By Steve Becker, LCSW Steve Becker, LCSW, profile on the Lovefraud Professional Resources Guide. In Love Fraud: How marriage to a sociopath fulfilled my spiritual plan, Donna Andersen has written the most compelling nonfiction account of a relationship with a sociopath I've ever come across. In her Introduction, Andersen is careful to assert as “opinion,” rather than fact, that her ex-husband, James Montgomery—her central, but by no means only—subject in the book, is a sociopath. From my careful reading of Love Fraud, I'd suggest no such qualification is needed: Montgomery seems to me to embody the classic sociopath perfectly. This book is many things: it is, first of all, a flat-out “pag …
Love Fraud: A courageous work helps readers comprehend the reality of sociopaths in our midst
By Fannie LeFlore, MS, LPC, CADC-D Fannie LeFlore profile in the Lovefraud Professional Resources Guide Habitual liars and cheaters, con artists and swindlers are extremely self-centered and controlling people. They focus on manipulating other people simply as a way of life, for their own benefit. People like Donna Andersen clearly know what this kind of evil looks like. They know because they once trusted people who turned out to be sociopaths—people who deceived them intentionally, who took from them both tangible and intangible things of value, through encounters in romantic, familial or business relationships, whether over a period of hours, days, weeks, months or years. Now, with t …
BOOK REVIEW: The Gaslight Effect
By Ox Drover I recently read The Gaslight Effect—How to spot and survive the hidden manipulations other people use to control your life, by Dr. Robin Stern. I highly recommend this book to Lovefraud readers. Robin Stern, Ph.D., is a therapist specializing in emotional abuse and psychological manipulation. She teaches at Hunter College, Teachers College and Columbia University, and is a leadership coach for faculty. This well-written book is quite reader friendly. Dr. Stern starts off by defining the term “gaslighting” as being “pressured by someone else to believe the unbelievable.” She goes on to show that gaslighting is “an insidious form of emotional abuse and manipulation that ca …
The Lovefraud message, a step further
Many readers have told me that Lovefraud is the most comprehensive website about sociopaths on the Internet. According to Google Analytics, Lovefraud gets more than 50,000 visits a month, and of them, almost half are returning visitors. People return, I'm sure, because of the Lovefraud Blog. As of May 1, 2010, a total of 716 articles, and more than 72,400 comments were posted on the blog. We have a vibrant, helpful conversation going. We talk about why sociopaths do what they do, how we fell into the trap, how we can recover, and the huge problem that these predators represent in the world. Anything related to sociopaths is fair game for discussion on the Lovefraud Blog. So why am I …
Thank you Donna!
Thank you Donna for your support of The Dandelion Spirit -- and of me and my journey and everyone else here who comes to find hope and encouragement and ends up finding themselves free of an abuser because of the light you cast upon the path leading them away from abuse. I am often surprised when memories of 'he who shall not be named' percolate to the top and provide me insight and understanding of where I am today. For me today, 'those times' are just a reminder of a time when I was very very sick. Very very overwhelmed by fear and self-loathing. They remind me to love myself, as I was then, and as I am now. To love myself for all I'm worth -- as a woman who was abused. As a woman who …
BOOK REVIEW: The Gentle Art of Verbal Self–Defense
By Ox Drover The Gentle Art of Verbal Self-Defense was written by Suzette Haden Elgin, an applied psycholinguist and an associate professor of linguistics at San Diego State University. Though first published in 1980, I think it is a nice, easily read and understood book detailing the “hidden” motives in some conversations with just about anyone, whether they are a psychopath or not. It teaches us easily understood ways of deciphering the unspoken messages in language and easy to remember “come backs” that are appropriate for just about any situation where there are “hidden messages” in conversation. Ms. Elgin wrote: For every person in this society who is suffering physical abuse, the …
BOOK REVIEW: Perfect Prey
Lovefraud first heard from Liz Cole, author of Perfect Prey—Surviving a Cyber Shark's Romantic Fraud, back in 2007, shortly after she realized that the guy she met on the Internet was a sociopath. The guy called himself John Hill, although that wasn't his real name. Liz wrote: In my case, John presented himself as: an Irish born gentleman, well groomed, graduate degreed, retired from the Royal Marines where he performed his tour of duty in the Falkland Islands, a dutiful and tireless single parent to one daughter, aged 25 completing Medical School in Dublin, an accomplished chef and restaurateur, an accomplished sailor, multi-lingual, affectionate, old-school about e …
BOOK REVIEW: A Dangerous Fortune
Editor's note: The Lovefraud reader “Usedandabused” recently found A Dangerous Fortune, by Ken Follett, in her garage. Although it's not a new book—published in 1993—she said it was the best portrayal of a psychopath that she'd ever read. In this breathtaking and complex page-turner, master storyteller Ken Follett portrays a psychopath with sharp emotional clarity that cannot be found in a scientific text. Micky Miranda, the son of a brutal psychopathic South American caudillo of the late 19th century, jumped from the pages into my psyche during his twenty-five year scam of a prominent London banking family. Devoid of compassion and remorse but rife with cutting instincts into the psyches …
BOOK REVIEW: The Disease to Please
By Ox Drover When I picked up and started reading The Disease to Please—Curing the People-Pleasing Syndrome, by Harriet B. Braiker, Ph.D., not everything resonated with me, though I have always tried to “please people,” especially those close to me. There was a great deal of the book, though, that did resonate and validate the similarities between “women who love psychopaths,” as described in the book by that name by Dr. Liane Leedom and Sandra Brown, and “people-pleasers.” Dr. Braiker is a practicing clinical psychologist with 25 years experience and is author of several books. This one defines “people-pleasers” as: not just nice people who go overboard trying to make everyone happy. …
BOOK REVIEW: In Sheep’s Clothing–Understanding Manipulative People
By Joyce Alexander, RNP (Retired) Dr. George K. Simon, Jr., Ph.D. received his degree in clinical psychology from Texas Tech University and has studied and worked with manipulators and their victims for many years. Dr. Simon has taught over 250 workshops on the subject of dealing with manipulative people. In 1996, he published In Sheep's Clothing—Understanding and Dealing with Manipulative People. This book is in its ninth printing. The book is divided into two principle parts. Part I is “Understanding Manipulative Personalities” and Part II is “Dealing Effectively with Manipulative People.” Two Important Types of Aggression Dr. Simon describes two types of aggression: Two of the …
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