The narcissistic continuum? The psychopathic continuum? The sociopath explained as being someone located at the apex of the narcissistic continuum?
Are clinical continuums silly? Maybe they are.
How “nice” are you? Well, maybe you’re somewhere on a continuum of “niceness.” At the apex, you are a super-nice individual; in the middle, sometimes very nice, sometimes less so; at the nadir, you are just an incredibly “un-nice” (or “mean”) person.
Hmmm. Wow. Somehow this doesn’t seem like a newsflash.
How sloppy are you? Well, couldn’t Robert Hare have developed clinically a “sloppiness” (versus a psychopathic) measure that places all of us somewhere on a “sloppiness” continuum.
With a score of 40, you are an incorrigibly sloppy individual, so sloppy that maybe society needs protection from you; with a score of 1-5, you are seriously, anally “neat,” so pathologically neat that society will DEFINITELY need protection from you.
The rest of us? We fall somewhere in-between, a fact that just doesn’t particularly astonish me.
Okay, I’m being somewhat facetious, but only somewhat. Because really, when you think about it, doesn’t every quality, literally every quality, encompass its own continuum? Aren’t we all, to say it again, on a continuum of EVERY quality there is to possess?
For instance, this article alone probably puts me pretty high up on the “annoying” continuum (and trust me, I can probably find a few others who might put me higher up on that continuum than I’d like to admit.)
Take the “intelligence” continuum—all of us, after all, fall somewhere between “dimwits” and “geniuses.” (If the self-testing IQ manuals mean anything, I fall somewhere on the this continuum beneath the orangutan and the llama.)
So a part of me (just a part) laughs when I hear that “sociopaths” are individuals way up on the narcissistic continuum. I could tell you, I think with some confidence, that “sociopaths” are individuals way up on the “dishonesty/deceptive” continuum. Or that sociopaths are seriously lagging on the “empathy/compassion” continuum. I think that would also be true.
We know that Al Gore invented the Internet. That places Al pretty high up on the “delusional” continuum. And Nancy Grace pretty much invented herself, which places her very high up on the “self-invention” continuum.
I’m going to bed soon, because I’m very tired; that must mean, at the moment, I’m way up on the “exhaustion” continuum.
Where are you on all of life’s hundreds of continuums?
To be “continuumed” in a future article.
(This article is copyrighted © 2012 by Steve Becker, LCSW.)
MoonDancer
I dunno, let’s ask EB, she has bouncy hair..
one/joy_step_at_a_time
LOL hens – i thought of her the moment i wrote it!
one/joy_step_at_a_time
hens, you ever break a toe?
MoonDancer
no?
Back_from_the_edge
i know a few toes i would LIKE to break though…hehehehehe
slowly…..one at a time….
MoonDancer
well I was waiting on a joke?…onestep did you break your toe?
one/joy_step_at_a_time
dupey – hehe.
hens, sorry no joke, and it was late so i had to go to bed. broke baby my toe about 4 weeks ago. All the bruising is down, but it’s still swollen and painful. just wanted to ask how long it took to heal. probably being impatient. doc had said it depended on how bad the fracture is.
Ox Drover
Steve, I’m not sure in what vein you are aiming this article…while I agree with most of your articles there are some that give me a WTF? feeling and this is one of them. LOL Since I kind of seem at least to myself to sort of harp on the fact that I think that psychopaths/narcissists etc are on a continuum not just an “either/or” or “Is/ain’t” I kind of wondered if you might be laughing at me about it. LOL (I’m not offended, in fact, if that’s the case, then I’m feeling rather complimented!)
Of course everything can be rated on a continuum…and where are the arbritrary cut off points for things. 30+ a Psychopath, but 29 isn’t a psychopath. You can execute a man with an IQ of 76, but a man with an IQ of 75 is RETARDED and can’t be executed.
And what’s the difference in scores on IQ? How much difference does 1 point make? Well actually not a “tinker’s dam” (not very much) yet the decision to call someone MR and someone NOT MR has to be set at SOME POINT.
I’m 5’5″ but no one would call me TALL and actually for a while female I am about AVERAGE. (we will talk ONLY about height not weight now!) In the San people in Africa, I would be considered VERY TALL. In the Watusi I would be quite short.
I’ve heard it said that all narcissists are not psychopaths, but all psychopaths are narcissists….although my expereince has been that even among psychopaths some are more narcissistic than others. At least in my opinion.
Keith Kiehl said the AVERAGE PCL-R score for ALL convicts is 22. WOW! I’m like donna, I wouldn’t want to be married to an AVERAGE ex con. If you consider that there are about 2 million CURRENT inmates, 5 more million on parole, probation or whatever kind of supervision, then that’s a lot of folks with a scre of 22 ON AVERAGE….and then if you consider the ones that are OFF PAROLE, PROBATION ETC. and they as a group also have an average score of 22, that’s a bunch of badddddd actors in our society. Just in people who have been arrested and convicted of crimes. We know there are also lots of ones who have never been caught or convicted for crimes, too.
There isn’t any score on any test for me that is going to say good/bad person, and I’m like front porch talker, I don’t have much faith in the MMPI to assess what kind of person I am.
For me, the tests for people I want in my life, that I want to do business with, that I want to associate with, and that I want as my friends, is a basic test of honesty, compassion, empathy, kindness, and reciprocity. Anyone who fails any component of that test fails completely as far as I’m concerned.
Thanks for a chuckle, Steve. I needed one today!
ErinBrock
……… you guys crack me up! You only have Bouncy hair on the days you wash your hair. UNLESS…..you use the WEN products, then you can have bouncy hair on day 2!
So what contiuum does that leave us on?
Nothing in life is black and white…..that IS what we all need to keep in mind. Toxic is toxic even if it’s just a ‘little bit’ toxic.
Hope your all well…….and know you’re in my thoughts.
MoonDancer
Ebers…I miss ya.
Onesteprs…Sorry about baby your toe.
Oxers..your tall and above average in my book.