His Last Vow – Why Being A High Function Sociopath is So Important to Sherlock

 (Sherlock Meta by wellingtongoose)

Analysis of why Sherlock’s self-acclaimed title of high function sociopath is so important to his character development even though Sherlock is most definitely not a sociopath.



What can we deduce about His Heart?

I have written several different articles on why Sherlock cannot be a sociopath (Walking Nightmares for Medical Students, Dear Sherlock Stop Calling Yourself a sociopath). To sum them up:

1. There is no such thing as a sociopath; the condition is actually called psychopathic personality disorder (a sub-classification of antisocial personality disorder).

2. Sherlock definitely doesn’t have psychopathic personality disorder because he has a conscience, demonstrates true empathy and altruism. These are things that a true psychopath does not have and will never achieve.

Thus please do not confuse Sherlock with true psychopath personality disorder.

Sherlock knows he is not a high-function sociopath. A quick browse through the Hare checklist (for diagnosing psychopathic personality disorder) will have told him that and I fail to believe that Sherlock never bother to research his own self-acclaimed psychiatric condition.

So why is being known as a high-function sociopath so important to Sherlock? Why does he constantly repeat this to everyone: strangers and friends to the point that they become convinced of it too?

The answer to this question gives us a fascinating insight into Sherlock’s heart.

If Not Healthy, at Least Successful



Labels can be derogatory, debasing and dehumanising. Sherlock has acquired a whole host of labels throughout his life. His elder brother labelled him stupid, the children at school no doubt labelled him as an outsider, Sally Donovan labelled him a freak .

Sherlock understands the effects of being labelled as much as any child who has ever been bullied. He has felt the pain, the isolation and hopeless generated by people’s inhuman methods of separating out “otherness” and abusing the power it brings them. I see the consequences of bullying everyday in faces of my paediatric patients. It manifests as an array of different psychiatric disorders but at the root of it all is the deep overwhelming sense of isolation that comes from being labelled as “other”.

The most interesting and, I feel, very moving aspect of Sherlock’s personality is that he did not allow this to be his downfall.

Sherlock is not a machine, he feels emotion as much as the rest of us do but he turned what could have been an utterly destructive childhood experience into an inner strength. In essence he made it his life’s mission to beat everyone who has labelled him at their own game – by turning what is used as weapon against him into an emotional shield. However Sherlock’s shield is not impenetrable, there are still plenty of things that can hurt him but the important thing is that he has a coping mechanism and it has kept him sane.

I would not say his approach was particularly healthy but it has stopped him from developing any psychiatric disorders so it was successful.

What is even more interesting is why Sherlock choose to label himself a “high function sociopath”. I really don’t believe this is just an exercise in scaring others. It is the most invaluable part of his emotional coping strategy.

Sidenote - Is Everyone I have Ever Met a Sociopath?



Please do not be confused by John calling Sherlock and Mary psychopaths. He may be a doctor but he is using this term whilst gripped with deep emotion. Even though John is a GP, he will know from his medical school days that Sherlock and Mary do not have psychopathic personality disorder. Their love and compassion for him are completely genuine and he knows that or he would never have forgiven them.

John is using this term in an informal way as an insult to express his deep anger and frustration. He does not mean that his best friend and his wife have a serious psychiatric condition.

A High-Function Sociopath

Just like in The Hounds of Baskerville, every single word is important. The fact that Henry used the word “Hound” instead of dog was the key to the entire mystery. In the same way Sherlock’s usage of “high functioning sociopath” is the key to unravelling the mystery of Sherlock.

It is clearly an outdated expression. Psychiatrists in the UK more or less stopped using the term sociopath two decades ago and even then it was never used in an official capacity. Therefore Sherlock’s obsession with being a sociopath started when he was young and impressionable.

So who first put this idea into his head? I highly doubt it was a psychiatrist because there has never been such a thing as a “high functioning” sociopath. We do not measure function in personality disorders, we do measure function in developmental disorders like autism. It is much more likely to be a lay person who did not have much knowledge of psychiatry, but just enough to know some terms that sounded impressive and loosely fit the bill.

My money is entirely on young Mycroft Holmes. We have seen that Mycroft did not hold back on his thoughts regarding his younger brother. Little boys, particularly genius-level little boys, are not known for their compassion for those less fortunate. Although there is deep love in that relationship, I have no doubt that Mycroft was disappointed his younger brother was not quite on the same intellectual level as himself.

We see that Mycroft takes it upon himself to point out and try to correct all of Sherlock’s faults as well as control his behaviour. He is still doing this as an adult – with the same degree of compulsion as his approach to straightening door knockers. His OCD is due to his emotional coping strategies, which are very different to Sherlock’s (The Holmes Brothers, a psychoanalysis).

So having been labelled as a sociopath, what does Sherlock do? He transforms what was meant to be a derogatory term into a form of self-expression and identity. As a child, Sherlock would have believed he was a sociopath as Mycroft said, but he was going to make that a strength and not a weakness.

By turning Mycroft’s insults against him and using it as his shield, Sherlock deprives his brother of his power and control. By embracing his faults, Sherlock deprives his brother of further leverage and sources for new insults. Without prompting, Sherlock has actually done what many therapists try to do with their patients. He has developed a strategy to put himself back in control of his emotions and reduce his vulnerability.

Sherlock’s power struggle with Mycroft and the bullies of his childhood may explain why he despises Magnussen. Magnussen is a true psychopath who enjoys power through humiliation. He doesn’t want to physically harm his victims, he thrives on the power from degrading them. This is clearly shown by the fact that he licks, pees on and flicks his victims. These are all physically harmless gestures but they hold deep social stigma and are designed to mortify and debase his victims. The emotional impact from these gestures far outweighs the effort he puts into them, and he enjoys that.



However, it is very difficult to be completely at peace with yourself. Sherlock still suffers self-doubt and pain when his faults are dragged up, for example when Sally Donovan calls him a freak in A Study in Pink. Coping strategies are exactly their name suggests: things that help you cope, not things that will make you forever immunity to the pain of life.  So we do see Sherlock struggling with his continued isolation but he’s not passively experiencing it. Sherlock is actively fighting back every step of the way. He reaches out to John, in unhealthy, rude and clumsy ways but he does reach out and he finds someone who truly accepts him for who he is.

However Sherlock didn’t just use his label as a defence, he also used it as an offense. He uses it to shock people, to crudely manipulate them into fearing him. It is very convenient for certain people to believe that you have no conscience and are capable of absolutely anything in your pursuit of what you want. Along with some suitably heartless actions, you can easily convince the more gullible and weak minded that it is easier to just let you have what you want.

Not only that but the label of high function sociopath is also an extremely good excuse for Sherlock’s continued bad behaviour. Hiding behind a psychiatric label is one of the oldest tricks in the book.

I am Not a Hero



Sherlock’s use of his sociopath label isn’t just a quick means of manipulation; it is also a very interesting (and unhealthy) exercise in self-control.

The human psyche is absolutely amazing, our delusions can be so strong that they manifest as true physical consequences. The age old saying of mind over matter has scientific proof. Take the placebo effect for example. As long as patients believe they are receiving treatment for an ailment, they can actually experience a physical improvement. The placebo effect is not just about patients subjectively feeling better, it actually causes improvement in objective outcomes. Even though patients intellectually understand there is every possibility that they are just taking a sugar pill, it doesn’t stop them from believing in the remedy.

Sherlock may intellectually understand that he is not a psychopath, but that doesn’t mean believing in it isn’t an effective way to control his empathy.  

As Sherlock says in The Great Game: “will my caring for them, help me save them?”. He makes a very important point. In his line of work empathy is not always useful; in fact in certain situations it can grossly hinder him.

However turning off ones empathy once it is engaged is a very difficult thing to do.  Merely telling yourself that feeling an emotion is not useful will not help you control the emotion. In fact it can do the exact opposite. It is in effect a form of reverse psychology, for example when a child is told not to think of something, he/she will not be able to resist the temptation to think about just that. When you tell yourself you mustn’t feel pain, anger, fear or empathy, you end up concentrating a lot more on that particularly emotion than you would otherwise and therefore exacerbate your original problem.

The psychologically healthy approach would be to accept your own humanity and simply allow yourself time to experience the emotions and then guide them to a controlled conclusion. However Sherlock has never been a patient person. He wants control, and he wants it now.

Thus he has devised an entirely different and unhealthy method of controlling his empathy by deluding himself into believing that he doesn’t experience empathy. We have seen the power of Sherlock’s mind at work intellectually; imagine what he could do with that power if he focused it in a concerted act of self-delusion.

Calling himself a sociopath is not just lip service to make his life more convenient, I believe it is a deep rooted coping strategy to control his own empathy. It is also a rather less successful ploy at suppressing his other negative emotions such a hurt and loneliness. If he does not care for other people, their rejection cannot hurt him. Unfortunately, we can see that this emphatically does not work as a protective strategy for Sherlock. He still experiences the pain, for example in The Blind Banker when Sebastian casually insults him, we see the brief look of deep hurt in Sherlock’s face.

The reason this self-delusion works with Sherlock’s empathy is because in series one he does not have a particularly well developed sense of empathy. Although everyone (except psychopaths) is born with the ability to experience genuine affective empathy - humans learn how to engage cognitive empathy, the ability to understand others’ emotional states and appropriately experience empathy.

In terms of cognitive empathy Sherlock was still very much stuck at the toddler stage during series one. He does not automatically project his own emotions onto other people and therefore he does not emotionally understand that everyone he sees experiences emotions in the same way he does. Any empathic response he does subconsciously have towards others is underdeveloped and fairly weak. Suppressing this is much easier than suppressing the much stronger emotion of pain.

Sherlock needs to be shown that other people have emotions worth caring about before he actually engages his empathy. However we can see particularly in His Last Vow, that when Sherlock finally engages his empathy and makes that connection he will go to the ends of the earth for the people he cares about.

John has been Sherlock’s keystone in developing his empathy. We can see that throughout the series Sherlock has been forced to engage his empathy and finally becomes comfortable experiencing and acting upon his empathy for John, Molly, Mrs Hudson and Mary. This maturation culminates in His Last Vow when Sherlock decides to sacrifice himself in order to save Mary and by extension John from Magnussen.

It is very telling that Sherlock says “I am a high-functioning sociopath” just before he shoots Magnussen. He doesn’t need to say this out loud when he was dissociating himself from the bombing victims in The Great Game. The fact that he needs to say this out loud to himself and everyone around him shows that he needs this final affirmation in order to suppress his new, stronger, sense of empathy. In that critical moment he needs to convince himself that he can control his empathy, that he can live with the negative consequences of killing another human being and he succeeds.

By embracing his faults and his label of “high functioning sociopath”, Sherlock becomes the archetypal hero who sacrifices himself so that others can live in peace.