Teaching is not one of those jobs in which you can head for the home office, pop on some music and close the door while you quietly get on with things for a bit. Teaching means near-constant interaction with human beings and their variously life-affirming, enraging or alarming behaviours. In a profession so centred on relationships with others, it is perhaps not surprising, then, that teachers would be sensitive to a colleague who appeared to lack empathy and cared little for those around them.

“She’s a complete sociopath,” you might hear a teacher say, or - after a particularly tense day - maybe even a “total psychopath”.

But what do those terms mean, exactly? And how likely is it that someone with such a personality disorder could develop a career in teaching? Increasingly, academic research on these kinds of disorders looks not just at psychiatric patients but also at people in the general population and how they might share these behavioural traits without reaching the level of full-blown clinical diagnosis.

For these people, problematic behaviour manifests itself not in the form of “murder or stealing money from people - it’s about manipulating and using people”, says Jim Fallon, a neuroscientist and professor of psychiatry and human behaviour at the University of California, Irvine. His book, The Psychopath Inside: a neuroscientist’s personal journey into the dark side of the brain, explores what happened when he discovered, during research on serial killers, that his own “brain patterns and genetics were exactly like a full-blown psychopath”. And, intriguingly, Fallon thinks the nature of teaching may bring out the traits of these personality disorders.

The American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5) classifies both sociopathy and psychopathy as antisocial personality disorders (ASPD). The manual outlines seven behavioural criteria for ASPD and a person must display three or more to be diagnosed, explains Donald Black, professor of psychiatry at the University of Iowa and author of Bad Boys, Bad Men: confronting antisocial personality disorder (sociopathy).

The personality traits of sociopaths and psychopaths

The seven categories of behaviour are: failure to conform to social norms with respect to lawful behaviour; deceitfulness; impulsivity or failure to plan ahead; reckless disregard for the rights of others; irritability and aggressiveness; consistent irresponsibility; and lack of remorse. (The DSM-5 is silent, however, on whether failure to plan ahead includes sacking off your lesson planning on a Sunday evening to watch Antiques Roadshow under a blanket.)

So, what’s the difference between sociopaths and psychopaths? Fallon says that sociopaths show guilt when caught in wrongdoing, while psychopaths don’t - and, as a result, “really fool people” into believing that they have done nothing wrong. While “true psychopaths do not have the moral reasoning of their society, their culture or subculture”, the sociopath “really accepts the moral structure and understands moral reasoning - but still goes ahead and [behaves immorally] anyway”.

So, what are the chances of encountering one or the other in teaching? According to a major survey in 2004, about 4 per cent of the general population in the US, most of them men, meet the diagnostic criteria for ASPD.

“Depending on education, family background and IQ, there is no reason [a sociopath] cannot enter a profession,” says Black. “Several sociopaths in my experience and research have been lawyers, physicians and even clergymen.”

It is unlikely that they will get that far, however, “because most have low educational achievement and income”, he adds, and their “constant misbehaviour leads to problems ranging from getting fired to being arrested” (which, depending on the circumstances, could be a bar to a career in teaching). But, Fallon says, in addition to that 4 per cent that are likely to meet the clinical criteria, there are “people who do not have a categorical, clinical personality disorder, but who have the traits”.

Such as Fallon himself. Although his brain scan was similar to that of a serial killer, he is “not a full clinical psychopath … I just miss,” he says.

Diagnosis: murderer?

The purpose of writing a book about psychopathy, Fallon continues, was partly to help people “understand and recognise psychopaths that they might live with, work with or encounter”.

He also wanted to help readers “discover psychopathic traits and behaviours in themselves, even when they are not diagnosed, categorical, clinical psychopaths”.

Let readers know more about these kinds of trait, he continues, “and they will say: ‘My god, what he’s talking about, this is what I do all the time. I continually cheat on my [partner], I continually lie to people, I continually manipulate my students’”.

Fallon, who had a stint as a teacher at a Catholic high school before he entered academia (“I drove those poor nuns crazy” ), thinks teaching involves a “basic drive to manipulate”, in the sense that you are always trying to persuade children to behave in certain ways and complete certain tasks.

“That in itself isn’t psychopathic, but how you use it can be,” he says. “And this you can find in teachers, of course, and anyone in a position of power, especially over younger people. A lot of times, kids are people that really depend on you, and therefore [a school] is a perfect sort of environment to bring out psychopathic or sociopathic behaviour.”

So, if you walked into a school, should you expect to find a few people with psychopathic or sociopathic traits on the staff? “You would find people who enjoy lording it over people,” Fallon says. “Some teachers are there really for very good, honest reasons. But there are people there who clearly like controlling other people. You see them all the time, as teachers. I remember them and I know some now.”

Some teachers “trip out on the control” over pupils, he thinks. They can still be good teachers, but “as part of the mix, there’s this thing that can quickly lead to pathology, unless you watch it”, he adds.

So, what should you do if you suspect that a colleague may be a sociopath or psychopath? Fallon says the best way to handle a psychopath is to simply walk away and not engage with them, if possible (the alternative is “like trying to talk to a great white shark” ).

For sociopaths, he describes his own personal approach as being “direct and hostile” - although this may not be appropriate for those working in schools.

For those who recognise some of these behavioural traits in themselves, Fallon also has advice based on his own experience. Although he studied psychopathy, he overlooked the signs in himself for a long time, which shows that these traits can be “really easy to miss”. After that discovery, he went through a “reckoning” about his behaviour with those close to him, realising that it was “hurting people”, and later underwent psychoanalysis.

Tackling his behaviour is like dealing with an addiction and requires continual, explicit commitment, Fallon explains.

“Every day in my interactions with people, I have to say ‘I may be trying to do something with this person without realising it because it’s so ingrained in me’,” he continues. “I try to say to myself, ‘How would a normal, regular guy respond to this situation?’ I have to do that a lot because otherwise I forget it.”

All of which may give you some things to reflect on the next time you find yourself wondering about a colleague’s behaviour - or perhaps the next time you pass a mirror.

John Morgan is a freelance writer

This article originally appeared in the 5 March 2021 issue under the headline “Tes focus on personality disorders”