Heyy! So the main thing that's giving me hell here is the ambiguity of the differences between psychopathy and sociopathy. They both are diagnosed as being part of Antisocial Personality Disorder, and there's a big controversy over whether they're the same thing or not. Obviously Moffat thinks they're different, but I'm dying to know what he sees as the difference. So, what do you think? What's the difference? And any thoughts on Jawn this season? Did he seem at all different to you?
The way I see it, the difference between sociopathy (Anti-social Personality Disorder) and psychopathy is the timing and the degree. If you look at the Wikipedia pages on both disorders, the section on diagnosing psychopathy is longer than the one for sociopathy. Within those sections, comes the distinction.
Sociopathy is Anti-social Personality Disorder, straight out of the book. The symptoms are: failure to conform to social norms in regards to lawful behavior, pathological lying and/or conning, impulsive, irritability and aggressiveness, reckless disregard for safety of self or others, consistent irresponsibilty, and lack of remorse often seen by rationalizing behaviors that hurt others. And they have to have some of these show up before fifteen for it to be sociopathy. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antisocial_personality_disorder#DSM-IV-TR
Psychopathy, from what I understand, and from the Revised Hare Psychopathy Checklist, sociopathy taken to the next level because it doesn’t necessarily have to show up during childhood. The list of typically displaying symptoms (Revised Hare Psychopathy Checklist) is extensive and includes everything in the sociopathy list plus more. And there’s less of an emphasis on these signs showing up during adolescent years and more of an emphasis on the callous nature and callous use of other humans. Plus, there’s a serious emphasis on the fact that psychopaths don’t have a direction to their lives. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychopathy#Tools
Anyway, what that all boils down to, all psychopaths are sociopaths but not all sociopaths are psychopaths. Why do I phrase it this way? I think the major difference between sociopaths and psychopaths is the ability to learn. From the diagnosis, it seems to me that sociopaths can be taught to appreciate human life if they’re given the right people to be around whereas psychopaths can’t be taught. Psychopaths literally don’t want to be taught to be good human beings but sociopaths can.
In regards to Sherlock, Sherlock consistently calls himself a sociopath rather than a psychopath and we’ve seen him come to appreciate human life thanks to John. Whereas, Mary doesn’t care about anybody but John (and her relationship with John has been subject to several metas already). Or look at Moriarty, who we know is like Sherlock, except without any care of human life, ever.
As for John, specifically, yes, he did seem a little different but more in a don’t-leave-me-behind, I’m-a-die-hard-adrenaline-junkie sense. It seemed to me that Sherlock’s death (and subsequent reappearance), make him feel useless. But I don’t think he shows many signs of psychopathy/sociopathy that can’t be explained in other ways, if that’s what you’re trying to get at.
Does that help?