goes without saying... good luck Don Quixote.

[cliffordu]

39. Yep - exactly.