Aftermath: Surviving Psychopathy Foundation

I still see references to sociopaths.

Dr. Ramani on YouTube has a very good run down of the differences, as does Dr. Grande. In short - sociopath is someone with Anti-social personality disorder (ASPD). Psychopath is used because of a couple of experts in the field - Hervey Cleckley wrote a book called mask of sanity (perfect description for psychopathy) and then more recently, Robert Hare, psychologist, created the CLR checklist for psychopathy after studying prison inmates with the disorder. He did extensive research on their mental pathology and categorized different behavioral traits to for that list, which is what most clinicians use to diagnose.

They are similar but the difference is psychopaths are cool, calm, collected, sometimes even charming. Whereas a sociopath has much more emotional regulation problems (explosive anger, etc). They are both disordered but the psychopath hides it better.

The explanation that I had often heard is that sociopaths are created while psychopaths are born, in other words, nature vs nurture. Sociopaths are said to be more disorganized and prone to reactivity while psychopaths more cool and calculated. I don't know how scientific and accepted that definition is and as far as I can see it's often used interchangeably.
However, Dr. Martha Stout makes a great distinction in her book Outsmarting the Sociopath Next Door between a sociopath (which she uses instead of psychopath) and a narcissist. That is probably a more significant difference and a difference that is important to note since there is a lot of talk and help on narcissism out there, but psychopathy and how to defend yourself from one still seems to be taboo for the most part.

Hello Alexdavid,

That is a great question that you have asked. To find out more about these two terms, "sociopath" and "psychopath" you can click on "Frequently Asked Questions" under the heading, "Information About Psychopathy" in the righthand column on the Aftermath homepage. There is a Frequently Asked Question called, "What is the difference between psychopathy, sociopathy, and narcissistic personality disorder?". If you have any questions after reading the FAQ please let me know and I can try to find answers for you.

Best
Colleen
Aftermath Moderator