Song: Always True to You

Not quite monogamy, but maybe in a certain fashion.

Famous sociopaths: Benjamin Franklin?

So suggests a reader:

Of course, I read the book, and though I was, myself, a mental health professional, learned a great deal about sociopathy. In my day, before the functional MRI, there was no certainty that it was the functional structure of the brain that determined the behavior. Nor, that despite the 3-4% incidence in the general population, that many, if not most, are socialized, like "M. E." or Jimmy Fallon, and very likely, Benjamin Franklin, for that matter.

Not all sociopaths do evil things. I stated that Franklin might well be one, based on his risk-taking behavior, his disrupted familial relationships, his legendary charm, his promiscuity, and his need to go from one activity to another.

The risky behavior: the man signed the Declaration of Independence, an invitation to hanging. Also, he nearly electrocuted himself during the kite experiment. I'm sure that there were others examples that escape me for the moment.

• Disrupted family: Franklin had a hostile relationship with his son throughout their lives. He was also a very poor husband, and for all practical purposes, he acted as if he were a single man.
• The charm: Thank the lord for this and his genius. He got Louis XV to bankrupt France to support us against Britain during the Revolutionary War. It was the French fleet that bottled up Cornwallis at Yorktown, after all. AND: that bankruptsy was a proximal cause of the French Revolution that transpired just a few short years later.
• The hyperactivity: Again, thank the lord, and his genius, for his myriad inventions. Off the top of my head: a musical instrument that he called the Harmonium, the Franklin stove, bifocal lenses, the harnessing of electricity, etc.
• The promiscuity: His love life is one of legend, continuing well into his old age!

The error is to think that all sociopaths are alike. Sociopaths differ from one another based on the presence or absence of other pathologies such as paranoia (Stalin) or Schizophrenia (Hitler) or combinations thereof. Steve Jobs and Mark Zuckerberg are certainly sociopaths, yet their risky behavior was channeled into developments that have revolutionized our lives! Perhaps, we have advanced to where we are today because of  constructive sociopaths like these! Not every sociopath is a Jeffrey Dahmer or a Pol Pot!

I'm not entirely surprised at the suggestion that Benjamin Franklin could have been a sociopath, especially since studies have shown that entrepreneurs have several sociopathic traits ("The Dark Side of Entrepreneurship").

Female sociopath

Female sociopaths are more hated than male sociopaths? I stumbled upon this post on LoveFraud from Lianne Leedom, psychiatrist, sociopath victim, and author of "Just Like His Father?" She also infamously threatened her child with going to "the dark place" as a punishment when he had an incredible phobia of the dark. Let her never be accused of being too soft on sociopaths (including her own son), she has plenty of vitriol and anecdotal evidence to spew about female sociopaths:

There is something inherently more repulsive and unbelievable about a female sociopath. Women by nature are preprogrammed to learn empathy and care-taking, the antithesis of sociopathic behavior. Indeed, one of the best indicators of sociopathy in a women is seen when the woman fails to care for her own child. It would seem then, that we would all be revolted by a female sociopath, so why do men become victims?

My own theory, which has been corroborated by many men who have written to Lovefraud, is that men accidentally fall victim to sociopathic women when they have sex with them. You see, normal men experience bonding just like normal women-especially when the sex is good. The sex with a female sociopath (I’m told) isn’t just good, it’s better than most mortal men have ever hoped for. Once hooked on the female sociopath, men become victims just as much as the women who become hooked on the male sociopath. Many male victims feel ashamed and emasculated. But, take heart guys, she actually preyed on the more masculine side of your nature, your enjoyment of sex!

So there you have it feminists, women who aren't natural care-takers are repulsive and revolting (because women are preprogrammed to learn empathy and care-taking), and it's a little shocking that men fall victim to them (because men are pretty clever, otherwise), but easily explainable because these women are obviously whores. Apparently most women either aren't good at sex or don't like it, so it's easy for sociopathic women to ensnare men with sex. But guys don't take it as a threat to your masculinity that she ultimately denied you ready access to sex because she's just a whore. Did I say whore? She was probably just after your money or something anyway, because that's how whores operate, and she's clearly a whore.

Leedom's focus on the female sociopaths is almost entirely on their ability to raise children, please their man, and/or extract money or privileges for sex. If this is not the definition of anti-feminism, I don't know what is.

What about other aspects of a female sociopath? My guess is that they can be very successful in their careers. Not only would they have the same potential advantages of male sociopaths (ruthless, fearless, power-hungry and ambitious), but because they don't fully identify with their gender, they might be less influenced by some of the defeating (and self-defeating) "lessons" that young girls are taught about a woman's place in the world. They wouldn't be socialized to want particularly things and not others like a lot of women seem to be. Also they might not readily seem themselves as a victim (as society is so quick to portray women), but rather someone who acts and accepts responsibility for herself, empowered? We really don't know what female sociopaths look like in general because there has been next to no research done on female sociopaths. But it's very disappointing to see bald stereotypes perpetuated such little obvious personal slant and moral prejudice by someone claiming to be a medical professional and expert on sociopaths. 

Sociopath - pain = no empathy?

A reader asked this very interesting question:

I learned in a psych class that living things (or mammals, at least), thanks to the magic of mirror neurons, do not distinguish signs of distress in another creature from their own distress. You mention in your one post that you have a very detached stance to pain. What if what we think of as empathy is tied directly to the perception of pain? What if sociopathy is not primarily a lack of empathy, but a greatly altered perception of pain both in oneself and in others? Would it be possible that if an empath's normal neurological responses to pain were tampered with, they would experience less empathy? Could the reverse be true for sociopaths?

I always like these sorts of explanations that somehow tie together different, seemingly unrelated aspects of sociopathy together -- e.g. so insightfully perceptive (enough to be exceptionally manipulative) but lacking empathy?  It's really an odd disorder, with a suite of traits that so consistently present amongst sociopaths and yet seem so scattershot.

One of my favorite unifying theories from a psychologist named Joseph Newman is the idea that sociopathy is largely an attentional disorder, where the sociopath is getting all the right input but is just not paying attention to them in the same way that everyone else is, so they are meaningless to him.

[One of my own pet theories is that a lot of the sociopaths traits (charm, manipulation, lying, promiscuity, chameleonism, compartmentalization, mask wearing, lack of empathy, lack of strong gender, racial, social, sexual or other identity) is largely attributable to a very weak sense of self.  I believe that all personality disorders share a distorted/abnormal sense of self, that that is essentially what makes them a "personality" disorder, and not something else.]  

I also like the one the reader suggested above -- that to the extent sociopaths do not feel things like pain the same way empaths do, the mirror neuron cues are just falling on deaf ears.  But I wonder.  A lot of sociopaths have complained that they have in fact felt something akin to empathy in isolated incidents, particularly if they happen to be feeling something similar at the same moment and happen to recognize that same emotion in others.  This seems to me to be more attentional, but I don't know.