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 …
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 …
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 …
The philosophy of a sociopath
Lovefraud recently received a letter from a woman who we'll call Valerie. She met her husband, who we'll call Dylan, at age 18, and has been with him for seven years. She thought they were happy together in their wonderful home with their family of pets. Suddenly Dylan started acting erratically. He said he didn't want to be with Valerie any more. He picked fights. She asked Dylan to leave, but made it clear that she was willing to do whatever was necessary to help him. So he left, and wouldn't tell her where he was. Eventually, Valerie's intuition told her to check her husband's Facebook page, where she found Dylan's love letters to another woman. Then Valerie found how Dylan described …
How parasites–like ticks and psychopaths–work
By Ox Drover As an advanced practice nurse, one of the things I did here in the rural area where parasites are common was warn people about the many diseases, several of them potentially fatal, caused by a common parasite, the tick. Here on LoveFraud we often refer to psychopaths as “parasites” because, like a common blood-sucking tick, they feed off of a host, without giving any benefit to the host, or giving any more thought to the damage they do to the host than a common tick does as he burrows into your flesh. In the warmer months of the year, the tick searches for anything that is warm and moves and can actually leap small distances to latch on to the host. They like to burrow i …
Sociopathic priests and abuse of the spirit
The Reverend Charles Newman, former president of Archbishop Ryan High School in Philadelphia, was sentenced on Friday to three to six years in prison for stealing almost $1 million from the school, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer. As if that isn't bad enough, prosecutors say that Newman gave about $54,000 to Arthur Baselice III, once a student at the school, as “hush money” so he would keep quiet about their sexual relationship. Authorities contend that the abuse began when Baselice III was 16-year-old junior at the school. He graduated in 1996. Ten years later, on November 30, 2006, Baselice III died of an overdose in a drug house. During Newman's sentencing, the young man's mot …
The “immunity mindset” and the sociopath
Imagine you can make yourself invisible (at will) and, thereby, effectively innoculate yourself against the consequences of your violating behaviors. This playful scenario posits a power bordering on omnipotent. You can do what you want, when you want, to whom you want, secure in the knowledge that you can get away with it. Your invisibility effectively liberates you from the normal rules and boundaries that regulate interpersonal conduct. Now let's be honest”¦with this power, how many of us would use it for our own amusement, and to our own advantage? The true answer: most of us? Remember, I said “let's be honest.” None of us, of course, so far as I know, possesses this power, thank …
The silent (but deadly) treatment
The silent treatment is not only silent, but can be deadly. Deadly, that is, to relationships. Deadly, more specifically, to the trust, love, safety, communication and intimacy that preserve and nourish relationships. The silent treatment (also known as stonewalling) entails a partner's (the silencer) passive-aggressively refusing to communicate with the other (the silenced). Unlike avoidance (a conflict-aversion defense), the silencer deploys the silent treatment with toxic purposes in mind. The silencer's aim is, above all, to silence communication. More specifically, it is to render the other invisible and, in so doing, induce in the “other” feelings of powerlessness and shame. (Note th …
Psychopaths and predatory memory
When I was married to James Montgomery, who I believe is a psychopath, we once attended a local trade show together. We ran into a woman whom I didn't know at all and James barely knew. After about one minute of conversation, James started offering to help her with some project that she was working on. “What did you do that for?” I asked James after we continued on our way. “What?” “Offer to help that woman. You hardly know her.” “Do you know who she's married to?” James asked. It was a man that he believed could possibly be useful to his plans. Psychopaths are always on the lookout for people they might be able to manipulate. A study published last year by Canadian researchers …