What is psychopathy?
You’ve probably come across the countless people on the internet who think they’re psychopaths and the communities online dedicated to discussing it. In case you don’t, well first, congratulations, but here’s the gist of it: basically, people all over social media sites like Quora, Tiktok, and Reddit have this idea that a psychopath is someone who was born feeling no empathy and having an exceptionally high IQ. This of course, is incredibly false information spread by edgy teenagers after they download their new personality from some character in Criminal Minds.
That’s not at all what psychopathy is, and it hurts me to witness people thinking that. To start, the word psychopath is similar to the word ‘idiot’ or the word ‘retard’ in a sense that it used to be used as a term for a neurological deficiency, but now it is almost always used strictly by laymen derogatorily and informally. For example: “My ex-boyfriend is a psychopath!”, “My ex-wife Shannon is a psychopath”, et cetera. For some reason it’s always an ex something. The word itself is incredibly vague and although it doesn’t really have an actual definition, it has many different perceived definitions, such as the aforementioned one: someone who feels little to no empathy and has a exceptionally high IQ.
However, when you look at the Latin roots of the word itself, you get two terms. First ‘Psycho’, from the Latin ‘psyche’, which pretty much means mind. And ‘path’, which is Latin for disease. So technically speaking, a psychopath is just someone with a mental disease. But would a depressive, or someone with anxiety, or someone with an Anorexic complex, for example, be called a psychopath? No. As such, the term psychopath is vague and doesn’t really make that much sense.
Keep in mind, like “retard”, the term “psychopath” was created orignially as an umbrella term (“retard” was to refer to anyone with a LD, whereas pscychopath was used to refer the criminally insane). In other words, psychopathy isn’t a specific condition. Anyone legally insane is a “psychopath”, regardless of how intelligent, non-empathetic, or decietful they are.
How is a psychopath made?
One common misconception is that “psychopaths are born” and that “sociopaths are made”. The two terms are interchangeable, mainly becuase, as previously discussed, they both don’t have a definite meaning. So, sociopathy and psychopathy are the same thing, and both can be acquired or inherited traits (meaning both psychopaths and sociopaths can be born or made). That said, it’s much more common for either to be made than born.
So what actually makes a “psychopath”? Well, if you mean the media’s idea of a psychopath: no empathy, high IQ, there are a couple possible candidates. The most obvious parallel mental disorder to the media’s concept of psychopathy is high-functioning Autism Spectrum Disorder, but not everyone with high functioning autism has low empathy. However, when paired with trauma in which the subject develops lack of empathy as a defense mechanism, you might get precisely what the media refers to as psychopathy. That is, a kid that speaks in a monotone voice and tortures small animals. Or, someone close to Sherlock Holmes. So that’s what causes a psychopath, more or less. A combination of Autism Spectrum Disorder and a high ACE (adverse childhood experiences) score. ASD + ACE, if you will. There’s your mathematical formula for psychopathy. And that, is how you create a psychopath.
In conclusion, please conduct your own research, try reading psychology articles or taking online classes instead of getting your knowledge from Quora. Because people don’t, the word “psychopath” is as misused as the word “ironic”.