[evennyNiz]

First of all I apologize for the long post. I recently read an article in the NYTimes about children who are psychopaths/sociopaths. This got me interested in the subject and I started reading by Martha Stout, a Harvard professor of psychology. It was a very interesting and slightly disturbing read.

For anyone unfamiliar with the term sociopath, it refers to someone who to paraphrase Stout has no conscience and no sense of emotional attachment or emotional obligations to others. They are physically unable of feeling guilt or remorse. No one is exactly sure of the cause, though the article I read did mention that portion of the brain responsible for emotions such as love, empathy, compassion, etc. is not as developed in sociopaths as it is in normal human beings.

There is no cure or even treatment for this disorder, though Stout did mention something that I found very interesting. She mentioned that Asian cultures such as Japan have a much lower rate of sociopaths than does the U.S., where 1 in 25 people is a sociopath. She said part of the reason Asian cultures likely have less problem with sociopaths is because their cultures teach the interconnectedness of everyone, so even though a sociopath cannot feel empathy for others his society has drilled this interconnectedness into his head so that in order to survive in his society, which she says is the the main goal of a sociopath, he has to at least act like he feels compassion for others simply to survive.

This got me thinking, do you think Buddhism could potentially help sociopaths?

On a personal note, I could use some advice. The more I read about this people the more disgusted I am with them. I know I should feel bad for them because they can never feel love, but I simply cannot relate or empathize with them and it almost feels like I'm reading about some strange alien race that looks human, but is fundamentally different. I hope I don't sound horrible, because I try to be compassionate, but for people like this I can't feel anything but anger and disgust.

Also here is the artice I read from the NY Times "Can you call a nine-year old a psychopath?" http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/13/ma...pagewanted=all