A reader asked the following question this week:
Recently, I’ve started doing more research into sociopaths and have run into a condition with which I’m unfamiliar: dissociation. Do you know if sociopaths/psychopaths have been considered to have this disorder, or if it is part of what makes them who they are?
The term dissociation has two distinct meanings in psychology. These two uses of the same word do not necessarily reflect a similar process operating in each.
The first kind of dissociation is a response to stress, and peritraumatic dissociation (dissociation during a traumatic event) appears to be a risk factor for stress-related illness. Symptoms of this kind of dissociation include disturbed experience of reality related to time, memory and nearly every sensation. For example, during trauma, time may stand still and people report that things do not seem real. Male sex hormones or androgens (that women also have in lower levels) protect against this kind of dissociation. For a good but technical article about peritraumatic dissociation read, Symptoms of Dissociation in Humans Experiencing Acute, Uncontrollable Stress: A Prospective Investigation.
The second kind of dissociation relates to the observation that the mind is modular. That means we don’t use our entire brain circuitry all the time, and during different behavioral and emotional states, different circuits are activated. Testosterone is hypothesized to disrupt the connection between the cerebral cortex and the limbic system, and so enhances this kind of dissociation.
This increase in mind modularity has been related to sociopathy/psychopathy by some experts. In a previous blog I reviewed Psychopaths in Everyday Life, a book by Robert Rieber. There is a great quote from the book that relates to your question. It is,
The true psychopath compels the psychiatric observer to ask the perplexing and largely unanswered question: Why doesn’t that person have the common decency to go crazy?
So why don’t psychopaths have the common decency to go crazy? Dr. Rieber explains, “Since psychopaths act as if they were perfectly normal, i.e. sane, they must be skilled in a cunning manner to dissociate any real guilt that they should feel about their antisocial behavior.” He also says that since psychopaths dissociate, they don’t go crazy. He believes dissociation prevents them from experiencing guilt. He also says that many psychopaths do have some level of guilt they are dissociated from.
So there may be a connection between sociopathy/psychopathy and dissociation, but the connection depends on your definition of the word.
bulletproof – i wonder what would happen to the various power girds world wide if we ‘plugged them in’ all at once?
I watched the move, wonderful world, with mathew broderick the other day. there was this amazing exchange between his character and a self entitled SUV driver. his timing was awesome when he delivered this speech – all the while trying to squeeze into his car, which was jammed up against a wall (and having been berated by the SV driver for parking in a way that made it hard for the SUV driver to manouveur – although m.b. was parked somewhat illegally, the amount of ‘space’ he took up was half the ‘space’ the SUV driver did):
“You know what you are? You’re a vampire. You think you are new to the earth, but you’re not, you’ve been around like for 10,000 years. You’re in the bible. You’re indestructible. You’re like an insect, and when the nuclear holocaust comes there will be swarms of you Driving around in your SUVs informing on each other.”
He was so certain and angry. And although he was parking illegally ”“ he was right ”“ he saw deeper.
we don’t like to call it that. it’s more like being connected through soul singing with another and seeing what they are seeing. feeling what they are feeling, merging with them. our form of non verbal communication.
like my wanting a cup of coffee and des bringing me a cup. it’s like being at work and my linking up to des and dolphin to see if they are okay. i drift away and i am then with them then i’m back again. they too with me.
Sometimes i’m at work and i get a warmth and i know des and dolphin are visiting. if it feels like a little giggle it’s my dolphin, if it’s intense and i get edgey and my sense of smell sharpens i know it’s Des.
I calm Des down this way too. if it seems like she’s about to lose it, i intervene. i step into her and whisper in her head calm down, cool it. we become like one unit, then we separate until another time we can pull into each other again.
we’ve done this many times. drift away and merge with others.
souls have no boundaries, no time or space to get in between. dolphin and des and i all do this. with other autistics too, we’ve been able to with folks with down syndrome too. sometimes with what des calls sensitive everyday people too. like some folks here.
people sometimes get caught up on that things only exist only if they can be seen or measured. but then in that case thoughts and feelings which can not be seen or measured must not exist. but whatever exists can be sensed. doesn’t mean we can make sense out of what we’re sensing. nothing is a clear as it is in hollywood movies.
the guy wanted us to help with missing people. he even had clothing articles for Des to sniff through. this is too much for us to sort through. and we can’t make sense of what we are seeing/feeling. we can’t help him.
we can not control what comes in or not. and even through all our suppossed ‘gifts’ we couldn’t save Odalina. We couldn’t sort through the information and we couldn’t save her. Des screamed as if it were she who was being stabbed, but she couldn’t save her, just writhed and collapsed on the ground living through what O was going through. we can’t save anybody. we’re useless.
Mike
this link belong’s to an autistic called Delvyn:
http://www.angelfire.com/falcon/psyberinn/AutisticShamanChild.html
In visionaire messages it describes alot of how des and i (and dolphin still does) experienced and how we saw things.
this other was written by Tito another autistic which i am adding here because we as well had that message of being a Tree of Mind..
http://www.amazon.com/Mind-Tree-Miraculous-Breaks-Silence/dp/1559706996/ref=sr_1_fkmr1_1?ie=utf8mb4&qid=1266881891&sr=1-1-fkmr1
The Mind Tree
Maybe it is night
Maybe it is day
I can’t be sure
Because I’m not yet feeling the heat of the sun
I am the mind tree
When I had been gifted this mind of mine
I recall his voice very clearly
To you I have given this mind
And you shall be the only kind
No one ever will like you be
And I name you the mind tree
I can’t see or talk
Yet I can imagine
I can hope and I can expect
I am able to feel pain but I cannot cry
So I just be and wait for the pain to subside
I can do nothing but wait
My concerns and worries
Are trapped within me somewhere in my depths
Maybe in my roots
Maybe in my bark
When he comes next who gifted me my mind
I shall ask him for the gift of sight
I doubt his return and
Yet hope for it
Maybe he will
Maybe he will not
Tito Mukhopadhyay
Thanks, Mike for explaining….but you are NOT “useless.”
.
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Dearest CA Mom,I am so sorry, you have been thru absolute hell on earth, first with that sick fucker of father, and then with the cruel spaths in your life,{obviously it was your unconscious trying to re-create the trauma from your childhood, and this time, try to “get it right.}’What was your Mum doing when all this mental abuse and torture was going on? Did she know about it? Is your father dead now? I hope if so, that he is in the worst pit of Hell, for what he put you thru as a defenceless child. Im sending you love, peace, and White light. May the Archangels Raphael, Michael and Hameil protect you and keep you safe.Im so SORRY you had to live thru this.
Love, and {{HUGS!}}}, Gem.XXX
Jesus said,
“If any of you cause any of these little ones to suffer,[children,} ,it would be better for him if a millstone was placed around his neck, and he drowned in the depths of the sea.”
God is not mocked, your sick bastard of a Dad WILL suffer for what he did to you, either in this world, or in Hell, where he belongs.
This article explains how they P/Spaths can sleep so soundly at night in spite the horrors they’ve committed during the day. Makes perfect sense!
This reminds me of the film “The Informant” with Matt Damon, about Archer Daniels Midland executive Mark Whitacre, who led the FBI on a wild goose chase about his company’s corruption, only to lead them to his own crimes.
They keep saying he’s bipolar, but he’s clearly a sociopath. He “doesn’t have the common decency to go crazy.” Instead, bipolar disorder causes him to steal, and he covers up his guilt with sociopathy — acting like the good guy, helping the FBI go after the bad guys. He even gives them a picture of his family, to show what a great “family man” he is. Classic dissociation.
Interesting. The person I know that I suspect of being a sociopath has been described as a ‘Pollyanna’ in that things that would typically devastate the average person, those things have little or no affect on this person.