The Sociopath Next Door Read online

  Also, it helps to encourage moral exclusion, to remind the troops that the enemy soldiers are nothing but its, Krauts, slants, gooks. As Peter Watson writes in War on the Mind: The Military Uses and Abuses of Psychology, “the stupidity of local customs is ridiculed,” and “local personalities are presented as evil demigods.”

  On and off the battlefield, for both the troops and the people back home, the particular war being fought must be portrayed as a crucial or even a sacred struggle between good and evil, which is exactly the message that authorities—on all sides of the conflict—have tried to convey during every major war in history. For example, though it is now difficult to remember anything but the moral outrage that exploded during the final phases of the Vietnam War, as that war began, Americans were repeatedly assured that they and only they could save the South Vietnamese people from a future of terror and enslavement. Speeches by leaders during wartime, in modern times broadcasted into our living rooms, have always pushed hard on this theme of an absolutely necessary mission, the high calling that justifies the killing. And paradoxically, authority can more readily project this take on reality for the very reason that conscience cherishes a high calling and a sense of membership in the right-minded group. In other words, conscience can be tricked, and when it comes to killing strangers, trickery is usually required.

  That psychology can provide the military with techniques to make killers out of nonkillers, and that the military is using these procedures, is dispiriting news. But behind the bad news is a particle of hope that glints like a diamond in a sea of darkness. We are beginning to learn that human beings are not the natural killing machines we have at times believed ourselves to be. Even under the desperate pressures of combat, we have often left our weapons unfired, or taken poor aim, for when it was not silenced under the bell jar of authority, there was always an outcry from our human connectedness—there has always been the voice of conscience—reminding us that we must not kill.

  Because its essence is killing, war is the ultimate contest between conscience and authority. Our seventh sense demands that we not take life, and when authority overrules conscience and a soldier is induced to kill in combat, he is very likely to suffer post-traumatic stress disorder immediately and for the remainder of his life, along with the depression, divorces, addictions, ulcers, and heart disease that attend traumatic memory. In contrast, research involving Vietnam veterans has shown that soldiers who are not placed in situations where they are forced to kill are no more likely to develop the symptoms of PTSD than are those who spend their entire enlistment at home.

  This crippling competition between our moral sense and our authority figures has gone on almost unceasingly since human beings began to live in hierarchical societies, for the past five thousand years during which a king or a land-hungry nobleman, or the leader of a state or a nation could order less powerful individuals to enter a battle and kill. And apparently it is a struggle of conscience that will not be resolved in our children's or our grandchildren's lifetimes.

  Obedience 6, Conscience 4

  Stanley Milgram, who demonstrated that at least six out of ten people will tend to obey to the bitter end an official-looking authority who is physically present, pointed out that people who disobey destructive authority suffer psychologically, too. Often a person who disobeys finds himself at odds with the social order, and may find it hard to shake the feeling that he has been faithless to someone or something to whom he pledged allegiance. Obedience is passive, and it is only the disobedient one who must bear the “burden of his action,” to use Milgram's words. If courage is acting according to one's conscience despite pain or fear, then strength is the ability to keep conscience awake and in force despite the demands of authorities to do otherwise.

  And strength is important, because in championing the various causes of conscience, the odds are against us.

  To illustrate, I propose an imaginary society of exactly one hundred adults, in a group that conforms precisely to known statistics. This means that of the one hundred people in my hypothetical society, four are sociopathic—they have no conscience. Of the remaining ninety-six decent citizens, all of whom do have consciences, 62.5 percent will obey authority more or less without question, quite possibly the authority of one of the more aggressive and controlling sociopaths in the crowd. This leaves thirty-six people who have both conscience and the strength to bear the burdens of their actions, a little more than a third of the group. These are not impossible odds, but they are not easy ones, either.

  And there is yet another challenge for the conscience-bound, which is that, strange as it seems, most of the sociopaths are invisible. Let us turn to that dilemma now, and the remarkable case of Doreen Littlefield.

  FOUR

  the nicest person in the world

  I saw a werewolf drinking a piña colada at Trader Vic's

  His hair was perfect

  —Warren Zevon

  Doreen glances in the rearview mirror and wishes for the billionth time that she were beautiful. Life would be so much easier. She appears pretty in the mirror this morning, rested and with all of her makeup on, but she knows that if she were not so skilled with the cosmetics, or if she were tired, she would look quite plain. She would look plain like the unsophisticated girl from the sticks that she was, more as if she belonged milking a cow than in the driver's seat of this black BMW. She is only thirty-four, and her skin still looks good, no lines yet, a little pale maybe. But her nose is slightly pointed, enough to be noticeable, and her straw-colored hair, her most problematic feature, stays dry and frizzled no matter what she does to it. Luckily, her body is excellent. She looks away from the mirror and down at her light gray silk suit, conservative but formfitting. Doreen's body is good, and even better, she knows just how to move. For a woman with a plain face, she is incredibly seductive. When she walks across a room, all the men in it watch. Remembering this, she smiles and starts the car.

  About a mile from her apartment, she realizes that she forgot to feed the damn Maltese. Oh well. The stupid froufrou dog will manage to survive until she gets home from work tonight. At this point, a month after the impulse purchase, she cannot believe she ever bought it anyway. She had thought she would look elegant when she walked it, but walking it turned out to be tedious. When she can find the time, she will have to get it put to sleep, or maybe she can sell it to someone. It was expensive, after all.

  In her parking area on the sprawling grounds of the psychiatric hospital, she makes sure to park her car beside Jenna's rusted-out Escort, a convenient visual comparison to remind Jenna of their relative places in the world. One more glance in the mirror and then Doreen picks up her briefcase, stuffed to overflowing to make it clear how hard she works, and walks up the stairs to the suite of offices above the ward. As she passes through the waiting room, she flashes a “We're good buddies” smile at Ivy, the frumpy secretary-receptionist for the unit, and Ivy immediately brightens.

  “Good morning, Dr. Littlefield. Oh my goodness, I love your suit! It's just gorgeous!”

  “Why, thank you, Ivy. I can always count on you to put me in a good mood,” Doreen replies with another big smile. “Buzz me when my patient gets here, would you?”

  Doreen disappears into her office, and Ivy shakes her head and says out loud to an empty waiting room, “That has got to be the nicest person in the world.”

  It is early, not quite eight o'clock, and in her office Doreen goes to the window to watch her colleagues arrive. She sees Jackie Rubenstein walking toward the building, with her long legs and her effortless posture. Jackie is from Los Angeles, even-tempered and funny, and her beautiful olive skin makes her look, always, as if she just got back from a wonderful vacation. She is brilliant as well, a great deal smarter than Doreen, and for this reason even more than the others, Doreen secretly despises her. In fact, she hates her so much that she would kill her if she thought she could get away with it, but she knows she would eventually get caught. Doreen and Jackie
were postdocs together at the hospital eight years ago, became friends, at least in Jackie's eyes, and now Doreen is hearing rumors that Jackie may receive the Mentor of the Year Award. They are the same age. How can Jackie possibly win an award for being a “mentor” at the age of thirty-four?

  From the lawn, Jackie Rubenstein looks up and notices Doreen in the office window. She waves. Doreen smiles girlishly and waves back.

  At this moment, Ivy buzzes Doreen for her first patient of the day, a stunningly handsome, broad-shouldered, but very frightened-looking young man named Dennis. In hospital lingo, Dennis is a VIP (very important patient), because he is the nephew of a famous national politician. In this major teaching hospital, there are a number of such VIPs, celebrities, the wealthy, family members of people whose names are household words. Dennis is not one of Doreen's psychotherapy patients. Rather, Doreen is his administrator, which means that she meets with him twice a week to inquire how his treatment is going, to make sure the paperwork is done, and to approve his discharge from the hospital when the time comes. Doreen has already heard from the staff that today Dennis will want to discuss his release. He thinks he has gotten better enough to go home.

  To separate the administrative tasks from the psychotherapeutic ones is hospital policy. Each patient has both an administrator and a therapist. Dennis's therapist, whom he worships, is the talented Dr. Jackie Rubenstein. Yesterday, Jackie told Doreen that her patient Dennis was tremendously improved, and that she plans to take him on as an outpatient when he leaves the hospital.

  Now Dennis sits in one of the low chairs in Doreen Littlefield's office and tries to make eye contact, as he knows he should if he is going to appear well enough to go home from the hospital. But he has a hard time and keeps looking away. Something about her gray suit scares him, and something about her eyes. Still, he likes her, he thinks. She has always been extremely nice to him, and other people have told him that of all the doctors, Dr. Littlefield is the one who is most interested in the patients. Anyway, she is the expert.

  Doreen, seated behind her desk, looks at Dennis and marvels again at the perfect lines of his face and his muscular twenty-six-year-old body. She wonders how much money he will end up inheriting. But then she remembers her mission, and tries to lock in his nervous gaze with a maternal smile.

  “I hear you've been feeling much better this week, Dennis.”

  “That's right, Dr. Littlefield. I've been feeling much better this week. Really, a whole lot better. My ideas are much better. They're not bothering me all the time like they were when I came in.”

  “Why do you think that is, Dennis? Why do you think they're not bothering you anymore?”

  “Oh, well, I've really been working hard on the cognitive therapy techniques Dr. Rubenstein taught me, you know? They're okay. I mean, they help. And . . . Well, the thing is, I think I'm ready to go home now. Or soon maybe? Dr. Rubenstein said she could keep seeing me as an outpatient.”

  Dennis's “ideas,” the ones that are not bothering him so much at present, are the paranoid delusions that completely take over his life from time to time. Once a vibrant teenager who made stellar grades and was the champion of his high school lacrosse team, Dennis suffered a psychotic breakdown during his freshman year in college and was hospitalized. In the seven years since then, he has been in and out of psychiatric facilities as his delusions waxed and waned but never really left him. When these terrifying “ideas” have him in their grip, he believes that people are trying to kill him and lying about their intentions, that the streetlights are monitoring his thoughts for the CIA, that every passing car contains an agent who has been sent to abduct and question him for crimes that he cannot remember. His sense of reality is fragile in the extreme, and the torment of his suspiciousness, which is present even when the concrete delusions are in remission, makes it increasingly difficult for him to be around other people, even therapists. Jackie Rubenstein has done an almost miraculous job of forging a therapeutic relationship with this lonely young man who trusts no one.

  “You say Dr. Rubenstein said you could be discharged, and that she'd see you as an outpatient?”

  “Yes. Yes, that was what she suggested. I mean, she agreed that I was almost ready to go home.”

  “Really?” Doreen looks at Dennis with a puzzled expression on her face, as if expecting some clarification. “That's not what she told me.”

  There is a long pause, during which Dennis shudders visibly. Finally, he asks, “What do you mean?”

  Doreen emits a stage sigh, full of compassion, and comes out from behind her desk to sit in the chair beside Dennis's. She tries to put her hand on his shoulder, but he pulls his body away from her, as if she were about to strike him. Staring out the window as far into the distance as he can, he repeats his question, “What do you mean that's not what she told you?”

  Doreen understands enough about paranoid schizophrenia to know that Dennis already suspects this is going to be news of treachery on the part of Dr. Rubenstein, the person he thought was his only real friend in the world.

  “What Dr. Rubenstein told me was that she was sure you were much sicker now than when you came in. And as for outpatient therapy, she made it very clear that she'd never agree to see you outside of the hospital. She said you were much too dangerous.”

  Even to Doreen, it is apparent that something in Dennis's heart is flying out of the window and away, not to return to him anytime soon. She says, “Dennis? Dennis, are you okay?”

  Dennis does not move or speak.

  She tries again. “I'm so sorry I had to be the one to tell you this. Dennis? I'm sure it was just a misunderstanding. You know Dr. Rubenstein would never lie to you.”

  But Dennis is silent. He has to cope with the fear of betrayal every minute of his life, but this huge new wave of it, coming from his wonderful Dr. Rubenstein, has blindsided him and made him stone-still, like a statue.

  When Doreen realizes that he really is not going to respond at all, she goes to the phone and calls for assistance. In no time, two burly mental health workers appear at her office door. They are big, but she is the authority, and they will obey her orders without question. Thinking this gives her a little shiver of pleasure, but wearing her gravest expression, she signs the order to board Dennis. “Boarding”—a euphemism that makes it sound like the hospital is putting someone up at an inn—means that a patient is transferred from an unlocked ward, such as the one Dennis has been in, to a locked unit with greater security. Patients are boarded if they become violent, or when, like Dennis, they have had a serious relapse. If necessary, they are restrained and remedicated.

  Doreen is fairly certain that Dennis will not tell anyone about what she has just said to him. Dennis does not tell his secrets. He is too paranoid. But even if he does tell someone, he will not be believed. No one ever believes the patients over the doctors. And from what she just saw, he will be out of it for quite a long time, and not really talking about anything. With a rush of satisfaction, she realizes that Jackie Rubenstein has just lost herself one truly delectable VIP patient. He will be wildly paranoid about Jackie now, and the best part is that Jackie will blame herself, will think she missed something important in her therapy with him, or said something harmful. Jackie is such a loser about things like that. She will actually take the rap, and then she will hand the patient off to another therapist. So much for all the talk around the hospital about Dr. Rubenstein being a miracle worker.

  Blue Smoke and Mirrors

  Doreen Littlefield is what personality theorist Theodore Millon would call a “covetous psychopath,” where “psychopath” refers to sociopathy, or the absence of conscience, and “covetous” has its usual referent: an inordinate desire for the possessions of others. Sociopaths do not always have a covetous nature—some are very differently motivated—but when lack of conscience and covetousness occur together in the same individual, a fascinating and frightening picture emerges. Since it is simply not possible to steal and have for on
eself the most valuable “possessions” of another person—beauty, intelligence, success, a strong character—the covetous sociopath settles for besmirching or damaging enviable qualities in others so that they will not have them, either, or at least not be able to enjoy them so much. As Millon says, “Here, the pleasure lies in taking rather than in having.”

  The covetous sociopath thinks that life has cheated her somehow, has not given her nearly the same bounty as other people, and so she must even the existential score by robbing people, by secretly causing destruction in other lives. She believes she has been slighted by nature, circumstances, and destiny, and that diminishing other people is her only means of being powerful. Retribution, usually against people who have no idea that they have been targeted, is the most important activity in the covetous sociopath's life, her highest priority.

  Since this clandestine power game is priority number one, all of the covetous sociopath's deceitfulness and tolerance for risk are devoted to it. For the sake of the game, she may devise schemes and perform acts that most of us would consider outrageous and potentially self-destructive, in addition to cruel. And yet when such a person is around us in our lives, even on a daily basis, we are often oblivious to her activities. We do not expect to see a person direct a dangerous, vicious vendetta against someone who in most cases has done nothing to hurt or offend her. We do not expect it, and so we do not see it, even when it happens to someone we know—or to us personally. The actions taken by the covetous sociopath are often so outlandish, and so gratuitously mean, that we refuse to believe they were intentional, or even that they happened at all. In this way, her true nature is usually invisible to the group. She can easily hide in plain sight, as Doreen has done among genuinely intelligent, professional people at the hospital for nearly a decade.