In 2008, the chaplain of a Roman Catholic high school in Reading, Pa., befriended a female student. Well, the relationship was much more than friendship, and the girl's parents have filed a lawsuit against him and the Diocese of Allentown, claiming that the priest impregnated their daughter. Read Suit says priest impregnated teenager, on Philly.com. The teenager had a baby, and apparently is now living with the priest, who has been relieved of his duties. Read Teen found at apartment of priest her parents sued on ReadingEagle.com. …
How can you know when you’ve encountered a sociopath?
"The motivation (for lying) is particularly baffling in endogenous deceit when the psychopath may appear to have everything he wants yet continues quite predictably to commence the manipulative cycle." So says Dr. Reid Meloy in The Psychopathic Mind, p121. "I don't think they even eat an ice cream cone just for pleasure, I think they do everything for the effect it has, or the image it presents. It isn't about what is REAL it is about what they can appear to be. To them, I think, if they can get others to believe it, then it becomes "reality" as far as they are concerned." So says Ox Drover in a comment on this blog. There is complete agreement about one thing regarding sociopaths, …
How can you know when you’ve encountered a sociopath?Read More
Letters Home: Letter to a Sociopath
Editor's Note: Here's another essay by the Front Porch Talker. For background about her experience, read her initial post, called “My life with a sociopath.” By The Front Porch Talker From “Letters Home,” my series of unsent letters to fictional people about fictional topics—for real. Dear DOC #...., Well, I bet you never thought that I would find you, but here we are sitting across an imaginary bolted-down table in the visiting room of your new home. Do they still call it prison, or do you prefer the term penitentiary? I like the sound of Correctional Institution. It has an optimistic tone to it: a college for “change” or “correction,” as though either option were ever possible w …
All I wanted was a date
Back in the summer of 1996, when I logged onto the America Online Love section, I had no idea that it would be the beginning of a journey that would change my life. I was single, had never been married and was about to turn 40—yes, I heard that biological clock ticking very loudly. I ran my own copywriting business and finally, after 13 years of struggle, I was making good money. Maybe, I hoped, it was finally time for me. When I logged on to AOL and looked at the personal ads, all I wanted was a date. Enter the sociopath What I found was James Montgomery, who turned out to be a con artist—a sociopath. Like many Lovefraud readers, when this man crossed my path, I had no idea what a soci …
Freedom to lie: Stolen Valor Act ruled unconstitutional
The Stolen Valor Act of 2005 makes it illegal for anyone to claim military decorations that he or she did not earn. It's a straightforward law that states: Whoever falsely represents himself or herself, verbally or in writing, to have been awarded any decoration or medal authorized by Congress for the Armed Forces of the United States, any of the service medals or badges awarded to the members of such forces, the ribbon, button, or rosette of any such badge, decoration, or medal, or any colorable imitation of such item shall be fined under this title, imprisoned not more than six months, or both. On August 17, 2010, the law was found to be unconstitutional by the United States Court of …
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Games our minds play
After the sociopath, when the fog starts to lift, many of us ask ourselves, "Why didn't I see what was going on?" According to a new book, we should probably cut ourselves some slack. Read Book Review: The Invisible Gorilla on Scienceblogs.com. Link supplied by a Lovefraud reader. …
Experienced clinician says psychopathy is a spectrum
This week we are continuing to discuss The Psychopathic Mind by J. Reid Meloy, Ph.D. The author is diplomate in forensic psychology, former Chief of the Forensic Mental Health Division for San Diego County and Past President of the American Academy of Forensic Psychology. As I said last week, my initial reaction to the book was rather negative because I believe this author has made some assertions that have become the basis for inaccurate folklore that has spread over the internet (to be discussed in the coming weeks). But Dr. Meloy made up for all that by setting the record straight on a very important issue—the spectrum of psychopathy. The idea that psychopathy is a spectrum and that " …
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Donna Andersen interview on Marieclaire.com
The public relations folks for the Investigation Discovery TV show, Who the (Bleep) Did I Marry?, arranged for me to be interviewed by a blogger at Marieclaire.com. She asked me how people get deceived by con artists, which gave me an opportunity to talk about sociopaths. Read Are you dating a cheater?, at Marieclaire.com. …
When He’s Just A Bad Dude
It's easy to get obsessed with, fixated on, “labels” and diagnostic categories like sociopath, psychopath, malignant narcissist, narcissist, etc. To be sure, labels and diagnoses can be important and informative. In the case of “sociopathic” individuals, for instance, we know that there's no changing them; we know that there's no real hope for their redemption; and so, if you've correctly identified a sociopathic type, you can know that it's pointless, self-destructive to invest another minute of your time in him. And this is a good thing to know. But it's also the case, I'd suggest, that an overfocus on labels and diagnoses can sometimes be a distraction, a form of avoidance, sometim …
The “productive sociopath”
Yesterday, Dr. Liane Leedom wrote that “false beliefs about sociopaths are very dangerous.” She quoted a judge who said: “Well I tell you, the world is full of productive sociopaths. Some of them hold high public office. Some of them are lawyers. It could be that a couple of them are judges, and sociopathy by itself is not necessarily a dangerous condition. It can be productive. I think it was Clarence Darrow who commented on that”¦” Today I'd like to present a case to prove her point. Over the last 10 days, the Philadelphia Inquirer has been reporting about Carl Greene, the executive director of the Philadelphia Housing Authority (PHA). The agency Green heads is the c …