Talk:Psychopathy or sociopathy

Personal Experience with Sociopaths (I know, I know...)
It needs to be said that antisocial personality disorder is not sociopathy nor are the criteria representative of sociopathic people. Yes sociopathological leads some individuals to abusive or oppressive behavior but many more function just fine in society, possessing perfectly acceptable moral compasses which are driven by social acuity rather than the far more vague emotional content. In fact many sociopaths are better at dealing with society than other people are because the charisma associated with this mode of behavior often protects them from the social backlash that others would be subjected to.

I have been friends with several clinically confirmed sociopaths and while I can say that they do not function like other normative people do they are not the villains that the psychological community claims them to be. Most have proven themselves to be loving and protective friends. Sometimes this manifests in scary ways of course, such as the best friend who spontaneously choke slammed a man into a wall. She is strong and used to ride rodeo. She did this because this man referred to me as a man with the intent to insult because I am a butch woman. It becomes clear when one is dealing with a sociopath and when is dealing with a psychopath. The sociopath resorts to violence or other forms of unacceptable behavior because they have calculated the impact of their behavior, whereas psychopaths do the same thing because they lack impulse control and actually enjoy violence and such.

Can sociopaths hurt other people and be dangerous to those around them? Sure they can. Those who reject the moral standards of society can definately become very skilled manipulators and abusers. However the same can be said for any population and it needs to be remembered the majority of sociopaths are not the horrible creepy monsters they are made out to be. Chances are there are more sociopaths than the statistics indicate, but since they are lumped together with psychopaths and the bulk of the criteria comes from a psychopathic model the non-violent sociopaths remain ignored and undiagnosed and therefore unrepresented in statistical data.

The fact that the psychiatric world uses mnemonics such as C-O-R-R-U-P-T to remember the criteria for antisocial personality disorder should be proof enough of that. So next time someone talks about sociopaths please remember that they have been conflated with a separate though aesthetically similar mode of behavior into one oppressive diagnostic model. In my own experiences dating and befriending sociopaths who function well enough in society, such a person can absolutely have a moral compas, but it is often socially informed rather than emotionally motivated. The DSM is not always accurate and has a history of creating mistaken and socially prejudicial criteria and though I understand the necessity of using such references for an academic project like Wikipedia it seems to me that there should be some discussion here as to the practical "low brow" nature of sociopathy versus psychopathy. - (Emily Rathwaedht, UnimportantHero@yahoo.com)