How to recognize and recover from everyday sociopaths - narcissists

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More confusion over antisocial personality disorder, sociopathy and psychopathy

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This semester I taught both Forensic Psychology and Abnormal Psychology at the University of Bridgeport. The students there are an ethnically diverse group and I think are fairly representative of America's young adult population. In both classes we discussed those individuals who have a “a pervasive pattern of disregard for and violation of the rights of others.” I wrote antisocial personality disorder, sociopathy and psychopathy on the blackboard before we began our discussion. I then asked the students if they had heard of these terms and if they could tell me the definitions. Only a small percentage had heard the term antisocial personality disorder, nearly everyone had heard the word …

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How a deficits disorder can cause so much grief and pain

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Sociopathy, many experts agree, is a deficits disorder. The sociopath, in this view, is missing something—things like empathy, remorse, and basic respect for the boundaries of others. When you think of a deficit—something missing—you don't necessarily think dire consequences. You may think, instead, things like less”¦incomplete”¦limited. For instance, the idea of intellectual deficit might spark the association, mental retardation. Instead of invoking fear, this tends to elicit our understanding, even empathy. The mentally retarded individual is missing something that most of us have—a normal intellectual capacity. You think, this is unfortunate, for that person. When you think o …

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A ‘female’-type psychopathy?

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We know only too well that by far the majority of psychopaths are men. Or at least we think we know that. Could it be that the criteria used to identify psychopaths are biased towards men? After all Hare began his work in male prison. Think about it. While behaving and being the way the PCL-R without doubt earns one the label psychopath, this is simply a list of symptoms. It says nothing about the underlying dynamics. If psychopathy is life centered on the principle of power (as opposed to love) and if it is therefore characterised by what Liane Leedom nicely calls 'warped empathy', then wouldn't you expect there to be more or less the same number of woman as men psychopaths? And wouldn't …

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Sadism and warped empathy in sociopaths

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Many who have been hurt by sociopaths develop a general distrust of others. This distrust is understandable given how difficult it often is to tell if another person is a sociopath. However, going through life with distrust is not a pleasant way to live. Victims naturally then want to know in detail what sociopaths are about so they can identify the untrustables, and go back to trusting everyone else. One of the purposes of this website is to describe sociopaths and teach people to identify them. Sociopaths are pathological liars who like to talk as experts on many topics. They manipulate others and generally have a high opinion of themselves. They also lack remorse for their actions and …

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The New Yorker writes about researchers’ struggle to study psychopaths

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Two Lovefraud readers brought an article in the latest issue of The New Yorker magazine to my attention. It's entitled Suffering Souls—the search for the roots of psychopathy, by John Seabrook. The article starts off describing the work of a researcher, Dr. Kent Kiehl, who is using an fMRI machine to study the brains of prisoners in the Western New Mexico Correctional Facility, searching for physical indications of psychopathy. The author provides a brief history of the evolution of scientific understanding about this personality disorder, and describes today's conflicting opinions about it. Seabrook reviewed the literature and interviewed experts, including Dr. Robert Hare. All in all, t …

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Lost Memories of a Sociopathic Killer

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I was on my knees in the family room of our home. It was about 5:00 am and I was reflecting on some journaling that I had been doing for the past few months. It was suggested that I think through everything that I had written down about my past memories to be sure that I had everything. I had been through a detox facility three months earlier to get off of pain pills a few months after having major back surgery. I had been off of the pills for three months now. I had become addicted to them and now I was “cleaning house” so that it wouldn't happen again. Suddenly, it hit me like a freight train. My initial thought, as fear began to grip my entire being, was “Oh My God”. I said this to mys …

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Is this person a jerk, a narcissist or a sociopath?

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I do my best to read all of the comments on lovefraud.com because I think they are a good barometer as to what people are thinking and questioning. One recent theme/question has been the issue of the realm of jerkdom. Just what is a jerk? Merriam-Webster's online dictionary defines a jerk as an annoyingly stupid or foolish person b: an unlikable person ; especially one who is cruel, rude, or small-minded. But how would a psychologist approach answering this question? Psychologists studying personality tend to fall into two categories, with members of the first category being far more numerous. The first category of psychologists is composed of trait psychologists. A trait psychologist is …

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Exploiters seek partners who dread to displease them

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It is no accident that narcissistic and sociopathic personalities will seek, and often successfully attract, partners who have their own issue: a tendency to dread the idea of disappointing or displeasing them. This is admittedly a generality, but it's a pattern I've observed in my clinical experience, and it makes sense. The exploiter, who regards others as existing principally to satisfy his or her wants on a continual basis, must by definition find in a mate someone who is highly motivated—and especially, highly afraid not—to satisfy him or her. Thus one often finds the pairing of an exploiter complemented by a partner who is prone, perhaps compulsively, to look inward to himself or her …

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Sociopathic children and psychopathic traits during childhood

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This is a very tragic story left by one of our readers: My daughter was misdiagnosed with ADHD. Then bipolar disorder, then Oppositional Defiance Disorder. I stormed out of her psychologist office when she told me that she saw something “dark” in my child. That was when she was 7. When she was 8, her sociopathy increased and she purposely drowned my poodle. She also tried to smother my baby by my second husband. The strain of her and my carrying the baggage from my last relationship has driven he and I apart and we currently trying to file for divorce. She steals daily, has even stolen as much as $500 from my wallet. I lock things away, and she will simply pry open the lock, break the …

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The Sociopath Next Door? Probably Not

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Clearly the LoveFraud community, better than anyone, can testify to the reality of sociopaths and the damage they can inflict on others. Sociopaths exist. That is inarguable. The sociopath is someone, as we know, with a grossly deficient respect for the integrity and boundaries of others; someone who sizes others up principally as assets to be exploited for his or her own whims and needs. The sociopath is a remorseless user and taker. At the same time, I think it's worth noting that sociopathy, in general, makes for sensational copy, as a result of which estimations of its incidence in the general population are at risk, I would argue, of being dubiously, irresponsibly inflated. Martha …

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