How to recognize and recover from everyday sociopaths - narcissists

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Why have sociopaths failed to develop a conscience?

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Sociopaths are described as individuals “without conscience.” Specifically, sociopaths lack conscience because they are unable to experience guilt and empathy. To understand how sociopathy develops, we must understand how guilt and empathy develop. Scientists have begun to understand how guilt develops in children. Studies show that children who experience the most fear experience the most guilt. Children who are fearless have little guilt and less inhibition when it comes to violating rules. Is fearlessness inborn? It seems that fearlessness is an inborn trait, as children under a year old have been identified with this trait. There are however, researchers who believe that some of our …

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Telling our stories of being targeted by sociopaths

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Sociopaths have no heart, no conscience and no remorse. They purposely drain the life out of people and then throw them away. Despite their charming and charismatic veneer, they are evil to the core. In my opinion, the people who truly understand this personality disorder are those who felt the full brunt of sociopathic deceit, and then woke up to the truth. We, the former targets, remember the promises of love and luxury, and how it all seemed so possible. We remember the confusion—how reality didn't match the promises, and the excuses that explained away the discrepancies. We remember attempting to express misgivings, only to be told we were crazy. We, the former targets, also remember …

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Sociopaths don’t respond to punishment

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In response to last week's entry, Sociopathy and the fearless child one of our readers (Bobby) wrote of his brother, "He was often punished - usually by being sent to bed without his meal - but he would repeat the same behavior as if nothing had happened." This statement illustrates why the usual parenting does not work with children at risk to develop into sociopaths. They do not respond to punishment! Parents of sociopaths are often blamed Tragically, the parents of sociopaths are often blamed for the presence of this condition in their offspring. The belief of many is, He wouldn't be a sociopath if his parents had taught him right from wrong. The belief that "discipline" will cure …

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Sociopaths get out of jail–or try to

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“True Lovefraud Stories” on Lovefraud.com is a collection of case studies about people who lied their way into the lives of others, leaving a wake of destruction. Some committed fraud. Some committed bigamy. Some committed murder. Five of the perpetrators in the True Lovefraud Stories received jail terms for their actions. Of the five, three are out of prison and two, claiming innocence, are appealing their convictions. Ed Hicks Ed Hicks was convicted of bigamy in Virginia on March 6, 2006. He was sentenced to a year in prison. With credit for the time already served, he was expected to remain incarcerated until the end of 2006. Due to his good behavior in prison, he was released on …

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Sociopathy and the fearless child

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Many have expressed doubt that a condition as complex as sociopathy can be genetic. The doubters aside, studies of identical twins separated at birth and raised by non-relatives do clearly show the condition is genetic. The question now is, “Just what is inherited?” Genes interact with environment Although sociopathy is genetic, it is not inherited in the same way as many other traits, for example, eye color. The genes that cause sociopathy do so by making a child vulnerable to certain environmental influences. A child can have the genes but if he is not exposed to the triggering environment, he will not develop the condition. Fearlessness an important precursor to both sociopathy …

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Sociopaths drag their families into the con

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Sociopaths will manipulate anyone. Let me repeat that. Sociopaths will manipulate absolutely anyone, including mom, dad, brothers, sisters—anyone. One way that this happens is the sociopath gets his or her family—knowingly or not—to participate in the victimization of the target. Lovefraud received an e-mail from Rod in Nebraska. Rod's daughter had been targeted by a sociopath. In his e-mail, he wrote the following: One thing that I do believe should be approached about a sociopath is his ability not only to control his victim, but also his family. The sociopath works his family to the extent that he manipulates his immediate family into believing that none of his problems in life are …

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Sexually violent predators

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One of Lovefraud's prime messages is that most sociopaths (or psychopaths) do not live up to their media hype. Most sociopaths are not sadistic, sexually violent serial killers. However, the hype is founded on truth, and there are some sociopaths who fit the descriptions you see in TV crime shows. These predators are the ones people think of when they hear the term “psychopath,” and they are truly scary. (I'll call them psychopaths for the rest of this post.) Sex crimes and sexual offenders get a lot of attention in the United States these days. This is certainly justified—there is no excuse for sexual violence. Some sex offenders are psychopaths, but not all of them. Child molesters, …

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Psychopaths on the loose

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Much of the research about psychopaths had been conducted among prison populations. It's probably necessary to find a "captive" audience for this research—psychopaths (or sociopaths, but I'll call them psychopaths in this post) wouldn't come in for testing and treatment voluntarily, because they don't believe there is anything wrong with them. Dr. Robert Hare estimates that psychopaths (the term he uses) make up 1 percent of the general population of North America, but almost 25 percent of the prison population. Let's turn these figures around. Sometime in October the population of the United States will reach 300 million people. If 1 percent of all these people are psychopaths, that means …

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Pop psychology doesn’t work with sociopaths

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I remember the first time I had proof that my ex-husband, James Montgomery, was cheating on me. Montgomery had talked me into giving him a credit card to use. He charged things on the card, and I paid the bills (a good deal for him). One time the bill came and it listed a charge for the Berlin Motor Lodge. This is not Berlin, Germany. There's a small town called Berlin not far from where I live in New Jersey. It isn't much more than a blip on the highway. Now, my ex was always away on "business." But there was no possible business reason for him to stay at this budget motel that was only about 40 minutes away. The only realistic explanation was that he was there with another woman. …

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Survey: psychopath, sociopath or antisocial?

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A few weeks ago I posted a blog article entitled Confusion about sociopaths, psychopaths, and antisocials. The article provided background on the evolution of the terms used to describe people who have no heart, no conscience and no remorse. It also acknowledged that Lovefraud uses the definition of this disorder based on the work of Dr. Robert Hare, who uses the term "psychopath." However, I refer to these people as "sociopaths." My reason is that the term "psychopath" carries a lot of cultural baggage. Thanks to movies and media hype, it seems that people tend to associate "psychopath" with deranged individuals or serial killers. I've had many victims tell me, "I though a psychopath was …

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