If certain mental illnesses can be treated then why not sociopaths?

[Anonymous]

That's also a mental illness since it's not normal to lack empathy for others. I'm sure, there would have to be a type of medication would could altered your state of mind and get you somewhat emotional.

Updates

+1 y

To me antisocial personality disorder is also a mental illness.

[ladsin]

What do you mean by treat it? We can certainly help these people. I suggest you watch the documentary child of rage (you can watch it on youtube if you wish)
The girl was raped by her bio dad at 1 year old. She became a sociopath, and would constantly try and kill her brother, adopted parents, pets, etc. She got put into a strict "camp" (I don't know a better word for it) and she has actually become much better. The leader of the "camp" even began to let her sleep (not sexual, they were about 8-10 at this time) with her own daughter. So we certainly helped her. Although I'm not sure what you mean by treatment.

Also I feel that it is important to remind you that sociopaths are made, not born. Sociopaths have a traumatic event, or series of events that make them calloused etc. Psychopaths are born...

Also about treatment, a promising "drug" that helps psychopaths with neural functioning (psychopaths have diminished frontal lobe functioning) is fish oil. Fish oil appears to help our frontal lobe functioning.

[Asker]

I did watched it and there was an update saying she had been misdiagnosed. She wasn't exactly a sociopath but rather had suffered from RAD (reactive attachment disorder).

[ladsin]

Diagnosing anyone is very hard. What used to allow you to be diagnosed with sociopathy, psychopathy, OCD, pariphalias (all of them, you get the idea) changes over time. The DSM V has changed a lot of rules for diagnosing and the psychology community is split on whether or not it is accurate.
Psychopathy isn't even in the current DSM. From what I saw of her she appeared to fit the bill for sociopathy... regardless, the main problem with treating sociopathy is that it is a result of environment, not biology. That means that you can't give them a drug to "make them better" you can only attempt to minimize the symptoms.

[Sabazius666]

Sociopathy might be more of a personality disorder than a mental illness; people can function in daily life while having that condition.

[Asker]

Being handicapped of basic emotions and consideration for others sounds like there could also be something mentally going on with that person. I saw once a youtube that their brains our different than someone normal.

[rachelbrrtt]

Because our society already goes to drugs too much.

Unless you have the possibility of hurting yourself or others, mental illnesses should be treated without drugs, ie therapy, exercise, etc .

The brain is very complex and we don't understand it fully. We're just starting to understand the long term effects of 'normal' behavior modifying drugs, like Ritalin, Prozac, and Zoloft.

When drugs are taken to affect the brain, the brain is actually being rewired, which could be a good thing, or even worse. There is a reason why the marines won't take people who have been on psychiatric drugs