What's the relationship, if any, between boredom and sociopathy? Can we can agree, for starters, that boredom does not cause sociopathy? Otherwise most of us would be sociopaths. Can we also agree that a low tolerance for boredom, alone, does not cause sociopathy. Otherwise again, many of us with low tolerances for boredom (not that I include myself, but God, am I bored) would be sociopaths; and this isn't the case, either. That is, even most of us with low tolerances for boredom aren't sociopaths. However, research suggests that sociopaths may require higher levels of arousal to escape conditions of boredom. So apart from being prone to boredom and finding it extremely oppressive, it …
BOOK REVIEW: The Socially Skilled Child Molester
By Ox Drover I recently read The Socially Skilled Child Molester: Differentiating the Guilty from the Falsely Accused, by Carla van Dam, Ph.D. Carla van Dam, Ph.D., is a clinical and forensic psychologist who has practiced in the U.S. and Canada, and taught in several universities. She is well known in the community of those who focus on primary prevention strategies to help end child sexual abuse. One of her previous books was Identifying Child Molesters: Preventing Child Sexual Abuse by Recognizing the Patterns of Offenders. Several of the reviews of this book pretty well sum up my opinion of this well-written book. “The Socially Skilled Child Molester provides a thorough d …
Co-parenting with a sociopath
Lovefraud recently received the following e-mail from a reader who we'll call Carla: Can you help me with co-parenting with a sociopath? Divorced three months ago, after a two-year fight for my rights. He is not complying as you know. I am going crazy with the way he only shows his wonderful, smooth qualities to the children. I have three boys. I can't stand sending them on weekends to a man who never calls them for two weeks and then lavishes them with charm and gifts. It makes me sick that I am struggling because he has not released even one of 26 accounts to me as decreed in the divorce settlement. He pays my bills and deducts them from the alimony. He follows the agreement under his …
After the sociopath: How do we heal? Part 10 – Forgiving
This article talks about work we do when we are ready to work on clearing the influence of betrayals from our minds and emotional systems. It is about recovering our feelings of safety in the world and moving forward to create better and happier lives. Those of us who are still battling our betrayers, still clarifying our feelings of outrage or still developing our self-defensive skills may feel outraged by the very idea of forgiving. And so they should. Forgiving is something we do "at our leisure," later when we have the time to think about restoring our emotional systems to a pre-warzone state. Ultimately we want to be positive, creative, optimistic people -- without ever forgetting the …
After the sociopath: How do we heal? Part 10 – ForgivingRead More
Gerhartsreiter guilty, sentenced to 5 years but the judge still doesn’t get it
Today after 4 days of deliberation a jury found Christian Karl Gerhartsreiter (a.k.a. Clark Rockefeller) guilty of parental kidnapping and assault with a deadly weapon. The jury foreman read a statement saying that this was a complicated case and that they “considered ALL the testimony" including that provided by a psychiatrist and psychologist who testified that Gerhartsreiter/Rockefeller was “insane” at the time of the kidnapping and assault. The jury apparently found the Harvard Psychiatrist, Charles Chu to be more credible than the defense experts. The judge, after making a statement sentenced Gerhartsreiter/Rockefeller to 5 years in prison. I was happy the jury considered ALL the evide …
Gerhartsreiter guilty, sentenced to 5 years but the judge still doesn’t get itRead More
Is the predator always a sociopath?
Sociopaths, as a group, tend to be predatory personalities. But does the converse always hold? Are predatory personalities, by definition, sociopaths? Is it possible to prey on innocent people, and victimize them, yet not be a sociopath? I think the answer to this question is yes...it is possible to be a predator and not a sociopath, although let me state as strongly as possible that, sociopath or not, the predator's exploitation is no less damaging. How one defines the predatory personality makes a difference. For purposes of this discussion, here's how I'm going to define it: The predatory personality recognizes (if not actively seeks) opportunities for personal gratification, and …
A classic story of sociopathic manipulation
The following letter, written by a young woman who we'll call Chloe, is one of the most complete stories of psychological manipulation that I've ever seen yet. Chloe wrote this letter secretly while the sociopath she is living with was at the gym. I met my boyfriend two years ago. I was 18; he was 33. He's a photographer; we live on an island that is very small. He has lived here forever (10 years) and I had only been here a few months when I met him. Everybody, especially women on the island, adore him, he is THE BIGGEST charmer. He told me that he had moved here with his fiancée, that she had said she was going home for a week, and then never came back. He said she'd gone to therapy b …
After the sociopath: How do we heal? Part 9 – Returning to Wounded Innocence
In the series on recovering from traumatic relationships, this is the third article on grieving and letting go. It is an extension of the last one, which discussed exploring the past to understand our patterns of belief and behavior. This is about how we do it and what we find. Or rather about how I did it, and what I found Unpacking frozen memories This week I reached out to someone whose name is part of my history. She was once the lover of a man I regarded as the great love of my life. He was an alcoholic poet who died when I was 23. She is a poet too. I found her web site, read a poem about the first time they made love, and wrote her an e-mail to introduce myself. She wrote back, …
After the sociopath: How do we heal? Part 9 – Returning to Wounded InnocenceRead More
Fake Rockefeller case: Are Ablow and Howe “hired guns”?
The back cover of Whores of the Court: The fraud of psychiatric testimony and the rape of American Justice by Margaret Hagen, Ph.D. has a picture of a graphic that says, “Expert Psychological Opinions For Sale.” In her book, Hagen is justifiably critical of psychologists and psychiatrists who function as “hired guns” in the court room. These hired guns, in collaboration with unethical attorneys often do the dirty work of psychopaths and make it difficult for victims to get justice. Both the American Psychiatric Association and the American Psychological Association have issued strong statements about the ethics of acting as a “hired gun.” Such conduct is not considered ethical. The America …
Fake Rockefeller case: Are Ablow and Howe “hired guns”?Read More
Aging out of sociopathy?
Research has suggested that some sociopaths may experience something like “sociopathic burnout,” characterized by a reduction in their antisocial behavioral output as they move through middle and older age. (This is a type of decline in production to be glad for.) What this does not mean is that sociopaths “outgrow” their sociopathic orientation, anymore than a career thief outgrows his thief's mentality. “Sociopathic burn-out,” let me stress, is not to be mistaken for something as chimerical (and unrealistic) as the sociopath's “personal growth.” One might be tempted to regard the aging sociopath's “mellowing” as a signal of his perhaps, finally, “growing up;” of his acquiring perhaps, f …