How to recognize and recover from everyday sociopaths - narcissists

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Men should be concerned about violence against women

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Jackson Katz is author of The Macho Paradox—why some men hurt women and how all men can help. Last year he spoke at a TED conference. His basic message is that violence against women is not just a women's issue—it is a men's issue. After all, men are committing most of the violence. I am glad to see a man speaking out on this issue towards men. Most of his presentation was terrific. However, about three-quarters of the way through, Katz makes the statement, "The typical perpetrator is not sick and twisted, he's a normal guy in every other way." Is this true? Abraham Maslow once said, "If you only have a hammer, you tend to see every problem as a nail." So I wonder if, to paraphrase Mas …

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Critiquing expert views, part 3: Psychology Today blogger on understanding the sociopath

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Editor's note: This is the third in a series of articles critiquing what mental health bloggers are saying about sociopaths/psychopaths. Prior articles are: “CNN blogger on Ariel Castro," and "Psychology Today blogger on psychopaths who care." Seth Meyers, Psy.D., a clinical psychologist with the Los Angeles County Department of Mental Health, wrote in a recent Psychology Today blog that he's been commenting on TV about the Jodi Arias case. Apparently Meyers is on TV quite a bit— his credits include Good Morning America, Fox News, Jane Velez-Mitchell, The Early Show, Good Day L.A., 20/20, and more. The Jodi Arias case inspired him to discuss sociopaths in his post. Here's the art …

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Critiquing expert views, part 2: Psychology Today blogger on psychopaths who care

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Editor's note: This is the second in a series of articles critiquing what mental health bloggers are saying about sociopaths/psychopaths. Here is the first article: "CNN blogger on Ariel Castro." The headline in a recent blog article on the Psychology Today website stopped me in my tracks: Despite popular opinion, psychopaths can show they care This article was written by Susan Krauss Whitbourne, Ph.D., who is a professor of psychology at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Here is the first paragraph, with my comments in parentheses: The quintessential psychopath shows callous disregard for others, a complete lack of empathy (although they are great at pretending to show empathy when …

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Critiquing expert views on sociopaths, part 1: CNN blogger on Ariel Castro

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People who have committed horrific acts have been in the news a lot recently. Prime examples are Ariel Castro, accused of holding three women captive for 10 years in Cleveland, Ohio, and Jodi Arias, convicted of viciously murdering her ex-boyfriend in Mesa, Arizona. Who is so heartless and cruel that they can engage in these terrible behaviors? The answer is probably that the perpetrators are personality disordered. So various mental health experts have been writing blog articles on the cases and personality disorders, which Lovefraud readers have been forwarding to me. Some of the statements made in the articles I agree with, and some I don't. So I'm going to write a series of critiques of …

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Sociopaths, crying, sex and cooking

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Lovefraud recently received the following email from a reader whom we'll call "Judith." She asked questions that many readers may wonder about, so I'll answer them in this post. Sociopaths do not feel emotions, empathy or cry - Yes, he did play the 'cry game' when I would tell him the relationship was 'over' (which I did a few times) or want to walk out of his door. Q1. He used to cry incessantly for his parents/grandparents who love him a lot, and feeling homesick (staying alone). Or cry that I was not with him in the same place and how much he misses me (online chat). He would mostly be drinking when he cries like a river. He longed for having a wife in his life?? He proposed to almost …

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Conflict of interest in Connecticut family court

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Last week Anne Stevenson, a Lovefraud reader, contributed and article to the Washington Times outlining a web of  improper relationships among judges and family court service providers in Connecticut. CT court employees face tough questions over conflicts of interest in WashingtonTimes.com.   …

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What we should do when sociopaths experience no consequences

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Lovefraud recently received the following email from a reader who posts as "Salvation2012." Thank you for helping me decide when I needed to cut my losses during my divorce. I did cut my "losses," yet the total I received tallied up to a number similar, just not in all cash. Because I settled in his eyes, he told everyone I was just proving how I was the guilty one and didn't want to risk being exposed. To the end he will deny permanently injuring me and bleeding me of money, and cheating on me (which I only later found out about the extent). My recent concern is watching him seemingly have no consequences. I'm not a vengeful person, so this is a distressing area for me, but I just …

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Oxytocin, trust and why we fall for psychopaths

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  Invariably, once we realize we've been conned by a psychopath, this person has lied to us from the very beginning, and we fell for all of it, we ask why? Why did we believe? Why did we trust? The short answer is that we did what we, as social animals, are biologically designed to do. Human beings have evolved over millennia to live in community, and trust is the glue that holds us together. I just finished reading The Moral Molecule the source of love and prosperity, by Paul J. Zak. Zak spent 10 years researching a brain chemical called oxytocin and its role in human behavior. He says oxytocin inspires trust; trust is connected to morality; and morality is connected to the …

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CDC says 1 in 5 U.S. kids have a mental health disorder

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The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) releases a report stating that about 20 percent of children between the ages of 3 and 17 are living with mental health disorders. CDC finds mental health woes in one in five U.S. kids, on CBSNews.com. Mental health surveillance among children United States, 2005 - 2011, on CDC.gov.   …

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NIMH v DSM-5: Mental health professionals continue to disagree

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The bigwigs of mental health research have slammed the bigwigs of psychiatry, which will probably mean more confusion for the rest of us. In 10 days, on May 27, 2013, the American Psychiatric Association's new Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental  Disorders 5th Edition, or DSM-5, will be published. This is the massive reference book that psychiatrists and therapists use in order to diagnose mental illness. But a few weeks ago, the head of the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), which is the world's largest funding agency for research into mental health, trashed the DSM-5. More precisely, Thomas R. Insel, M.D., director of NIMH, said the government agency would no longer fund …

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