This week while reflecting on the writings that most influenced my thinking about psychopathy/sociopathy, I received a letter from a mother of a five year-old boy whose father shows many signs of the disorder. She wrote:
Do you believe that children can show signs of being psychopathic? If so do you teach them to suppress the way they really feel by masking the problems with fake feelings? Can feelings of love really be learned? Just because someone on the outside appears like they have feelings does that mean inside they have actually changed? As you know they are good actors. The skill is learned very quickly to lie to blend in with the others. I bought your book off Amazon I should be getting it today. And i am also reading Dr. Hares book. I will try to look at your book some more today.
Shortly after my son’s father was arrested, I sat on my bed, with our seven month old baby asleep beside me, with the psychiatry DSM manual open to the page containing the criteria for “antisocial personality disorder”. I asked myself “do any of these criteria relate to common themes discussed in the child development literature.” I had to answer that question to know how best to mother my own child.
Interestingly, all the criteria mapped onto three developmentally acquired abilities: Ability to Love, Impulse Control, and Moral Reasoning. I then vowed I would read everything there was to read about each of these.
I started with Ability to Love. In my opinion the most important book about Ability to Love is Learning to Love by Harry Harlow, Ph.D. He is the scientist who demonstrated that a baby monkey clings to his mother out of pleasure in affection and “contact comfort” not because mother is a source of food. Prior to Dr. Harlow, scientists believed that the child learned to relate to his mother because she was associated with food.
The profound conclusion reached by Dr. Harlow’s research team is that babies are born to “learn to love” just like babies are born to learn language. We don’t come into the world talking but as our brains develop and we are exposed to language we learn to talk. Similarly, we don’t come into the world loving, but as our brains develop and we receive the right input we learn to love.
There are other interesting parallels between talking and loving including the observation that both are disordered in autism and both are influenced by genetics.
My world completely changed when I read page 44 of learning to love. It is on this page that Dr. Harlow discusses a very important developmental sequence. Ability to Love starts to develop before pleasure in aggression and competition sets in:
“The primary basis of aggression control is the formation of strong generalized bonds of peer love or affection… All primates, monkeys and men alike are born with aggressive potential, but aggression is a rather later maturing variable. It is obvious that a one year old suffers from fear and is terrified by maternal separation, but the child neither knows nor can express aggression at this tender age…This lack of aggression targets accounts in part for the fact that “evil emotion” culminates during the age-mate stage, long after peer affection and love have developed. It is the antecedent age-mate love that holds the fury of aggression within acceptable bounds for in group associates.”
Love starts to develop before aggression does, and has a head start in the race for the brain connections that form the basis of our values.
Now back to our 5 year old boy. I am very disturbed by the recent trend of referring to children as “psychopathic” in the scientific literature. Not that she does not describe symptoms of psychopathy, but to call a 5 year old psychopathic, negates the importance of learning to love and acts like it is an inborn ability.
I would say that this boy is learning disabled and requires extra help when it comes to learning to love. Just like speech therapy would help him if he couldn’t speak, love therapy will help him if he can’t love. Studies of autistic children show that a mother’s love makes a big differences for many severely affected children. Why shouldn’t we at least give this 5 year old the benefit of the doubt and give him love therapy.
Many studies show that the parents of at-risk children struggle with loving them. It is hard to love an impulsive child who goes after the cat with sharp tools. These parents are also harmed by suggestions that psychopathy is entirely genetic and firmly in place by age 3.
The focus on “discipline” also hurts these families because children need to learn to love. How can they learn to love if the people who are supposed to teach them are constantly yelling at them and scolding them or spanking them?
What is the answer?
An at-risk child is a full time job! Parents have to love that child 24/7 and not leave him alone to go to the kitchen to pick up the knife and go after the cat. Preventive positive parenting means waking up before the child, being there when he opens his eyes and saying, “I love you”. It means giving him hugs and kisses, playing and having fun together.
Dear Knittinjen,
I am sorry you had to experience that, but my son was in prison for robbery at 17, 18, and got out at 20 and then killed a girl, He has been in since3 1992, also raised with as much love as I could give him, and I know for a fact, it is not my fault, or yours.
There is a big part of it is genetic, my p-sperm donor is a psychopath, and his other grandfather is, and it is thick on both sides of his family back several generations, even though they were all “upstanding” members of the community. My son is the only one to go to prison, but not the only one to commit crimes, even murder…just the only one to get caught.
It hurts but you are not alone. There is a web site you might want to check out called “prisontalk” and I just had the URL sent to me, it is for people whose loved ones are in prison and they are “supporting” them (stupid I think!) and also there are people there like you and me who have had to cut loose from the inmates in order to protect ourselves.
There are other bloggers here whose sons and daughters are psychopaths, and my son sent one of his buddies to try to kill me even with him in prison, so he could inherit what our family has. I am DONE with him, no more money, no more support, no more “help” my son is a monster, he is a psychopath and there is no hope for him, but there is hope for me and I intend to take it.
It hurt, to lose that “sweet little boy” but that sweet little boy is GONE and the MAN IN THE PRISON CELL IS A STRANGER that is out to kill me. I have to accept that. You have my understanding and my empathy, knittinjen. (((Hugs)))) and God bless you.
Stick around here there’s a lot of compassion and information to help you understand why your son is like he is, and to help you heal. (((Hugs)))
Personally, I feel it would be a little out there to assume that a child would develop antisocial personality disorder/psychopathy at around puberty / age 10 ( Of course, this is a personal analysis and something which I understand might be disagreed upon ) . Perhaps prior to this, say the developing years, and that itself is just a guess, but the former would mean ( or operate under the assumption ) that the child may have developed empathy, and somehow “lost” it. Now, with the understanding here that psychopathy is a complete lack of empathy, as well as being completely divorced from the experience of empathy, not something which developed from dysfunctional attachment styles ( anxious, or avoidant, which are not exclusive of empathy ) it just seems a little of a stretch.
With other disorders, such as schizophrenia, a puberty age onset would make sense.. however, I think it is less intuitive to apply to same idea to psychopathy, considering the complete nature of the disorder.
I think this might lead/give rise to an uncomfortable notion, too- that one may give birth to an infant and have absolutely no control over whether he develops antisocial traits and/or behavior. That one can at best, be hyper aware and constantly reinforce empathy-conscious notions to the child in all areas of life.
Of course, it can’t be ruled out that psychopathy may “develop” much earlier than puberty ( ie : ages 1-5 )
And then we cannot ignore that from a developmental point of view, a child’s “psychopathic” behavior might only become more salient at a certain age, not because he did not already possess the capability of carrying out such behaviors, but because the environment did not so present factors which encouraged the “differentiation” as compared to other children.
For example, in Kolberg’s stages of moral development, the conventional stage is a period which a child is said to “seek approval of others”… and whether empathy is necessarily implicit in the approval seeking behavior or not is questionable. The main thing is that the child will behave in ways which reflect back to him/her a “good” boy, a “good” girl. ( ages 9-13 ) — which may account for confusion in the caretaker, as to the drastic “change” ( or “salient change” rather ) they may see in their child.
Anyway, I think this is a question best saved for a developmental psychologist who is well versed in psychopathy.
http://www.scribd.com/doc/13135339/Human-Growth-and-Development-Theories ( Here’s a link if you want to browse Kolberg’s stages further.. you’ve got to scroll down )
Dancingnancies,
Bi-polar, which is well proven to have high genetic links doesn’t usually “show up” until puberty or even later, and Other problems that are genetically linked, such as ADHD usually DO show up earlier, but psychopathy is also linked to genetics in studies of identical twins raised apart, as well as other sibling and twin studies where the children are raised apart in different environments.
Psychopathy also has a high co-morbidity with ADHD as well as bi-polar so that it is not rare for a person who is a psychopath to have ALSO ADHD and/or bi-polar, and if they are raised by a dysfunctional or psychopathic parent as well, they can have all three PLUS A BAD ENVIRONMENT and abuse in childhood.
My own psychopathic son seemed An “ideal” child until age 11 at which time I saw the first (and only) episode of theft that later (in hind sight) was the first indication he would lie even when caught in the act! But kids lie, kids steal things, they grow out of it…he was fine again until puberty when he “morphed” into satan himself. Guilty of murder by age 20.
I’ve professionally worked with kids who were institutionalized and DANGEROUS by age 10, ADHD and GLEEFUL at hurting people and things and aware that you couldn’t watch them 24/7. Not afraid of consequences at all. Spooky and scary kids.
NOT normal development at all, not even the appearance of normal. My experience professionally is that those kids seldom if ever “grow out of” that kind of behavior, maybe they don’t wind up in prison, but they are not someone you want your child to marry. (there ARE levels of dysfunction including levels of psychopathy).
I agree that sometimes caretakers just don’t see the dysfunction in the child, or they may be able to “appear normal” until the hormones of puberty hit and derail them from that masking.
I’ve looked back and tried to see what I missed, and that one episode is the only one I can see that I did miss, and other family members didn’t see any signs either. Even his brothers, until puberty.
Yeah, I agree that there likely is a strong genetic component in risk of developing psychopathy, however I would also argue on that same note, that the genetic component is not *necessary in itself to develop psychopathy. And even on that note, acting on that genetic vulnerability is a choice. As Robert Hare said, “It may be very well be that they can perform the task relatively well, but using different parts of the brain. This ISN’T to say that they CAN’T USE the appropriate parts of the brain, simply that they DON’T.”
( Then we return to Krajco’s analogy about milk and so on and so forth )
Oh, I agree that they have CHOICES in behavior, and that they CHOOSE to behave the way they do. I do not believe that they are DOOMED by genetics to be killers or abusers, they COULD restrain themselves but they don’t.
Just as I’ve used the example before, an alcoholic has a genetic predisposition to become an addict to alcohol, but s/he COULD choose NOT TO DRINK…up to a point, at which point the brain has been so damaged by the alcohol that they no longer can exercise that choice because of brain damage. I think the psychopath has a choice to do right or wrong up to a certain point that their hearts and minds have become so directed doing doing evil that they have a “reprobate mind” incapable of change. Their hearts and consciences are seared as with a hot iron, not even the love of God can get through.
Oxy, This is one thing I have a problem with.Accepting that they have a CHOICE. because, if their brains are wired all wrong, do they REALLY have a choice?
I mean,if someone had Polio, you wouldnt ask him to run a mile, {that is if he had a withered leg.]
If they TRULY CANT see that they are doing bad things,how can they change?
If they have such shallow emotions,surely killing their Motheror their child, is no big deal to them. Like squashing a bug, no more.And they feel JUSTIFIED In doing it, too!
Love,gem.xx
gemini- they *know* they’re doing bad things, they just don’t care. Why would they otherwise go to such great lengths to hide their real intentions? If they lay the fake “good” appearance on thick, it’s to cover the absolutely wretched and disgusting motives underneath. The dichotomy speaks for their awareness of their actions; like I said, they just don’t care.
wonder why sociopathy isn’t a valid reason for “pleading insanity”? Because they aren’t insane. Their actions are calculated, and they enjoy getting a rise out of others’ pain. It may be hard to believe, but that’s the way it is. It’s not that their “brains are wired all wrong”…
I really encourage you to read the full article/post by Kathy Krajco, but here’s a good snippet of what I mean :
”
If 20 times a day you think, “I love milk and all the milk in the world belongs to me,” the little pathway of connecting brain cells that lights up to think that thought dumps transmitter substance into those connections 20 times a day.
(… I cut some of it out because it’s a bit long to post here. But read the entire article if you don’t understand what she means. )
So, let’s take a picture of your brain.
Oh how horrible! It’s different than a normal person’s brain. It is more “developed” in that area (= has more gray matter/connections).
Now we know why you gotta have all the milk in the world: your brain is malfunctioning.
NOT.
Your brain isn’t the cause of your need for all the milk in the world. Your need for all the milk in the world is the cause of your brain being different.
In other words, your habit of deliberately twisted thinking is what makes you need all the milk in the world every time you see something white.
It’s supposed to work that way. If it didn’t, you’d still be thinking at the level of a 2 or 3 year old. You wouldn’t be able to learn anything. You’d never make the connections between related ideas. You’d never get an idea from another idea. In short, you would be about brain dead.
And guess what? If, while you’re killing people to take away all their milk, you are repressing your human sensibilities, willfully not allowing yourself to feel any pity for them, forcing yourself to think instead in terms of cold-blooded logic “What is someone else’s suffering to me?” – if you do that, the part of the brain that houses your human sensibilities won’t get used much.”
http://narc-attack.blogspot.com/2008/02/how-brains-get-different.html ( Read the rest of Kathy Krajco’s article here, it is very insightful. She answers your question pretty thoroughly.)
Really, the last thing we should be doing is going “poor them! They can’t help themselves!” and going even further- that’s exactly what they would want you to think. It’s not a mental disorder, its a personality disorder. And that’s just going by DSM-IV terminology. These are calculating, soul-less, deliberately cruel individuals. Do not for an instant think that they can’t help what they’re doing because they absolutely can.
That would be like saying someone who is on a diet CAN’T help but eat donuts and french fries! Why, of course they can, given the will power! Pedophiles just CAN’T HELP but to give into their desires, because they’re somehow wired differently. No. The person who can’t help but eat donuts and french fries though they claim to be on a diet eats them because they want to, they choose to. Pedophiles take advantage of the innocent children because they want to- they place much more weight on their immediate “desires” than the welfare of the children. Selfishness is an understatement for psychopaths. It’s a cold fact to behold that these people do these things entirely out of their own will, but absolutely necessary to acknowledge.
geminigirl,
Your post has gotten me thinking, still questioning if the sociopath has the capacity to make right choice(s) at all times – I suspect that they have an inner compulsion (that grabs hold of them) to do something, and once they commit the misdeed (do whatever they’re driven to do), the internal pressure is released (until the next time it arises, consequently, repeating the act). I suspect that they are more-or-less controlled by the disorder, being able to ignore some of their impulses (at times), but it’s a battle to withstand the internal pressure that can grab hold of them. I question if they’re able to do so.
Dear Gem,
The milk analogy “isn’t my cup of tea,” but let me put the same concept another way.
Some people are born without (enough of) the enzyme that works in the liver to process alcohol and along with other genetic differences from “normal” if they drink alcohol, they tend to become “alcoholics” –i.e. become addicted to alcohol.
Now, their family tells them that when they are blind drunk (or they may have some memories of their behavior) they beat up their wife, wreck their car, quit their job and bring all kinds of trouble on themselves and their family—but they make a CHOICE to continue to drink alcohol in spite of knowing that when they drink they do these bad things.
Yes, they have a GENETIC PRE-DISPOSITIION to LIKE the feeling they get from alcohol. They have a GENETIC-PRE-DISPOSITION TO CRAVE ALCOHOL, but whether or not they DRINK alcohol (or drugs) is a CHOICE. Yes, I will or no I wont’.
Psychopaths I think it has been pretty well proven are born with some disconnects and their brains are NOT wired exactly like non-psychopaths as far as the ability to bond with other humans, BUT they do know “right from wrong” and they do know that what they are doing to others causes hurt to the other, but they CHOOSE to continue this kind of behavior anyway.
“Moral insanity” was the earlier term for it, and I think it is a good one. But they know what they are doing, they aren’t insane in the sense of NOT knowing right from wrong, or thinking that aliens are reading their thoughts–my P son knows it is “wrong” to kill, but he doesn’t care. CARE is the operative word. Just as a 2-year old toddler WANTS WHAT HE WANTS AND HE WANTS IT NOW so does the psychopath, the difference is, the toddler will grow out of it, but the psychopath has kept that attitude since he was two, but because he figured out that OTHERS didn’t react well to that, he learned to MASK his REAL intentions of getting what he wants any way he can, and hang the consequences to the rest of you.
So yes, Gem, your offspring KNOW what they are doing to you and others, they just do not give a big rat’s behind…and in the case of your one D, I think she not only knows it she ENJOYS hurting you.
It really is a debate of cause-effect. Are their brains wired differently because as Robert Hare said, they use “different strategies”? Because they certainly possess the brain areas which would allow them to empathize with others.
Just like you and I have the brain areas to exceed in math if we wanted to. I will admit math is not my favorite subject, and that’s because I didn’t put as much effort as I could in learning it. So I have the brain areas, but the wiring amongst the structures isn’t as strong because I willingly did not put effort into learning math
You know concert pianists’ brains will appear to be “wired differently”, and some parts will even be more structurally emphasized, not because they were born that way, but because those structures were used more. No one looks at this difference and says, “they must have been born geniuses”… No, they chose to practice hours and hours day after day from a young age.
And yet some people will say, oh look their brain structures are different- that MUST be why they act the way they do. They simply cannot help it!
Well if a concert pianist can help practicing daily to make those structures markedly different, a sociopath can help their perverted behaviors.
Kathy Krajco addresses this as well:
“…It is conceivable that some genes responsible for hard-wired circuitry in the newborn infant could impair normal child development and thereby cause some cases of NPD. We see something like this with autism: apparently children born blind are much more likely to become autistic and need to be actively parented to help the infant connect with an outside world he cannot see. Still, blindness is not the usual cause of autism. And we will probably find that genes are not the usual cause of NPD.
Nonetheless, we shall just have to wait for good science to let us know for sure. ”
So while the genes may have made the child more susceptible to developing it, it does not directly cause it. She more or less draws the same conclusion.. if this gene made the child susceptible, then the most that the parents can do be active about reinforcing things which make the dysfunction less likely to manifest completely, though even still they don’t have complete control over the fact.
Link to Krajco’s explanation : http://web.archive.org/web/20061212101509/http://www.operationdoubles.com/narc/index.htm
And I quote kathy because I agree with her logic, not because I’ve adapted them as my own. I’ve always possessed my own views, she just elaborates this topic well.
Hopefully science and research will give us more definitive answers in the future ( data which cannot be reinterpreted or skewed to fit any one view ), and put a rest to this debate ( which is likely very touchy as well.)