Lovefraud recently received an e-mail from a reader telling us about discussion on another Internet forum called PsychForums. Here's what he wrote: Found an interesting set of postings. On PsychForums. "Craving for Antisocial Behavior." With postings between four psychopaths. Arguing for various positions With general agreement that society has infringed on them. And so deserves the revenge. Sounding like people are viewed similarly to enemy combatants. And deserve what they get. Alternate view is that people's revulsion against psychopaths is understandable. That people don't want bad things to happen to them. So don't be a fool and don't get caught or cry unfair. There are plenty of …
LETTERS TO LOVEFRAUD: How can we deal with the sociopathic ex-wife?
Lovefraud recently received e-mail from a woman whose new husband was previously married to a sociopath, with whom he had two children. Two weeks before his divorce was final, the sociopath charmed him into sex and got pregnant again. Here's what is going on now: She uses the kids as pawns. She molested her son, he told his therapist (at 4 years old). Drew pictures of her vagina, doesn't like hair in his mouth, wet the bed, the whole nine yards. She got out of it. We've been in custody hearings for a year and a half. The judge feels SORRY FOR HER!!! My husband is a good man. She is Satan in human form. She's a constant thorn in my side. My husband is good at dealing with her now. He knows …
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Reflections on antisocial behavior (Part 3): Is that person a sociopath/psychopath?
Five and a half years ago I started a quest to understand sociopathy/psychopathy and antisocial behavior. Long before that, in 1981, I attended a lecture by Dr. Sarnoff Medick at USC. During that lecture, he presented the results of his research. His research on adopted children indicates that antisocial behavior has a strong measurable genetic basis. His studies did not single out anyone “diagnosed” a sociopath/psychopath they only examined antisocial behavior in parents and their biologic and adopted offspring. Remembering these studies, I read them again and found many others demonstrating the genetic basis for antisocial behavior and sociopathy/psychopathy. Also at the beginning of my …
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LETTERS TO LOVEFRAUD: The Biggest Lie
By James A few days ago while watching television with my oldest son, he turned to me and said, "You know, Dad, what biggest lie she ever told us was?" I said, "No, son, I don't." "When she told us nothing was going to change, and how much everything has changed." "Guess so, Son. Maybe that was the biggest lie she ever told us." I remember that day so well, as if it only happened yesterday. It was the evening of May 22, 2006, between the hours of 7 p.m. and 8:30 p.m. The cold months were ending and summer would soon be here, only this summer would be much more different than my children and I could ever imagine. I just finished with the washing, trying to help out more around the …
Young pop star scores with sociopathic hit song
Lovefraud recently received the following e-mail from a reader in the UK: I wonder what your take on this pop-music video is? This song is played ad-infinitum on radio stations in the UK; you simply can't escape it. What disturbs me is its indifference toward the glorification of sociopathic, even psychopathic, behaviour. Clearly the character the singer is playing out has a taste for control; inflicting degrading, humiliating behaviour, even torture, pain and —as the finale of the video suggests—murder; everything the UN Convention on Human Rights was meant to prevent. The reader included a link to the song Sweet About Me, by Gabriella Cilmi, on YouTube. Here it is: …
Reflections on antisocial behavior (Part 2): It’s genetic!?
Behavior genetic studies of children, adolescents, and adults all report that the overlap of antisocial tendencies (broadly defined) with other psychopathic traits (e.g., interpersonal, affective) can be explained by common genetic factors.-Robert Hare, Ph.D. The most profound things researchers say about reality are often so difficult to understand that the average person wants to turn and run away when the researchers begin to speak. The statement above might have that affect on you but stick around because I want to explain it this week. This statement gets to the heart of the most important controversies regarding sociopathy/psychopathy. First I will give you a definition of …
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The vacancy of the sociopath
Sociopaths have been described in many ways that, at least, from time to time, might describe some of the rest of us: As glib, manipulative, exploitative, superficial; as seeing and relating to others as objects rather than persons. Sociopaths, in other words, don't have a patent on these qualities. You can be a nonsociopath and be glib and superficial. You can be a nonsociopath and be a constitutional bullshitter and sometimes manipulator: Just go visit the used-car salesmen at your local dealership, and see for yourself (sure, some of them may be sociopaths, but not most). Naturally, when you begin to combine these qualities—especially adding “exploitative” to the mix—and identify them as …
Forgiving Yourself for Being Human
By Ox Drover In my journey toward healing from life's pains, and from the PTSD and the pains caused by the trauma from the psychopaths, I think one of the hardest things has been to forgive myself. I was raised in an abusive Christian atmosphere with a terrible, impossible definition of “forgiving others,” no matter what they did, no matter if they weren't sorry, or how likely they were to repeat the abuse to me. I was programmed to try to meet my obligation to “forgive” when there was NO WAY I was going to trust them again. How could I? While this previous “definition” of forgiveness of others who are unrepentant has changed post-trauma to a definition of getting the bitterness out …
How to talk to friends and family about sociopaths
Last Sunday, the Asbury Park Press, a New Jersey newspaper, published a front-page article about the career of Edward J. Devine. On August 1, 2008, Devine was sentenced to five years in prison for bouncing checks and deceiving nonprofit and educational institutions. The bulk of the story was not about those crimes, but what Devine did to the women in his life. Claiming to be the heir to a Sonoma wine company and a trucking mogul, he left one wife, Donna Devine, and her mother $400,000 in debt. He wiped out the inheritance of another wife, Deborah Weiss. He forced his first wife, Carol Ceralli, into bankruptcy. It's a story that many of us know, and some of us have experienced. But …
Reflections on antisocial behavior (part 1): When women are sociopaths
This semester I am teaching a course on personality and psychopathology to graduate students in counseling. I am very excited about this course and am considering making it available online to everyone. I sat down with a colleague this week and explained the content of the course. During that conversation the topic of gender differences in personality came up. My colleague said something like, “Yeh, we expect men to compete, sometimes act aggressively and to spread their seed, women are biologically preprogrammed to stay put and to nurture.” I countered by saying , “While that formulation has some truth, we often fail to appreciate that females also have aggressive tendencies rooted in the …
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