Television news was ablaze this morning with the story that Manti Te'O, star linebacker for the Notre Dame football team, had been duped by an online relationship with a woman who did not exist. Some commentators are saying that Te'O was in on the hoax. I do not know whether Te'O was a participant in the hoax, or whether he was a deceived victim. I do know that both scenarios are possible. Some online predators toy with people's emotions, apparently for the fun of it. Several Lovefraud readers have been snagged by such predators, believed they were in a relationship, and had their hearts broken when their online "partners" died—only to find out that the whole thing was a ruse. This ce …
BOOK REVIEW: Kevin Dutton’s “Wisdom of Psychopaths” is a disservice to society
Kevin Dutton, Ph.D., is a fabulous writer. Unfortunately, in his new book, The Wisdom of Psychopaths—What saints, spies, and serial killers can teach us about success, he uses his prodigious skill with words to promote a fundamentally flawed thesis. What is the thesis? That psychopathy, "in small doses," is good for us. Here's what Dutton writes in the preface of the book: Psychopathy can also be good for us, at least in moderation. Like anxiety, depression, and quite a few other psychological disorders, it can at times be adaptive. Psychopaths, as we shall discover, have a variety of attributes—personal magnetism and a genius for disguise being just the starter pack—which, once you know how …
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Sociopaths and creepy trophies
By Sarah Strudwick Sarah Strudwick, based in the UK, is author of Dark Souls—Healing and recovering from toxic relationships. First of all I want to thank everyone who commented on the posts that I've written over the last couple of years. Recently I did a post on How to speed date a sociopath. Whilst I make every effort to move on with my life after the psychopath, occasionally something will come up that causes me to think “Why do they do that?” So the topic of this post is whether or not any of you have experienced the following: In my book Dark Souls, I wrote about an occasion where my ex moved my cash card. A week later I found it hidden behind a bottle of sauce on the top of …
Crazy, evil and prevention
Martin Seligman, former president of the American Psychological Association, wrote in an essay about the differences between crazy and evil. Better mental health services won't stop evil, on PressOfAtlanticCity.com. …
How to speed date a sociopath
By Sarah Strudwick Sarah Strudwick, based in the UK, is author of Dark Souls—Healing and recovering from toxic relationships. For the three years since I broke up with the psychopathic ex I have remained single. I've met a few wannabe boyfriends, but unfortunately they have turned out to be disordered, so I never took it past the going for a coffee stage. Like many other victims, I've focused on my own recovery and have even written a couple of books on it to help other women. During the time I was dating this man, whom I call "Oliver" in the book, I was also friends with another man. We had met long before on a dating site but never consummated the relationship (i.e. had sex), and h …
Who intentionally runs over turtles?
This is a story close to my heart. I live at the Jersey Shore. Every June and July, female turtles creep from the bay and go in search of high ground to lay their eggs. Hundreds, perhaps thousands, of them never make it. Their journey takes them across paved roadways, where many are squished. I've seen them. Research by two young men show that a certain percentage of the turtle killings are intentional. Nathan Weaver, a student at Clemson University placed a plastic turtle in the road near his campus. In the course of one hour, seven out of 267 vehicles, 2.62 percent, swerved in order to hit the turtle. Read: Clemson student's turtle project takes a dark twist, on …
The big problem with murderous sociopaths: They don’t look crazy
Ever since the terrible slaughter of children and teachers in Newtown, Connecticut on December 14, 2012, public officials and ordinary citizens have been looking for answers. What can be done to prevent future schoolhouse tragedies? People are calling for stricter gun control laws, or armed guards in schools. People are lambasting the entertainment industry for producing violent movies and video games, which can desensitize vulnerable teenagers to the real pain of killing. People are advocating more institutionalization of individuals who obviously suffer from mental problems. Commentator Charles Krauthammer—who is, by the way, a psychiatrist—provided a good analysis of each of these is …
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DSM-5 creates new categories of mental illness – and costs
Lovefraud has written about the American Psychiatric Association's new Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5) in relation to the new guidelines on personality disorders. (Read Disarray in the DSM-5.) But one psychiatrist says the manual will create even bigger problems. New psychiatry manual is a giant step in the wrong direction, on PressofAtlanticCity.com. …
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LETTERS TO LOVEFRAUD: Are cats sociopaths?
Editor's note: Lovefraud received the following from the Lovefraud reader who posts as NewLife43. I not only read Lovefraud to help me with the backlash from my 8-year relationship with my spath. I also read an interesting blog written by and for sociopaths, answering some of their questions, presenting criteria about what makes a sociopath what s/he is. It's very enlightening, particularly when I am sorely missing my ex-spath and need to remind myself why we are no longer together. Since it's on the Internet, the spaths are surprisingly honest. Sometimes, the posts can be very chilling, when they are honestly posting about the way they think, causing a shiver to run down my spine that I e …
The mind of the mass killer
Take someone who is mentally ill/unhinged, add rage, and paranoia, then weaponize this individual, and you've got a murderer/mass murderer on your hands. The “rage + paranoia” is a highly incendiary combination. In these mass murders it strikes me that "paranoia" is almost surely present and necessary—the murderous individual believes that it's “him against a world” that has "screwed him over," the world (and everyone in it) becoming a global, generalized “object” and "target" of his violent contempt and rage. His is a worldview in which he is the “outsider” and everyone else is "on the inside;” in his paranoia, immaturity and narcissism, he has divided the world into these rigid categori …