antisocial personality

Indeed, neither are literal clinical terms: People with the traits labeled "psychopath" and "narcissist" often have a clinical condition officially known as antisocial personality disorder.

According to Dr. Paul Hokemeyer, a marriage and family therapist and author of "Fragile Power: Why Having Everything Is Never Enough," the best way to understand both psychopathy and sociopathy is to remember that they are both informal terms for antisocial personality disorder, a very real and severe mental health syndrome.

Antisocial personality disorder is "a severe mental health syndrome that causes people to disregard moral standards, social laws and interpersonal commitments," Hokemeyer said.

When someone talks about a psychopath or a sociopath, the chances are that they really want to describe someone with antisocial personality disorder.

At the same time, all of the experts who spoke to Salon agreed that one should not turn these antisocial personality disorders into something supernatural.