Last week I ran across the book, Criminal Interrogation: A Modern Format for Interrogating Criminal Suspects Based on the Intellectual Approach, by Warren D. Holmes. The author spent his early career in law enforcement and now runs a private polygraph company in Miami Florida. He has interviewed many psychopaths including murderers and child molesters. I was anxious to read this book and understand a law enforcement officer’s view of psychopaths. I was happy to see that the book is very well written and I would recommend it to Lovefraud readers who want to know how a law enforcement officer approaches interrogation of psychopaths/sociopaths.
Many Lovefraud readers have expressed the desire to know how to “out” a psychopath/sociopath. In this book Mr. Holmes gives his ideas about this subject. In his Chapter “How People Lie” he discusses the neurotic liar and compares lies told by these people to psychopathic liars. He has also listed and categorized what he calls “liar statements.” These are statements that signal someone is lying. In reading his list, I found that psychopaths/sociopaths use many of these.
Here are his categories of liar statements:
A. Loophole statements like, “To the best of my knowledge.” By using these statements a person can easily have wiggle room to excuse any lies he/she tells.
B. Over-sell expressions like “honestly” and “Believe me.”
C. Thinking time expressions like “can you repeat the question.” Liars use these to give them time to think up lies.
D. Brooklyn Bridge remarks “I need to know if I did it.”
E. Offense statements like “Are you calling me a liar.”
The book discusses each of these in detail. If you have spent time with a psychopath I’m sure you have heard every one of these. Although he is not a psychologist, Mr Holmes discusses his theory of why neurotic, almost sociopathic people lie and what tactics they use. This discussion might be beneficial for those who have a family member who has sociopathic traits but who may not have the full disorder.
The book also discusses what it is like to interview a psychopath. Mr Holmes says what I have said here on this blog and in my books, that is that psychopaths/sociopaths are preoccupied with power and dominance. They show this in every aspect of their behavior. They violate personal space, make inappropriately personal remarks and attempt to control the interview. He says, “When they enter my office, they generally jump into my secretary’s lap.”
I am very grateful for the fact that Mr. Holmes also granted me a brief interview. He is a friendly and wise man, who is certainly an expert on psychopathy/sociopathy. The question I most wanted to ask him was what he thought about the estimates of only 20% of people in prison being psychopaths. He agreed with me that this estimate is too low. He also expressed concern that there is an increase in the prevalence of psychopathy in America.
I asked him if he had any words of wisdom for Lovefraud readers regarding sociopaths/psychopaths and avoiding them. He said that we should always be suspicious of any person who tries too hard to sell himself. He said to beware of people who are overpowering. That sounds like great advice and right on the money to me!
Dear Oxy. After that I really began to study him and I could almost predict what he was going to do and when he was going to do it. He had changed jobs and asked me to do him a reference, because his new employer demanded to see his employment history (85 pages of jobs), they were suspicious. Anyway we broke up before I did the reference. A few weeks later we got back together and I thought I bet he asks me to do that reference, sure enough he asked a day or so later – he became so predictable, that I began to see that he was using me. He asked me to collect him from the rail station after he had been on holiday, he said we could have an evening together. After I got to the station and collected him, he said he was too tired to spend the evening with me and then I started to realise he had used me for a lift. How pathetic. After that, I closely monitored him as I was beginning to see him as a different person.
It is a shame that we don’t put more emphasis on the EARLY RED FLAGS instead of brushing them aside as trite or small things. They are in FACT–H*U*G*E RED FLAGS. But our social training is geared to make us overlook these “little things” and not “make abig fuss over nothing” and don’t “make a mountain out of a mole hill” and how many other trite things that would be said to us if we really gave it the ATTENTION it deserved.
The Titanic sunk because of a small piece of ice sticking out of the ocean—those things I think are LIE-BERGS with only a small tip sticking out of the water but the HUGE FATAL PART is just under the surface. If we ignore the small piece sticking up we will be SUNK like the Titanic.
The message of the medium being that, it doesn’t matter how you get there, as long as you “win”. or “Profit”.
Which is always the power, fame, money etc. that the S’s breathe. The film “The Corporation” does a great job of illustarting how our major business forms mimic the actions of a sociopath. It is a sad reality, but the S’s rule the day in the terms THEY choose to measure. They are aggressively taking over our water, our seeds, they own our meds, they control our food supply and our sources of income. And we watch.
They are run by the small minority of P’s in this world.
The other 5.975 billion of us would rather find some peace and grace and harmony.
There is much in our current reality and world events that does point to a collapse of the heirarchy of P’s, as Martha Stout says, they usually do end up in a downward spiral.
In the meantime it is up to us to build new alternatives, while refusing to support their power. Whether in a personal relationship, or out there in general. IMHO:)
Peace to all.
Just a comment on my experience with lies. I think sometimes too much emphasis is put on detecting the lie. If you’re dealing with a “professional” liar, chances are you’re not going to catch it, or usually not even have enough reason to point your finger then they point the finger back at you for having a suspicious nature (SOP for these cons anyway). They can be so good at blending enough truth and bullying you into not wanting to create ire that you doubt yourself and start the slide into denial.
Mistrusting on just “gut feel” can drive you crazy, may even make you appear crazy. You may pick up “that feeling” but I think you’ve got to be careful what you do with it. Just like you said Oxy, “You broke up w/him because you thought he told you a lie” can return the same funny look and the over-reaction dilema as breaking the hamster ball. But saying you broke up because he had no regard for your feelings is the legitimate issue.
I got so into playing detective and catching him in a lie that I never caught or as my denial allowed, that I missed the big picture. So lies were not a good red flag for me. He had more girlfriends in two years of our “faithful” relationship than Imelda Marcos had shoes in her closet.
I have been told that the much better red flag is not the lie, but the reaction and the resolution that comes once you bring up how you feel, for a better big picture view. It can be a “little lie” or just a feeling, but the attitude and method of resolution, like denial vs. validating your feelings and willingness to correct the situation, are the big things worth the attention.
Someone who “can’t” understand, talks in circles, is unwilling to disprove or repair mistrust, or who angers and/or outright denies, has something to hide. Like Martha Stout’s lie standard, three chances not to lie but to listen and react appropriately, and if not they need to be gone.
Good point, Benz, but however you put it “I broke up with him because he told me a little lie” or “I broke up with him because he had no regard for my feelings (by telling me a lie)” is six of one and half a dozen of the other, the point to me is that a LIE is a sure sign to me that HE DOES NOT VALUE ME ENOUGH TO TELL ME THE TRUTH.
He does not value me enough to acknowledge that he hurt my feelings.
He does not value me enough to stop doing x when he knows full well it hurts my feelings.
He does not value me enough to do what he says he will do.
He does not value me enough to ________. Fill in the blank.
The operative word is that He/She DOES NOT VALUE ME and our relationship.
I don’t want to be around people that DO NOT VALUE ME, or that DEVALUE me, I sure as heck don’t want to have a “relationship” with them.
Since I am the ULTIMATE JUDGE of how I feel about the way someone treats me, (i.e. I am not going to let them excuse behavior that is painful to me by projection) I am the one that has to set the boundaries for how people treat me. I am also the one who bears the responsibility of communicating those boundaries to others, and enforcing them, knowing that the relationship will be “lost” if they do not respect them. AND also accepting that a “relationship” that is lost because others do not RESPECT me and my boundaries is NO LOSS to me in any case.
THAT’s the hard part. This past week has been I guess difficult for me with the boundaries I set for my mother, and realzing EMOTIONALLY that she will NEVER RESPECT ME, that she does NOT CARE that she hurt me, that she projects her bad and hurtful behavior on to ME and that our “relationship” was totally ONE SIDED for respect and affection. Painful to find out at 61years old, and get out of denial about the fact that your mother has NEVER loved you, never cared for you, and it was only and always about APPEARANCES and DENIAL of the truth.
But, I feel more at peace now about the disrespect of my mother, and I am coming to terms with it I hope for the final and last time. LOL Just as I did with my P-son, and my P-bio father and the X-BF-P
I think we are looking at anti-socials all wrong. When we first encountered anti-socials in our space … we look at them from our pain. Our pain clouds us from really seeing them. I believe that anti-socials are stunted spiritually at the time they first encountered a painful situation (6-8 years old). I believe that their egos become their defense mechanism for them to deal with this painful experience, whether that be a reprimand from an adult figure … or worse, a physical violation stemming from an adult figure in their life. We view them at their chronological age instead of viewing them at their (child like) stunted spiritual age. We need to work with them from that stunted spiritual age of 6, 7, 8 or 9 years of age instead of them at whatever their currently chronological age. When we realize we are dealing with children instead of the adults we perceive them to be standing before us … then we can unlock the true reasoning they entered down the wrong unrighteous paths throughout their lives. I think these children repeat the pattern of their initial abuse (painful experience) over and over again with everyone they encounter.
This is just my theory after dealing with numerous anti-social personalities … working through the pain they caused me … coming into the place of peace and understanding. From that understanding … coming to a logical conclusion not clouded by pain.
Wini I like your theory, makes alot of sense to me. My (X) was child like, sometime’s I enjoyed it, but I was looking for an adult, a equal partnership. I raised two fine son’s, don’t need to raise anyone else. However we define or label them, they cause us alot of damage. I am going to stop calling my X a sociopath, I like the label his own mother referred to him as.. A BOOGER…
Dear Wini,
WHATEVER the cause (and there is medical proof now that genetics is a BIG part of their functioning) the problem is that “working with them” to try to get them to SEE their problem is an exercise in futility. THEY DON’T SEE A NEED TO CHANGE, THEY DON’T WANT TO CHANGE….in their opinions it is ONLY THE WORLD that is wrong, not them.
The old “you can lead a horse to water” thing, but you can’t force it to DRINK.
Their self awareness is ZIP and ZERO, less than ZERO! The Bible talks about people “hardening their hearts” so that the word of God bounces off, and the Psychopaths definitely have hearts and minds that can’t get around the fact that their acts, though they know them to be “wrong” in the eyes of others (else why would they lie about them, or try to deceive others?) but to THEMSELVES their evil acts are JUSTIFIED because it is what they WANT to do. Other people are not entitled to be valued, just used. What you do to others is OK if it is what you want to do.
“Working with” a child of 6 or 7 who has no true concept of “right and wrong” is not the same as trying to work with a psychopath who DOES HAVE A CONCEPT OF RIGHT AND WRONG in the eyes of society, they just DON’T EXCEPT society’s rules. It isn’t that they don’t know, they don’t CARE.
The child needs to be TAUGHT, but the P already knows, but doesn’t care. Big difference there.
A child has a potential to learn to know and to care about society’s “rules” of right and wrong, to make judgements based on those rules, to have empathy for others (though little children are not born with empathy, they can develop it through the nurturing teachings of nurturing parents.)
The psychopath is in a hardened state of development such that the teachings of even the most nurturing person bounce off. Because they are unable to have empathy, unable to love, unable to bond, your teachings are worthless, they don’t want them.
When we are born, we have little or no immune system, most animals have NO immune system, and all immune globulins are received through the mothers’ first milk, the colostrum, and that first milk contains all the baby needs to keep him immune from attacks of viruses and bacterias for a period of time until his own immune system kicks in.
If the baby for whatever reasons does not get this first milk, at about 2 or 3 days, depending on the species, the gut will NO LONGER ACCEPT those immune globulins, so if the baby doesn’t get it at a certain time, you can give them all the first milk in the world but it won’t do them any good as they can no longer get benefit from it. Teaching the Ps to have empathy is the same way, they are past the time when they can benefit from infusions of love and caring and teaching.
It would be wonderful if we could believe that there was SOMETHING, anything, that could be done for the Ps to make them have empathy, to “save” them as it were, but the problem is, that NO ONE has ever found this “magic” thing, this “magic formula” that will heal them, because their hearts are “hardened” and they can’t benefit from it.
No one on earth alive today has ever seen someone who was literally dead and in the grave for three days arise and walk the earth again. Yet, we have heard and some of us believe that Jesus did, so we accept that on faith, but none of us think for one minute that we can raise the dead ourselves, or that our loved one who has been dead for three days will if we just “believe enough” or “love them enough” can make them rise up and walk with us again. I would love to believe that, but my experience is that it is NOT going to happen, and that no matter what I want or believe, it isn’t going to happen, so I must accept that it is “impossible.” I would love to believe it is possible to some how get through to a P and to change their way of looking at things. Many of the people in my family are Ps, I would love to change them into “real loving humans” but it isn’t going to happen because they don’t want it to. So, therefore it is impossible. If that makes any sense.
I read a book written by a minister that Jeffrey Dahmer conned into believing he was “saved”—went to great lengths to convince this guy that he was sincere about his repentance etc….and when Jef died, the letters etc in his cell showed that it was all a big ruse just for “fun”–just another con to keep him happy at pulling the wool over on the poor minister’s eyes. For what purpose you say? Just because he COULD and Just because it helped him pass the time, along with the 13 or 14 women he was writing to telling each one that he was in love with her, and that she was the ONLY one for him. Why? Again, just to be conning cause it was fun. No other purpose, just to use and abuse someone vulnerable.
I have NO hope for my Ps that they will ever be anything except examples of evil. I am not going to waste my time or energy trying to “help” them, because they don’t want my help. It is not my responsibility to “cast my pearls before swine” because I know that they will “trample them into the mire, and turn and rend (tear) me.” Ps can’t appreciate love any more than a swine can appreciate pearls, and if you offer them your love, they will use it to tear you to pieces.
I’ve been there too many times, and have the scars to prove it.
If it comforts you to believe that there is hope for these people I hope for your sake that you keep your “hope” far enough away from them that they don’t continue to harm you, but for myself, I will stay as far away from them as I can, because the only thing that kept me near them was the hope that somehow I could love them enough to make them “see” how evil their acts were—and it sure didn’t work anything positive for them, and it worked a lot of negative for me.
I need to Blog, OXY JANE all of you HELP… just as i was typing the word booger in my above post, who should knock on the door? THE BOOGER, I didnt want to open the door didnt want to make eye contact, but I opened the door and handed him his check and asked what he was doing here, he said he wanted to see the dogs, I said go out back by the pool. I went out and set as he was greeting the dogs, he said do u not even want to be friends? I said NO. He said dont act like this. I said Hows your new BF? He said I dont have one I am living alone in an apartment, I said take me to see it, he said NO. I said some of your buddies have shown up here looking for you. He said I dont know what you are talking about. I said you need to leave, He said Actually I am a very honest person until I get fucked over. I said leave and never ever come back. He said dont worry I will never be back…
I am shaking, but I confronted him with his lies and he just kept on lieing, lies lies lies but i had no feelings of love for him just fear