How to recognize and recover from everyday sociopaths - narcissists

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Psychiatrist explains how prison employee may have been “groomed” to help inmates escape

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In an interview on CNN today, Forensic Psychiatrist Dr. Michael Welner spoke of the female prison employee, Joyce Mitchell, who is alleged to have helped the two New York inmates escape. Lovefraud readers might find healing in what he had to say. He said that there may not be any particular vulnerability in a victim of what he terms “emotional hacking.” He states the greatest risk factors are “access and time.” “We need to appreciate the vulnerability with prison employees the way we do our children with pedophiles,”  Welner says. He points out that, “We all see what we need to see in other people.” Prison workers need to regard the humanity of inmates, he says, and this regard makes them v …

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“Did He Ever Love Me?” A Qualitative Study of Life With a Psychopathic Husband

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Just Like His Father? (available through this site) was released in October, 2006. At that time I fantasized that the audience for the book would be single parents or grandparents raising the children of personality disordered individuals. I thought that most of the disordered parents would have abandoned the family and want nothing to do with the kids. While we still do not know what percentage of personality disordered parents abandon their kids, I have come to believe that that those who do not are a much bigger social problem. Within 6 months of the release of the book, people who were trying to co-parent with severely disordered former partners began to write me. At first I did not …

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Connecticut shooting: It is time for “people control”

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President Bush designated the 1990s as the Decade of the Brain: "to enhance public awareness of the benefits to be derived from brain research" through "appropriate programs, ceremonies, and activities." Thirteen years after the decade of the brain, the public is now aware that brain function is impaired in mental illness (including psychopathy) and addiction. Research has uncovered the brain regions involved in mental illnesses (including psychopathy) and addiction and the mechanism of action of many helpful medications. [youtube_sc url=http://youtu.be/zqqsxoFsFtw] Now this may still be difficult for some people to comprehend but, I say categorically that, "a 20 year old male who …

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Psychopathy is a disorder, not an adaptation

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According to Merriam Webster online a pet peeve is something that annoys or bothers a person very much. One of my pet peeves is people of all sorts who say that psychopathy is "fascinating" or worse even assert that it is "beneficial". There is nothing fascinating or beneficial about a disorder that is linked to child rape and murder of innocent victims and countless ruined lives. It also bothers me that professionals who talk about psychopathy in this way are sought after by the press. Several months ago a lovefraud reader forwarded me an article I had not seen. Nepotistic patterns of violent psychopathy: evidence for adaptation? Linda and I wrote a comment on this paper and that comment …

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A mother paid the ultimate price

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Many of us have faced condemnation by strangers, friends and family members for having been romantically involved with someone who turned out to be a sociopath. It takes a very strong person not to allow this condemnation to turn to self-doubt; we may blame ourselves as much as others blame us. I have been lucky because the experience of getting to know other victims has taught me that many fine people have been conned. Furthermore, many of the conned tried to do their homework, they tried to protect themselves. Although highly intelligent, they were simply out maneuvered by an individual who was a professional con artist, a criminal who earns a living by preying on others. To all …

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Cartoons teach young children about sociopaths

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This morning I was writing a comment on a recent article claiming that psychopathy is not a mental disorder while my son was watching Kung Fu Panda. Hopefully the comment challenging the premises of the article will be published and I'll write more about it in a few weeks. Kung Fu Panda was almost as disturbing as the report that said that since psychopaths harm strangers more than family members, psychopathy is advantageous and not a disorder. In this morning's episode, Po the Kung Fu Panda decided it would be a good idea to reunite 13 y/o warthog "BZ" with his imprisoned sociopath father Taotie. BZ has problems and is completely unmotivated, responding "boring" to everything he sees. …

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Parenting at-risk teens and young adults

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A number of parents have written Lovefraud recently asking for advice regarding helping 16-24 year old sons and daughters whose other parent is a sociopath. These sons and daughters may be showing some signs of the disorder and the parents are at a loss about what to do. The stage of life between 16 and 24, is called emergent adulthood, and I have come to believe this stage is critical in the development of healthy and unhealthy personality patterns. With respect to antisocial personality (sociopathy/psychopathy), although symptoms of the disorder may be present during childhood and early adolescence, recent studies show this is not always the case. The disorder can develop during …

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Sociopaths victimize using human institutions like the courts

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This summer I read a fabulous book, Coercive Control: How Men Entrap Women in Personal Life by Evan Stark. It is a well written academic discussion of the topic of coercive control that also provides a history of domestic violence awareness in America. Although I highly recommend the book to anyone who advocates for victims, I do not agree with the premise that coercive control is about female victimization. I have known too may male victims to believe that this is a male —female issue. The challenge then is to come up with a theory about intimate partner victimization that accounts for, rather than rejects the very cogent arguments put forward by clinician-researchers like Dr. Stark. A …

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Sentencing and Psychopathy

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There is increasing evidence that psychopathy results from an interaction between genes and environment. In fact the genes responsible and their interactions with early life experiences have already begun to be elucidated. (See Bad Nature Bad Nurture). Eventually individuals we call sociopaths will be shown to have extremes of physiology that contribute to the disorder. Note that I say extremes of physiology; there will always be people who have various physiological findings in common with individuals with psychopathy who do not manifest the disorder. I spend many hours a week talking with people who have been victimized by psychopathic individuals. This past week, a severely affected …

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About Stolen Lives

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Over the years, hearing many victim stories, I often felt the pain and loss of “stolen lives.” Note that having one's life stolen is not the same process as giving one's life away. There are some who spend 30 or more years in a relationship with a sociopath/psychopath and it is important people understand that there is always coercion involved in the process of making and maintaining these relationships. Consider that the coercive behavior that begins and maintains relationships occurs on a continuum from persuasion, to lying/manipulation to taking someone physically by force. The point is that there was never informed, freely given consent. If the victim had known the truth of what they w …

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