Lifestyles of the Psychosociopathic

I was doing some research recently and I came across a mental health website called “Mental Health Matters.” On this site, they published a certain article because there happened to be some serial killer making headlines at the time. They pointed out that the word “psychopath” is not a clinical term, but that there are disorders like “sociopathy” and “Dissocial Personality disorder” that are pretty much the same thing as what we mean when we say “psychopath.” So I was reading through what kinds of behaviors you might find a “psychopath,” or a “sociopath,” doing, and here’s what they listed:

    * Glibness/superficial charm
    * Grandiose sense of self-worth
    * Need for stimulation, with a proneness to boredom
    * Pathological lying
    * Conning and manipulating behaviors
    * No sense of remorse or guilt
    * A very shallow emotional affect - they display emotions they don't really feel
    * A lack of empathy for others
    * They are parasitic - they live off of others
    * They are impulsive, and show poor control over their behaviors
    * They tend to be promiscuous
    * Their behavior problems start early in life
    * They cannot form long-term plans that are realistic
    * They are impulsive, and irresponsible
    * They do not accept responsibility for their actions - another caused it
    * Marital relationships are short, and many
    * They display juvenile delinquency
    * Their criminality is diverse

Is it just me, or isn’t that kind of a description of our society as a whole? It kind of creeps me out. The “they” being described could easily be “us.”

I suppose some sociopaths are nice people, I don’t know. I’m not being all inclusive here, but aren’t most serial killers sociopaths? That’s what I’ve read, anyway.

So, what if “we” as a whole are becoming a psychopath? What if “we,” as a whole, are mentally ill, but we don’t do anything about it because the individual parts that make up the whole can’t see that there’s a problem? See, another trait of the psycho/sociopath is:

They do not perceive that anything is wrong with them.


Jeremiah 17:9
Peace to you.

© LW Publishing 2011