A sociopathic therapist says her lack of emotions made her good at her job

• Dr. Patric Gagne was diagnosed with sociopathic personality disorder in his 20s.
• According to his memoirs, he thought there were too few treatment options for sociopaths.
• He earned a doctorate in psychology and worked as a therapist helping other sociopaths.

Throughout his life, Dr. Patric Gagne had the symptoms of sociopathic personality disorder, but few answers. In her new memoir, “Sociopath,” she detailed her childhood experience of feeling like an outsider and her struggle to find proper diagnosis and treatment as an adult.

“Despite the many advances in mental health awareness and treatment options, sociopathy still seemed to be ignored,” Gagne said in his book.

His experience laid the perfect foundation for his eventual career as a therapist.

After learning that sociopaths and psychopaths are grouped together under the broad diagnosis “antisocial personality disorder,” she sought a PhD in psychology to better understand the nuances of personality disorders. He discovered that his urges to commit violent or dangerous acts are similar to OCD compulsions and can be treated in the same way with cognitive behavioral therapy.

Throughout her studies, she became increasingly angry about how sociopaths are portrayed in the media and not prioritized in mental health spaces. “They were human beings who deserved serious clinical attention,” he says. “Instead, they were treated with malevolence and exiled.”

Gagne said her personal experience and ability to remain emotionally detached made her uniquely qualified to help otherwise distressed patients.

He took on patients that no one else wanted to treat

To earn her doctorate, Gagne had to log 500 hours as a clinic intern, which she initially objected to because she worried her sociopathy would make her a bad therapist.

Gagne said he often had patients “who didn’t fit neatly into any diagnostic box.” They had personality traits she recognized in herself, such as a sense of emptiness, a history of criminal and violent behavior, and difficulty controlling impulses.

Once licensed, he said, he “gained a low-key reputation as a ‘sociopathic therapist,'” and took on similar patients that his associates were unable to help.

“My practice was like an underground psychology bar,” he said. “Unlicensed and unorthodox, I welcomed the misfits no one else wanted to see.”

He observed the customers without letting his emotions get in the way

In the book, Gagne wrote about a time when the head of his doctoral department told him that his sociopathy could be useful when dealing with patients.

“Half the battle in clinical training is helping students compartmentalize their own emotional attachments,” she told Gagne before her internship began. “‘But you don’t have one!’

After acclimating to his role at the clinic, he realized that being a sociopath had strengths. “With my patients, I have no expectation of hearing, relating, connecting or even talking,” she told her father. “I don’t have to do anything but observe.”

While he was able to take on a more independent role, he also came to understand other sociopaths better over time. Although empathy is one of the emotions sociopaths can’t achieve, Gagne said she was “flooded with understanding” as she met more and more patients like her.

She would break the rules if she helped someone

During her time at the clinic, Gagne had a patient cancel an appointment which was out of character for her.

Gagne called her and said she was home. Gagne asked for a picture of his living room.

“This request was very unorthodox,” Gagne says in the book. “Asking a patient to send me proof of their physical location was inappropriate, especially for an inexperienced therapist. If my supervisor had known, he would have been upset. But he didn’t. And I didn’t ‘it mattered’.

This move caused his patient to leave where he really was, calling Gagne as he got into his car.

While it was far from the first rule Gagne had broken at that point in his life, it was one of the first to benefit someone else.