Reviewed by Joyce Alexander, RNP (retired)
Cold-Blooded Kindness: Neuroquirks of a Codependent Killer, or Just Give Me a Shot at Loving You, Dear, and Other Reflections on Helping That Hurts is the tongue-in-cheek title of this book by Barbara Oakley, with a foreword by David Sloan Wilson. It belies the serious research and investigation done by this remarkable, highly educated and acclaimed woman.
Oakley is associate professor of engineering at Oakland University in Michigan, and her work focuses mainly on the complex relationship between neurocircuitry and social behavior. The list of her varied experiences reads like fiction ”¦ she worked for several years as a Russian language translator on Soviet fishing trawlers in the Bearing Sea during the height of the Cold War. She met her husband while working as a radio operator at the South Pole station in Antarctica. She went from private to Regular Army captain in the U.S. military, and is also a fellow of the American Institute of Medical and Biological Engineering.
In Cold-Blooded Kindness, along with a project called Pathological Altruism (forthcoming book by the same name this year), Oakley was investigating if altruism could be taken to the extreme and become pathological and harmful.
Some “researchers” have, for what they thought was the “greater good,” slanted their research to show what they believed was an altruistic motive. For example, many people have heard about the “battered woman syndrome,” and how it is now incorporated into laws in many states as a mitigating factor in cases where women wound or kill the men who have battered (or supposedly battered) them. What isn’t known, though, is that the “research” into this “syndrome” was badly flawed. The researcher was a woman who was so intent on doing the “greater good” of protecting abused women, that her altruism caused her to slant her studies, and anyone who pointed out that her research was suspect, was in fact, “blaming the victim,” and therefore, evil.
Oakley points out that she started to seek out a person who appeared to be altruistic to the point that it became harmful, but her own research led her to see the situation differently than she had planned.
She started investigating a Utah woman and artist named Carole Alden, who had “been abused” and had killed that abusive husband, Marty Sessions. But the book really isn’t so much about Alden murdering Sessions, for which she ended up in prison, but about how Carole Alden, though presenting herself as the ultimate altruist (rescuing animals and people), was instead, the ultimate abuser.
The examination of the human brain, and the social interactions of children, and the development of empathy and altruism in children, are explored. Both the social and the genetic aspects of these are gone into in depth.
Oakley explores “co-dependency” and “enabling” behaviors and calls for more actual research into these areas, especially concerning possible sex hormone links and to genetics. She also points out while little, if any, real research has been done on “battered women syndrome,” and it is not accepted in the DSM-IV, it is accepted in many state statutes.
Oakley never comes out and actually says Carole Alden is a psychopath (though the word is used and described in the book itself), but Oakley’s book describes Carole Alden’s behavior relative to the Psychopathic Check List-Revised. It shows that while Carole presented herself to others as a victim of circumstances, and as altruistic to the nth degree, she was, in fact, a controlling, manipulative, using, abusing, pathological liar, who took in dozens, if not hundreds, of stray animals. She cared for them poorly in most cases, but better than she cared for her own children.
It is also possible that Carole is a serial killer, as there are two other deaths of men she was involved with that were “suspicious” in their very nature.
When Oakley was corresponding with Carole Alden, she was convinced by the letters that Carole Alden was the personality she was seeking for her thesis of “altruism gone too far,” and that Carole was indeed the victim of this. Upon meeting Carole though, in prison, Oakley began to see the real situation. When she investigated the family, the crime, the real history of Carole Alden, not just the self-serving tales of how everyone abused her, Oakley began to see the malignancy. Carole changed her story, came to believe her own lies, and slanted all aspects of “truth,” even in the face of evidence to the contrary.
Not only is this a history of one pathological woman who murdered one man and possibly more, and who abused and neglected her children, it is about the personality disordered in general who present themselves as victims, when in fact, they are at best—co-victims/co-abusers with their partners.
Oakley is not “blaming” legitimate victim, but seeking to find the common thread in some partners (women and men) who participate to one degree or another with the abuse they endure. She is seeking a way to educate and warn these people so that the abuse can be prevented.
While Carole Alden took in a series of ex-convict men, who were addicts, to “cure” and “fix” them, which appeared to be altruistic in nature, in fact, it was anything but altruistic. It supplied Carole with her “professional victim” and “professional altruistic” persona that she was seeking to establish. What caused this in Carole, when her parents and other siblings were apparently normal and highly functioning members of society?
I tend to underline and highlight important passages in my books as I read, and I finally gave up trying with this book, as the first 100 pages are almost all day-glow yellow.
This is a highly readable book, and I am anxiously awaiting the arrival of one of Oakley’s previous books. I will also be one of the first in line to buy her upcoming one Pathological Altruism. I highly recommend that anyone who is seriously trying to figure out how we (former victims) are alike, and how the fake altruism of some psychopaths works, read this book.
Cold-Blooded Kindness on Amazon.com
Oxy, I was not talking about publishing a book, I was ruminating as we often do here, on the similarities and differences between psychopaths and how they might come about.
By letting my imagination flow, grabbing pieces of the puzzle and trying them all over the place, sometimes something interesting turns up, often completely unrelated to the original question. I don’t believe this is a forum for presenting scientific evidence, it’s just mostly social right?
So anyway, I understand that it is a complex mixture of things that creates a psychopath. Whether president or welfare king, they both want the power to manipulate. But one wants that power overtly and the other wants it covertly by acting dependant. I wonder what creates that difference?
I don’t use the term “successful” with any spath because in their eyes, they are always successful as long as they have one dupe giving them attention. They have different values than we do.
After I borke up with my spath, I learned from his old bandmate that they were offered a recording contract but spath never showed up. He told them his car broke down, but this year I found out he told BF that he just didn’t want it.
So it isn’t a matter of being able, it’s a choice. He prefers the pity ploy and a rock star would have a harder time using it, for obvious reasons.
It’s not that this spath couldn’t handle life as a musician, it’s what he had done since he was a teenager. Why did he prefer life as a struggling musician to a successful one?
He is perfectly capable of planning for years on a con and disciplined himself to learn to design experimental helicopters, use CAD programs, fly aircraft, even play the guitar. All this with a 6th grade education (if that). He taught himself all these things mostly by (as he calls it) “picking someone else’s brain” (a tell?)
Why would he choose to limit himself to power over a few instead of power over many?
Something else that he does, is find marginal sociopaths, like my trojan horse BIL, and my neighbor spath and groom them to do better. These were meth addicts that he sold drugs to. And he convinced them to make more out of their lives. He convinced trojan horse to become a cop and marry my sis instead of living like a druggie.
That’s why it occured to me that perhaps there are two kinds of cockroaches, the kind that scurry away when the lights come on and the kind that seek the spotlight. LOL!
Sky, I was just pulling your chain in response to your rumination! LOL It is a complex mix of genes and environment….and as far as “successful” I put that in quotes because like you I don’t think that money and a high powered job is “success” when you can’t love….as far as the two kinds of cockroaches those that run from the light and those that seek the light…yea, I think that is a pretty good analogy. The Bill Clintons, Jim McGreeveys, the John Edwards types want the spot light and seek it…ones like my P son live in the shadows with the other vermin….and actually consider themselves “successes”—but they don’t realize I think how shallow and devoid of REAL meaning their “successful” lives are even if they do get rich and famous. Look at LiLo—what a piece of carp and she thinks it seems that she is SOOOOOO special. NOT!!!
Hi Skylar & Oxy,
Skylar, I completely agree with you re: >1 type of path, and also agree with Oxy re:that it’s “a complex mix of genes and evironment”.
Every since I first found out about psychopathy/sociopathy etc… I’ve seen that there are significant gaps and missing pieces in the diagnostic criteria: people like my mother and the paths I encountered in business were never properly described – and I believe both of them are the ‘successful’ type you were describing. Again, I think it was a real shortcoming of Hare’s that he limited his research to the type of path (Ray) he encountered in B.C. prisons, was overly influenced by Cleckly’s initial description, and completely left out the ‘successful’ ones who really shape (or should I say misshape) society for the worse.
I’ve personally found rapist typology to be the most useful model for thinking about this (e.g. http://www1.csbsju.edu/uspp/CrimPsych/CPSG-5.htm).
That has its own gaps and weaknesses (for instance it doesn’t include female rapists, and a fair number of the male ‘revenge’ rapists are ‘revenging’ against their own sexual abuse by females), but it is a good start at differentiating and describing the rapists by attack type, motivation, and escape options.
I think the same approach could/should be taken to most crime types, and theoretically psychopath/sociopaths. For instance some financial cons are like Enron, others are like Madoff, some are like Donna Anderson’s. Different motivations, setup, etc…
One other major shortcoming in the diagnostic criteria: the unsuccessful paths (as described) generally work alone. However, in my experience with successful business paths, they form path networks of mutual support.
Let’s not forget Idaho Senator Larry Craig, caught in a mens room looking for extramarital sex and then denying it, John Ensign same, a cheater, and TRICKY DICKY Richard Nixon who needs no explanation and others. It runs on both sides 🙂
People are spaths because we have the capacity to be corrupt. We also have the capacity to be kind and loving. Some spaths don’t excel because they can’t. They are not hardwired for it. They simply care only about what their immediate focus/need is: control, sex, abuse etc. and it is what they are surrounded by in their formative years that creates the blue print of what they will become. So many many pieces to the formula of why a spath is created it would fill the library of Congress!
It’s kind of like studying the scriptures. One can argue if Adam and Eve had belly buttons. What I believe is the crux of the bible is the ESSENCE of what it teaches. Just an example-no more religion (or politics) 🙂 , because I am a theology grad student. What is the essence of the spath? That he is disordered and he is dangerous to us and we need to RUN. Anything else, in my limited little mind, just complicates things and I myself would tend to become obsessed with the subject because I know myself well.
I’ve found that the approach taken by criminologists seems to be the most helpful. It gets down to questions needed to detect and defend against them.
Oprah’s famous episode “Don’t ever let them take you to the second location” is a great example. Useful practical advice to help you understand exactly what you’re dealing with and the best advice for escaping with minimal harm.
Applied science that goes beyond non-useful theory.
Annie (my mother’s name:) RIGHT ON!! My sister who is a retired criminal investigator is a walking text book on the subject because she has had hands on experience as a professional and she has successfully prosecuted many of the scoundrels. Thank you!!
Thanks adamsrib. Part of the problem is that most law/judicial systems still concentrate on typical low-level violent crime and don’t dedicate nearly enough resources to other types of crime: e.g. white-collar (successful psychopath) crime; politically-motivated crime; hate crime; female-perpetrated child abuse; identity fraud; mortgage fraud, etc… If they did we might end up with a whole set of useful ‘typologies’ that we could use to help defend ourselves.
For instance, terrorism. I can’t tell you how many ‘alleged’ terrorists I’ve seen lately who were described as wonderful people who couldn’t possibly be terrorists because they do so much charity work. And yet certain types of charity work are not only entirely predictable covers for terrorist activities but are in fact used to raise funds for terrorist organizations. And yet, knowing that this is oh-so-common, you STILL hear the endless cries of “but they were such a nice person who did charity work”.
Which is, after all, the whole point of the book Oxy reviewed for us here.
Oh, yes, the love to mask as “holy” by being “deeply religious” and giving and kind….excuse me while I puke! LOL
A long time ago someone on here wrote (can’t remember who) about a guy “He is such a NICE GUY WHEN HE IS NOT ROBBING BANKS.” LOL
No person is “evil” 100% of the time….no person is “good” 100% of the time….but when a person is “good” 99% of the time, but in that 1% when he is “bad” he is raping and killing (BTK killer, Ted Bundy, etc.) the 1% more than makes up for the 99% “good” they do.
Remember, rat poison is 99% WHOLESOME CORN MEAL…and only 1% poison…. but it will kill you just the same.
So we have to keep in mind WHAT the “bad deeds” are as well as how much of the person’s time is spent doing them.
There are DEAL BREAKERS for me with how people behave…and if they behave that way I don’t want anything to do with them at all even during the 99% of the time they are being “nice.”
I DO agree with that 100 percent, LL! It shows thoroughly healthy thinking. I remember running into someone on another board (NOT this board) who said somewhat the opposite of what you said here, and it struck me how irrational this fellow’s objections were.
There’s a background to this. A couple of years ago I became curious about why some people seemed so hostile toward Sam Vaknin. I’d encountered Sam briefly years before, and I couldn’t for the life of me see why certain people had such a horror of him. I fully realize of course that he’s no angel. I know he’s tested out as a psychopath, he’s been in prison in the past, and all the rest of it. So I do think people should be wary of getting too close to him in certain ways. In particular I feel sorry for his poor wife Lidija, who sticks with him although (unlike most personality disordered people) he’s upfront with the whole world about “who he is” and what he’s like. The poor lady would love to have a baby before it’s too late. I’m afraid that’s never going to happen for her.
Still, it’s her own choice to stay with him, so that’s none of my concern. In spite of Vaknin’s obvious character flaws, nothing in my mind seemed to account for the EXAGGERATED hostility and even fear of him from some sources. It’s as if he were the Devil incarnate. Much of this attitude seemed to come “out of the woodwork,” and nobody could articulate the reasons for it. At least, I was given a reason for it, but it was a reason that made no sense to me. That only made it all the more mysterious.
So out of sheer idle curiosity I started looking into this puzzle. In the end I did track down where this attitude seemed to be coming from and the strange thing that was behind it. I won’t go into all of that now, but it’s while I was doing that that I came across this guy who was explaining to someone else why he himself thought Sam Vaknin was so bad. For the sake of a name, I’ll call him “Phil.” He quoted from an interview conducted with Vaknin by someone named Bob Goodman on the Natterbox site back in the year 2000. Part of it was about Malignant Self Love, which some people had described as a “self-help” book, to which Vaknin pointed out that he himself had never described it as a “helpful” work:
“Had I not been a misanthrope and a schizoid, I might have actually enjoyed it!” When I first read that I laughed out loud. I found it riotously funny. I had a strong suspicion Vaknin was saying this partly to “get a reaction.” I knew he’d written elsewhere that
This seemed to be a revelation Vaknin had had since he woke up to the nature of his own personality. If so, I was glad for him. He had “discovered” a sense of humor! I don’t know what the rest of us would do without one. His discovery might be good for those around him too, since a person too solemnly wrapped up in himself is prone to take his miseries out on others.
But this guy “Phil” who was criticizing Vaknin didn’t seem to see the funny side. He’d put in boldface the statement that the book “was meant to attract attention and adulation (narcissistic supply) to its author,” and claimed that Vaknin somehow “discredited himself” by saying this. In what to me was a stunning nonsequitur, Phil then concluded that he “already knew it was best not to trust [a narcissist], and [Vaknin] confirmed it” with this statement.
Now nobody can dispute that “it’s best not to trust a narcissist.” Indeed, Vaknin had said that very thing himself, as Bob Goodman pointed out. However, claiming that this particular statement about “narcissistic supply” somehow “confirmed” that fact was the OPPOSITE of the truth. Far from making Vaknin seem “untrustworthy,” its most salient feature was Vaknin’s devastating honesty about his own motives for writing the book!
More often than not, humans have more than one motive for engaging in any particular activity. If someone writes a self-help book, say, one of their motives is generally to “help others.” But that doesn’t preclude the fact that they usually want to make money out of it as well—an entirely legitimate aspiration, since everyone has a living to make. Many authors also hope to be famous, and bask in any adulation that does come their way. But if they’re interviewed, most authors invariably softpedal the fiscal and vanity motives involved and focus instead on how important it was to be able to “help people.” So many authors are not being entirely forthright. They’re telling the truth about their motives, but not quite the whole truth.
All Vaknin did was to turn that on its head. Narcissism aside, I imagine he does get SOME satisfaction from the reality that his book has helped a great many people. But as a narcissist he’s well aware of how much he loves to feed his own vanity, so he’d chosen instead to highlight that motive, even to the exclusion of other motives. He just stretched the truth in the opposite direction, that’s all. And if he did “get a reaction” by doing that, I noticed that he spoke immediately afterwards of how such things “satisfy the enfant terrible” in him.
In fact I’m tempted to guess that vanity, “narcissistic supply,” was a MORE important motive to Vaknin than money. You paid $45 for his book, and you felt you got your money’s worth. $45 is a small price to pay if it made that much difference to your life. That much is pure common sense from your point of view—the MAIN point I wanted to validate in this post. Yet $45 is still a hefty price tag for a book of that kind, compared with others. For many people it’s a deterrent to buying the book, when many other “self help” books cost less.
So it does NOT seem like “common sense” from Vaknin’s OWN point of view! Even if he got $45 (minus overhead) from each buyer of the book, that’s far LESS than he could have had if he’d priced his book “to sell.” He could have sold FAR more copies at $10-$15, say, and made a much bigger profit! From a purely business viewpoint, Vaknin’s was a poor marketing strategy. Yet I see no cause to believe he’s “incompetent” as a businessman when he’s often found ways of making huge amounts of money before.
What’s more, one reason I myself never felt any pressing need to buy his book—not even out of curiosity—is that he’s published so much of his writing for FREE, all over the Web. Not just as “teasers,” as so many authors do, but much of the real “meat” of it. That generosity must have cut further into the potential sales of his book.
So I don’t think he’s trying to exploit the public for as much MONEY as he can wring out of them. In some ways Sam Vaknin is a genuine public benefactor, whatever his motives. His behavior is far more consistent with the notion that what HE’S getting out of it is “appreciation” of his work—“narcissistic supply”—whether people pay for it or not. By putting out so much of it for free, he maximizes the number of people who read it (and are grateful to him for it), even if they never pay him a dime.
Then why price his book so high? Why not price it cheaper, get more people to read it, and make more money at the same time? My theory, for what it’s worth, is that it also feeds his vanity to know that SOME people (at least) value his work so highly that they’re prepared to pay a premium price for it, compared with “run-of-the-mill” authors!
I don’t see anything wrong with that, if everyone involved in these transactions is getting what they want out of it! If Sam revels in his “guru” role as “the ultimate narcissistic experience,” I see no harm in that as long as his writing is helping to make people’s lives better, and not “exploiting” them in some way.
So what was Phil’s problem? For one thing, how could he see Vaknin’s statement as evidence of “untrustworthiness” when Vaknin was doing the opposite: being honest about his motives?
That might just be Phil’s fault for making an unjustified assumption. What if he’d naively assumed from the outset that anyone writing a self help book of this kind MUST be doing it from “purely altruistic” motives, to “help people” and “make the world a better place”? He might have been shocked to find out this wasn’t true, and Vaknin was writing in large part to feed his own narcissism. But if that discovery was shocking to Phil, whose fault was that? Certainly not Vaknin’s, who had never said anything to the contrary! All of his writing makes it crystal clear that narcissists like himself seek “narcissistic supply”! It would be totally unjust for Phil to blame Vaknin for being “dishonest” and “misleading” him when Vaknin had done nothing of the kind. If that’s what Phil had done, it would be his fault for misleading himself! That kind of thinking is one source of unfair blame in the world.
However, the larger problem I saw was that someone like Phil would condemn Vaknin out of hand simply because Vaknin had written the book to feed his own vanity. As if that were somehow “wrong” in and of itself. I’ve argued that it isn’t—not if nobody else is being hurt by it.
Here I must make one thing clear. It’s perfectly legitimate for anyone to say “I just don’t like Vaknin!–or people like him. I just don’t like bigheaded people who are out to feed their own vanity.” Or whatever the particular “fault” in question happens to be. That’s personal, and people are fully entitled to their own feelings.
In the same vein, I’m sure that SOME of the otherwise “inexplicable” hostility I was sensing toward Vaknin was purely personal, due to some people being triggered by him. After all, I was sensing this from a population many of whom had been hurt by narcissists in their lives. Or by “abusers” of some kind; whether they were technically “narcissists” or not didn’t matter. Some of those people saw Vaknin as a “savior” of sorts, because what he taught them did help them by opening their eyes. But others were no doubt hypersensitive to anyone whose traits were “like” their former abusers’, and reacted the opposite way to any mention of a narcissist like Vaknin, by shrinking from him. That much is understandable—though it was not the whole story.
However, those feelings are purely subjective and don’t provide any objective grounds for claiming someone had “discredited himself” just because he said he’d written a book to feed his own vanity. (Not to mention that Phil was unable to see Vaknin’s remark as funny.) I suspected something else behind that. Namely, unhealthy codependent thinking.
Much of the essence of “codependency” lies in an undesirable “enmeshment” with others—being overly obsessed with what’s going on in other people’s heads at the expense of ignoring one’s OWN needs and feelings. More often than not, what we hear about is ONE SIDE of this behavior, the “kindly” side. Codependency often means feeling illogically “responsible” for other people’s problems, putting far too much effort into “fixing” them and “looking after” them while neglecting to care for the Self. Many codependents do “too much” for other people, even people who don’t deserve it due to their own bad behavior. This means being far too indulgent toward other people’s faults, while shortchanging oneSelf.
But that’s only ONE side of it. In other contexts the inappropriate “enmeshment,” the overinvolvement with others is still there—but the “kindly, indulgent” side is turned on its head. Some codependent people become very controlling, obsessing over their disapproval of the way somebody else is “thinking” (which is often none of their business) and being unduly critical of what’s going on in somebody else’s head. Instead of “giving too much,” some codependents can do the opposite, by fretting or resenting that somebody else is “GETTING too much”—more than they supposedly “deserve.” They may even work to actively thwart the other person’s gratification.
That’s the kind of attitude I guessed was behind Phil’s remarks. His nitpicking disapproval really amounted to saying “Vaknin SHOULDN’T be getting his ego fed by publishing a book! He ‘doesn’t deserve’ it!” Possibly too this was because that’s not what Phil would want for himself—inappropriately conflating his own needs with another person’s different needs. It’s not the only time I’ve seen codependent people reacting in this negative way toward someone.
This by the way was not the “strange thing” behind much of the hostility I was seeing toward Vaknin from certain quarters. That was another factor, something I don’t have time to go into right now. (This is far too long already!) But it is a key point in its own right. We do need to focus on what WE’RE getting out of the interactions we have with others. If we end up getting “done down,” we need to do something to stop it, to protect ourselves. However, if we ARE getting our needs met, we have no cause to complain. Especially there’s no sense worrying that somebody else is getting “narcissistic supply” out of our patronage when it’s no skin off our own noses! And when it’s a matter of money, if we feel WE got our money’s worth out of a purchase, there’s nothing wrong if the seller also makes a profit out of it. Every transaction is an exchange that we hope both people gain something out of. To see it that way is healthy thinking. Good luck!
Oxy, I’ve seen that site myself. In the past I’ve also seen at least three “managers” (as they called them there) who certainly fit LL’s description of “bitches.” Yes, the site does have, or anyway has had, some problems, and I suspect it still does in its more recent incarnation. (Though to be fair, I have seen sites that are worse!) The “moderation” there is very heavy-handed for one thing. There’s also a serious lack of glasnost in the site’s administration.
However, to the best of my knowledge that site and its successor are owned by Darla Boughton (aka “femfree”), not by Vaknin himself. As far as I’m aware, he’s just a kind of “resident consultant” there. And here’s the question that concerns me:
Do you see any causal connection between Vaknin (and his “ego tripping,” or any other of his manifold faults)—and the abusive attitude of those “managers”?
As an example, do you recall what it was they were “flaming” you about? Was it because you disagreed with Vaknin over some issue, and he took umbrage? Or was it about something else entirely? Do you believe Sam’s presence on the site was somehow “responsible” in any other way for their bad behavior?
I’m afraid I don’t know what this “F movement” is that LL referred to… unless it’s an allusion to the site owner’s pseudonym! But the question I’m asking turned out to be a central one in the puzzle I was trying to solve about why certain people seemed to have an exaggerated horror of Vaknin, more than his actual behavior seemed to warrant.