I have wrestled with this question for a long time. While with him, I sometimes wondered, ”˜what on earth am I doing here'? Since gaining my freedom, I have looked back on those 4 years 9 months and wondered, ”˜what on earth was wrong with me that I stayed so long'? I know there are the physiological/psychological factors that compounded my convoluted thinking causing me to believe that I was incapable of leaving him. I know these factors attributed to my inertia and the resultant trauma bonding that held me pinioned in his unholy embrace. But none of these factors explain why an intelligent, well-educated, articulate woman did what I did — before the trauma bonding, the Stockholm Syndrome, …
Is your ___________ “a sociopath”?
This semester I am teaching social psychology and biological psychology at a local university. This week the issue of human affiliation and attachment came up in both courses. Recently a new understanding of human affiliation and attachment has arisen in the scientific literature and I was very pleased to see that the new insight already made it into both of the textbooks. The new understanding really helps us to understand sociopathy so I will discuss it here with the help of one of my students and one of our readers. Human affiliation has two levels to it. The first is our general tendency to avoid being alone and to seek out the company of others. The second is a deeper level that …
The paradox of psychopathy, non-psychopathy, and evil
The blogger, Sir William, has a post ”˜What is evil? which employs what is a very common way of talking about psychopathy and evil. Psychopaths do exist but they are not fully human: they are animals who lack one of the qualities which defines our species. This is a very comforting explanation for those who have been on the receiving end of psychopathy. It seems to answer the question how could someone do something like that? Answer, because they're not really a ”˜someone'. They're actually and animal, not a human being. How does this line of thinking account for evil committed by non-psychopaths? When an ordinary person does bad things to another person they must, on some level, belie …
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On psychological head games and “Nookie” the turtle
Editor's note: This post was submitted by the Lovefraud reader Aloha Traveler. Sociopaths often use subtle methods to intimidate their victims. One of the funniest and most absurd manifestations of this tactic came to me in the form of a small stuffed turtle. I had been on Maui for about six months and was able to get a cheap ticket home to California for a visit with my friends. I was already deep into an abusive and confusing nightmare with the Bad Man. He was twisting up my reality and I needed to be in a place where I knew who I was, with people that knew me well. The Bad Man agreed to take me to the airport for my departure. As I finished packing and was about to zip up my suitcase, …
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Woman sentenced to 99 years for murder
Last week, Mechele Linehan, 35, of Olympia, Washington, was sentenced to 99 years in prison for the murder of her fiancé, Kent Leppink, back in 1996. She was accused of convincing another fiancé, John Carlin III, of New Jersey, of killing Leppink. The crime and trial took place in Alaska, and Carlin was found guilty of murder. Under Alaska law, Linehan was ruled equally guilty, so she got the same sentence as Carlin. "I can find no principal distinction between the puppet who pulls the trigger and the puppeteer who pulls the strings," said Judge Philip Voland. "In my judgment, Ms. Linehan was the puppeteer who pulled the strings." Crime based on murder movie The case sounds just like a …
Sheep can teach us about love and it’s pretty scary!
Last week I picked my daughter up from the Agriscience High School she attends and was greeted with a sure sign of spring. There are dozens of new baby lambs who have all just been born. They are very cute but they also look exactly the same to me. My daughter tells me that they look alike because although there are many ewes there is only one ram, so all the babies have the same dad. Even though the babies look alike and to me they smell alike, each one is unique and special to its mother. Sheep live in herds and unlike some other mammals they do not care for each other's babies. A mother sheep must bond to and learn to identify her baby among the vast herd of lambs who are …
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“The conscience is a vital organ”
Isn't it strange how the mind works? I read with approval Dr Leedom's latest post. In it she manages to be at once hard-nosed, realistic, and still keep positve. There are very real differences in the brains of those with psychopathic traits, she writes, but the brain is plastic and therein lies just a sliver of hope. For some reason the opening lines of Martin Amis' novel House of Meetings came back to me. It is set in the Soviet Union: Dear Venus If what they say is true, and my country is dying, then I think I may be able to tell them why. You see, kid, the conscience is a vital organ, and not an extra like the tonsils or the adenoids. Amis has also written a stunning nonfiction …
BOOK REVIEW: Legal Abuse Syndrome
"Victims are created in two ways: by violence or by deceit. Either type of assault immediately renders the victim hostage to the perpetrator." So begins the book Legal Abuse Syndrome, by Karin Huffer, MS, MFT. Lovefraud strongly recommends that anyone who has been victimized by a sociopath read this book, whether you have faced your perpetrator in court or not. The book explains how people who have suffered injury at the hands of some type of predator often face further injury inflicted by lawyers and the courts, who can be, at best, disinterested, and at worst, corrupt. Legal Abuse Syndrome, Huffer says, is a form of post traumatic stress disorder caused by prolonged contact with the …
The Moral Brain
Scientists are actively working on solving the mystery of what is different about the brains of people who have traits of sociopathy/psychopathy. Notice that I say “traits” because virtually none of the studies only include subjects who score above 30 on the PCL-R. These studies then by definition are about sociopathic traits and not psychopathy (see my post from last week). When I first realized that I had to understand sociopathic traits in order to properly raise my at-risk son, I studied the traits and organized them according to what I understood about human motivation and the organization of the brain. In my opinion, sociopathic traits form three categories, I call The Inner Triangle. T …
The Borderline Personality as Transient Sociopath
Editor's note: This article was submitted by Steve Becker, LCSW, CH.T, who has a private psychotherapy, hypnotherapy, and clinical consulting practice in New Jersey, USA. For more information, visit his website, powercommunicating.com. It is not unusual in my clinical experience to see, sometimes, some quite chilling sociopathic activity from my “borderline personality-disordered” clients. When someone has a “borderline personality,” it's quite likely, among other things, that he or she will present with a history of emotional instability; a pattern of chaotic interpersonal relationships; and poor coping skills under stress, reflected in self-destructive/ destructive acting-out and a tendenc …