Dr. Liane Leedom and I spent last weekend, May 19-21, at the 4th Biennial Meeting of the Society for the Scientific Study of Psychopathy in Montreal, Canada.
Approximately 200 people were at the conference, including the biggest names in psychopathy research: Robert Hare, Paul Babiak, Paul J. Frick, Kent Kiehl, David Kosson, Joseph Newman, Christopher J. Patrick, and many, many more. Also in attendance were graduate students and researchers from all over the world—nine different countries were represented.
It was an opportunity to learn about the latest research going on in the field. A total of 46 researchers made 15-minute oral presentations of their work. An additional 91 groups of researchers presented their work on posters.
Dr. Leedom and I were among those presenting in poster form. We summarized the findings of the survey we did last year in response to the request for public feedback on the draft of the new American Psychiatric Association Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM-5). (See Lovefraud’s comment about sociopaths for the DSM-5.)
I designed a poster, 6 feet long and 3 feet tall, which briefly described the survey, the findings, and the conclusions that we drew. The title of the poster: When Psychopaths Say “I Love You.” Dr. Leedom also presented another poster on Familial Attachments and Parenting Behavior of Psychopathic Individuals. Our posters were displayed right next to each other, and as people came around to look at them, we explained what we learned.
The reaction to our work was very positive. The majority of research in the field is done either on college students or prisoners. The information that Lovefraud readers provided about their relationships with disordered individuals is highly unusual, and very important. Thank you to everyone who participated.
I also designed a tri-fold brochure version of the poster information. If you’d like to take a look at what we presented, you can download a pdf of either the poster or the brochure. Don’t worry, the poster pdf will scale down to fit on your computer monitor. If you’d like a printed version of the brochure, just send an email with your mailing address to donna@lovefraud.com.
When Psychopaths Say “I Love You” poster
When Psychopaths Say “I Love You” brochure
skylar
I looked it up:
This sounds like a narcisstic injury, but I wonder… does encounter with a Psychopath qualify as “a single exceptional, though normal negative life event.”
Ana
Skylar & Oxy,
I even dislike the name:Diagnostic criteria for Posttraumatic Embitterment Disorder. That to me is a wtf moment right there!
Sounds like a psychopath made this up to get away with whatever misery they cause. Now it’s YOUR fault you have this “disorder” ugh
Ox Drover
I liked the one I copied and pasted somewhere yesterday (can’t remember where) that was about CANT REMEMBERING.,….LOL
Sheet! I can’t even remember where I posted it, or what it was called now….so that PROVES I HAVE IT! LOL ROTFLMAO
Ana
Oxy,
Was that CRS disorder??
skylar
Oxy and Ana,
I don’t dislike or disagree with this “diagnostic criteria”. I find it very helpful. And having the disorder is not a blaming or shaming thing, so much as it is a starting point for resolving the problems that it causes.
My take on this is that all spaths have it, and they intend to and succeed in, sliming us with it, so then the victim has it. It’s like a contagious meme. The difference is that the spaths have it so much more intensely that they make it their life focus to slime others with it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-traumatic_embitterment_disorder
Ana
Skylar,
Why is this considered an abnormal reaction? Do you know?
I find this confusing and offensive! Hey, maybe it’s justs me 😛
The trigger event is a single negative life event that can occur in every life domain. The event is experienced as traumatic due to a violation of basic beliefs. Traumatic events of this type include, but are not limited to, conflict at the workplace, unemployment, the death of a relative, divorce, severe illness, or experience of loss or separation. The illness develops in the direct context of the event. The person must not have had any obvious mental disorder prior to the event that could explain the abnormal reaction.
skylar
Ana,
Dying from a virus is also a normal reaction but it isn’t a healthy one. I think that the DSM people are calling everything that is sub-optimal to mental health “an abnormal reaction”. So, it is normal to feel angry and embittered by injustice, for example the Casey Anthony acquittal or the murder of your spouse. But for the sake of living a healthy and happy life, we have to move past the bitterness. If you spend years and years being triggered by the memory of an event which you feel was humiliating or unjust, then that can turn into a pathology, regardless of how justified you are in feeling that way.
I’m not the person to tell you how that’s done, since I obviously am disgusted and incensed at all that the psychopaths and their minions do. I just would like to be able to rise above it, so I’m willing to learn about anything that can help with that. I don’t believe that the outrage serves any more purpose after our eyes are opened by it, so it’s best to find a way to deal with those feelings so they don’t inhibit our growth and turn us into THEM.
Edit:
ironically, I believe that most of the horrible things psychopaths do, they do them simply to make us feel bad so that they can feed on our emotions of despair. If there is a way to not suffer the emotional effects, then it would seriously curb the spaths’ behaviors because there would be no emotional payoff.
It’s not just a matter of getting over the injury, but also a way to take away the spaths psychological reward.
Ana
Skylar,
Thanks for answering! No, I don’t want to be turned into THEM! I don’t think I could be anyway, to much empathy..lol
You are a good investigator, by the way. I find some information useful and some not. I guess it’s take what you can from the information given, do the best you can is all you can do. I don’t feel embitterred, do you? I feel some experiences are a GREAT learning experience even though it is painful, very painful. I’m still learning Sky, have lots to learn so forgive my ignorance and bad spelling 😛
skylar
Ana,
we ALL have a lot to learn, that’s why I’m always searching for more information and perspectives.
You know, I would have said, “no, I’m not embittered” if you had asked me before, but now I’m not so sure. I think I suffer from some of these symptoms, especially “performance in daily activities and roles is impaired.” I’m not as resilient as I was and get triggered more easily. So many people here have said that they can’t find the person they used to be and I think this is part of it.
We feel that we have been cheated, and that the cheaters seem to always win. But since our moral compass precludes us from also cheating, we feel like we can’t win and that makes us feel hopeless.
Ox Drover
Ana, I think we will be bitter is WE ALLOW OURSELVES to become bitter and do not heal. For example. If you have a horrible wound and you treat it medically and keep it clean, etc. it will heal, It may leave a scar but it will heal…but if you keep picking the scab off daily, and rubbing dirt in it, it will NEVER HEAL, and it will become infected, and grow larger and more ugly, and may in time even kill you when the origiinal “wound” wasn’t all that serious really.
So we can do the same thing with our emotional wounds, or our losses.
Grief is a normal reaction to a loss of something or someone you care about….yet, grief itself CAN become “Pathological” if you never get over it. I think we have all seen people who never got over the loss of a loved one, or never got over the loss of something they cared about, or something that they were UNFAIRLY deprived of.
The UNfairness of a loss sometimes makes us not grieve it in a healthy manner, I think that’s part of what is so bad about a psychopathic BETRAYAL, the unfairness of it, the unexpectedness of it….but we CAN heal or we can stay bitter. Our choice.
Getting over the bitterness, the anger, (which by the way is a normal part of the grief process) etc. will lead to healing, but hanging on to the bitterness the anger etc. will only lead to OUR OWN DOWN FALL…the loss of the rest of our lives through the bitterness. Yea, in a way that is a “disorder” of sorts, but I don’t think it is a “mental illness” necessarily.
The way they are doing the DSM V it seems to me that if you stub your toe and go “Oh, Shait!” you have some sort of “stubbed toe bitterness disorder.” LOL
Yea, Ana, it is CRS but they had a really great name for it and now I can’t remember it!~ Oh, Shait! OOPS now I have the “verbal outburst disorder!” I better watch out or Donna will Boink me! LOL