A recent article in The NY Times gives an inside perspective from a coping sociopath:
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A useful description from the NYT article:
It wasn’t until college that a therapist told me what I had long suspected: My lack of emotion and empathy are hallmarks of sociopathy. A few years later, doctors would confirm my diagnosis.
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Thanks for the article. The ending insight on empathy discovered was especially moving–it was also a lesson on ethics and equanimity.
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Indeed, and it was fascinating to see how the partner’s “morality” impelled them to do immoral things—deceiving their partner—even though they knew their partner was a sociopath and wouldn’t care. It’s a really interesting reflection on the nature of the conscience. How much of what we do “for others” is really about satisfying our own needs?
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Using the Psychopath test, by Bob Hare, I strongly suspect that one of our recent resident here (a 20 year old lay male, who’s a total beginner in Buddhism) is a psychopath.
It explains the lack of basic morality and respect he has for keeping on pranking us and then denying it. Even faced with so many hostility, he didn’t seem to form any feelings of being an enemy towards any of us. Facing 8 precepts, meditation, he spent a lot of time online (on special quota) and listening to music, there’s less expectation of the usual suffering of adjusting to monastery lifestyle for a total beginner, but then it’s possible it’s due to him not following the precepts in the first place, including stealing food in the evening to feed himself.
He’s leaving in 2 days on his own for some unrelated reason, but I am wondering if I should tell his parents about him being a psychopath. His parents may not yet be aware yet and might just think that this is a delinquent, spoil only son. He committed crimes of stealing and used the money on prostitutes, had been kicked out of school for having sex with another student, is not very responsive to many attempts at teaching him morality, until recently when facing the threat of being kicked out.
Having seen him as a psychopath, made me have less annoyance at him for seeing that he couldn’t help himself for most of his immoral acts of pranks. Yet, I am also a bit vary about misdiagnosing him, although he scored 31/40 on the checklist by my judgement.
The abbot warned him not to display any pranks again or have anyone complain about him again or else he couldn’t come back. He just lied to me that the Abbot wanted to see me, but it’s a prank. So should I report it and present a strong case to the Sangha to not accept him back?
I am a bit thorn between compassion for him for his attitude will not let him get to good places in life vs wanting to have peace of mind in a monastery.
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Yes, it’s a difficult one. If you know his parents, then sure, it may be good to have a conversation. Just best to avoid using clinical terms, even if they’re qualified, unless you’re really confident you know how they apply.
But it’s hard, monasteries are built on a foundation of good faith, and when someone just doesn’t care, there are few good options. Myself, I’d just kick him out if he wouldn’t behave. You are the community don’t have to deal with that. You tried, it didn’t work, move on.
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Such an interesting subject, Buddhism + psychopathy. Made me think of a few questions.
Bhante, if a person feels no emotion, do you think morality can still exist? Or is intention independent from emotion? Is it hypothetically possible for a person to be good and perform good Kamma if they feel no wholesome emotions when doing good acts? And, conversely, if a psychopath feels no ill will when committing acts of violence, are they performing bad Kamma? I think it all boils down to whether emotion and intention are separate things 
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Yes. Morality has to do with behavior. Doing a good thing is good, regardless of motivation. Of course having a good motivation is better!
Well, relatively independent. You can feel no sympathy for the poor and still give them charity as a tax break. It’s still a good act. Not a great one, to be sure, but better than nothing.
Obviously it’s normally the case that emotions and intentions are closely linked and condition each other, even if the relation is not 100% fixed. The case of a psychopath is interesting because it just isn’t there, yet it is still manifestly possible for them to be good, relatively speaking.
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Reading this made me think a thought I’ve never had before, viz if morality has to do with behaviour and kamma has to do with intention then there’s no connection between kamma morality … Now do I really mean that ?? I’m not sure where emotion fits here at all. … Please tell me where I’m going wrong. 
We can distinguish between motivation (i.e. the reason why you do it) and intention (what you aim to do). Sometimes the different motivation can completely change the moral quality of an act. If I intend to take a wallet out of your pocket without you noticing, then the moral quality of the act is completely different depending on whether I am a thief or a stage-magician doing a trick.
But in the case we are talking about here, there’s no funny business (or at least that’s what I’m assuming). A psychopath who publicly makes a display of donating to charity, but with no care for the people they, only for their own reputation, is still donating to charity. In and of itself, their intention is to give to the poor, even if their motivation is to create the appearance of goodness. So obviously this is not ideal, and indeed, it could easily be used as a cover for genuinely bad things. But taken in isolation, considered purely as an act of giving, it is a good thing regardless of their feelings or motivations.
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One interesting thought came to me.
The Buddha overcame the drunk elephant with loving kindness.
However, psychopaths seems immune to loving kindness response.
Was devadatta a psychopath? The Buddha didn’t managed to stop Devadatta before Devadatta managed to spill the blood of the Buddha in malice.
So practically speaking, we might not want to depend on loving kindness as the only response to solve all kinds of behavioural problems with people, depending on whether they are psychopaths or not.
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I’m with Bhante on this one, and think this applies to lay life, too. I think that sometimes Buddhists, in an effort to be kind, patient, and understanding, let people get away with too much. Psychopath or not, someone who is constantly embroiled in conflict and drama will bring conflict and drama into your life if you associate with them. We don’t have to endure that in the name of metta if the person shows no interest in changing. “Association with the wise” and all that…
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In such a case, metta is making boundaries, and sometimes that has to be done even when someone gets really upset. What is the love of a mother for her child if she does not set them boundaries?
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Greetings,
Absolutely no chance for a person who might lack empathy to try to practice the Dhamma?
HI guys, I lived under the violent domination of a psychopath for over three years. They draw similar psychotic personality types into their circle, and the violence escalates and escalates and escalates.
One person died, another we barely saved through a major intervention with his family by getting him moved out of the building and into a new home. I have a provincial level complaint against the local police, because they told me “he can watch you if he wants,” and had to contact family who are RCMP to help with the situation. Probably the most extreme measure that I noted taking place around me was a man with long guns on point at a building across from ours after I contacted family and said, “Can I request a bodyguard? I wish I were joking, but I am not.”
These are violent, dangerous people who do not stop at anything to get whatever they want and react in increasingly savage ways to anything that does not confirm their delusional sense of themselves. It is well known that psychopaths who are placed in “anger management courses” merely develop further strategies that enable them to better manipulate people and circumstances.
To repeat: they are extremely dangerous people.
You are bound to meet a psychopath in your life. Anti-social personality disorder is a spectrum, and some studies show that 1/5 men fall within a score of anti-social personality disorder that would classify as psychopath. Women, slightly less. Over 40% of the prison population tests with a score of ASPD that classifies as psychopathic.
I don’t really wish to communicate further about this, because I have heard enough “empathy” for this person who destroyed so many people’s lives and left so many people emotionally, psychologically, and financially devastated. Unless you’ve dealt with it, you cannot possibly have a clue, and once you’ve dealt with it, you will never say, “have empathy.”
I told my RCMP family that the experience changed my opinion on the death penalty and that I don’t think there is any other solution than for people like this to be destroyed. A lifetime in solitary in padded walls because they are animals doesn’t seem like a reasonable solution to me.
I just wanted you to know that it is very upsetting for me to read stuff like this.
Oh, and one more thing. They are predatory sadists. The police came, in four, to keep the peace the day I left, because this guy and his group (junkie sister-in-law as ring leader when he wasn’t around) had taken to mobbing tenants, laughing at them and also to trying to take their possessions from them as they were moving out. They may not feel anything other than pleasure in what they do, but they definitely feel.
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