Yesterday I happened to be watching CNN as the verdict in the Casey Anthony trial was announced. Like much of America, I was stunned that she was acquitted. From the reports I’ve seen about Anthony’s pathological lying and lack of concern about her missing daughter, I am confident that she exhibits sociopathic traits. A criminal profiler came out and said on national television that she is a psychopath. See:
Profiler says letters show Casey Anthony to be a psychopath
All of us at Lovefraud know what sociopaths/psychopaths are capable of. So I was more stunned by one of the so-called CNN pundits, Dr. Frank Farley, who came on the show later. He said that the prosecution’s theory of Casey Anthony’s motive for murder was ludicrous. No mother, he claimed, would kill her child simply so she could go out and party.
Farley actually posted his views in a blog piece on CNN, in an article called Infanticide in order to party: A nonsense motive. He wrote:
No credible motivational psychology that I know of would support that a single mother who seemed to love her child and who had lots of back-up parenting, in the grandparents and perhaps even from a brother, would go through the careful planning and complex, unpredictable, scary process of killing and disposing of her child in order to get a bit more free time.
This could not be true, unless she was seriously mentally ill, and no available evidence showed that. To go against that deep human instinct to take care of a child, and instead kill that child, demands a very significant reward in the opposite direction, and partying doesn’t rise to that level.
What sane human being could wake up in the morning and say, “Gee, I could have a fun time if I killed my daughter.” There was also no evidence that Caylee was a difficult child whose behavior could lead her mother into a homicidal rage. This whole scheme goes against our deepest instincts rooted in thousands of years of evolution.
Obviously, the guy knows nothing about sociopaths. These disordered individuals have no love motivation. They are capable of killing for the flimsiest of reasons. Take the case of Diane Downs, cited in Dr. Robert Hare’s book, Without Conscience. She shot her three children in 1983 so she could carry on an affair.
ABC News recently aired interviews with Diane Downs, along with a clinical diagnosis: psychopath. Watch the videos here:
1983 Video: Mom who shot kids speaks on ABCNews.go.com.
Professor Farley
Now here’s what is really scary: Frank Farley, Ph.D., is a psychologist and professor at Temple University, and former president of the American Psychological Association. He teaches educational psychology to graduate students. Here’s his biography:
Frank Farley, Ph.D., Temple University College of Education
Farley has come up with this goofy theory of “Type T Personalities.” The “T,” he says, stands for “thrill-seeking,” and certain people are driven to a life of constant stimulation and risk-taking. In fact, he recently wrote an op-ed piece in the Los Angeles Times, claiming that this is why politicians cheat on their wives. I mentioned it in a recent blog post:
More on powerful men behaving badly
Actually, cheating politicians are probably displaying their sociopathic tendencies—grandiosity, overactive sex drive, recklessness, sense of entitlement. But Farley doesn’t get it. He also doesn’t get that it is quite possible for a woman to kill her child for barely any motivation.
And this is what he is teaching to his educational psychology students. No wonder so many people do not know that the sociopathic personality disorder exists.
Twice Betrayed:
I haven’t heard about that juror…really?? I am just so upset about ALL of this. What a circus! It has the OJ case beat by a mile. None of it makes sense and the lies have been unreal.
It’s juror number six. I tried to copy and paste a copy of the actual letter, but it wouldn’t let me. It’s juror number 6 and the firm representing him is Rick French. Here’s a copy of the headline. Casey Anthony Juror: Ask Me Anything … For a Price
7/6/2011 10:06 AM PDT by TMZ Staff
One of the jurors in the Casey Anthony trial has decided to go public with his side of the story — but TMZ has learned, he’s not talkin’ … unless the price is right … and 5-figure offers are already pouring in.
Twice Betrayed:
That is so not right of that juror. That tells me something about him!
Louise: Kinda reminds us of The Runaway Jury by John Grisham.
Twice Betrayed:
I didn’t read that one…
The guy that taints the jury does it for a noble cause. But the guy that is trying to actually taint the jury first is a corrupt attorney out for big bucks. Excellent book and good film with Gene Hackman as the corrupt attorney and John Cusack plays the juror.
Twice Betrayed:
Sounds like a good read!
Twice Betrayed,
So Juror number 6 is already looking for his sweet six figure deal? Wow. Again, I’m not the slightest bit surprised; but even his shallow and vulgar language is pretty much that of a Parisian street whore: “Ask me anything – for a price.” Did he really say that? And this soon after the verdict?!
“Dr. Farley” is just one further example of why we need to empower ourselves with knowledge, and to look critically at what ANYONE in a position of so-called “authority” is telling us. Certainly – deference where deference is appropriate: but I still maintain that the average poster here has a better head on their shoulders than – well, than the President of the American Psychological Association!
Constantine,
agreed!
It is becoming ever more evident that the spaths have infiltrated psychological associations as much as they have infiltrated religious organizations like, for example, the catholic church. They are drawn to positions of authority and unfortunately, many are extremely intelligent. That’s why we must be vigilent. We need to keep “psychological hygiene” as Andrzej M. Lobaczewski said. It’s so difficult. The red flags are CORRECT. When we dismiss them, we are drawn down a slippery slope. Keeping our wits about us no matter how much we want to believe that the spath we care about must be good, is essential.
Sky,
Yes, I think many of our “high functioners” tend to gravitate towards things like the priesthood and the medical field. But they are much more insidious and camouflaged than the “sociobuffoons” who fill the bulk of our prisons and crackhouses. I wish that the next chapter in the study of Psychopathy would focus increasingly on these types.
You raise another good point that I’ve been thinking about lately. That is, how each time we “invest” ourselves in something like a love relationship (or even an intellectual construct, for that matter), it often takes a significant act of will to readjust our thinking/feeling when a new reality (or at least a subtle shift in the “old” reality) demands that we do so.
For example, we think that so and so is guilty and it turns out that they are not. (Or vice versa) Or we love a person and think that they are the very paragon of goodness and purity – and yet, almost imperceptibly, they start to act in a way that is inconsistent with that belief. Well, there’s the rub, you see: because we’ve already tied ourselves emotionally and/or intellectually to a certain view of things. So while I think it’s crucial that we do everything possible to “get things right” right from the beginning; yet even more important, I think, is how we react when our perspective proves (or is ever so gradually proving) to be the wrong one.
If you want to put a fancy term on this approach, you might call it “existential agility.” Most of us here know what this means, because we were in large part guilty of its opposite: we saw the “red flags” and the odd behaviors, but we kept clinging to a false outlook because it was too difficult (i.e., it required too much of an of exertion of will) to regain our footing and embrace the right one.
However, that’s what I’ve been working on lately. I still “invest” myself in things, but I always keep a small part of myself back; and if events dictate that I have to pull out or change my view of something entirely, then I already have at least one foot on safe and “healthy” ground.
Casey Anthony is 100% guilty, but let’s say (just by way of example) that she turns out to be definitively and irrefutably “not-guilty”. Well, that means we’ve taken an intellectual tumble, those of us who are “invested” in her guilt; but so what? We need to get right back up and adjust our thinking to the new reality. If a lover who has been an impeccable companion for years on end suddenly starts lying or acting in an untoward manner, then we are left with a similar choice: keep our investment (emotional, intellectual, or both) in a failed construct, or stand back up, dust ourselves off and change our thinking as soon as possible. This, in short is what I mean by “existential agility”.
You seem like a nice lady Sky, so when I write to you (or whomever else on this site) I give a small part of my intellectual and emotional energy. But what if “Skylar” turned out not to be Skylar at all, but a smart-ass 23 year old boy living in Canada in his mother’s attic? Well, that would be something of a letdown indeed! But again, it would be incumbent upon me in that situation to adjust my thinking to the new state of affairs; and to cease thinking of and relating to “Skylar” as a spunky middle-aged woman living out West somewhere! (And yes, I have no doubt at all that you are who you claim to be but, as I said – just by way of example!)
Still, amusing though that may sound, how many of us were more or less guilty of clinging to an infinitely greater imposture than a “pseudo-Skylar” (or “pseudo-Oxy” or “pseudo” whomever) could ever be! In fact, I suppose that’s what accounts for the fact that we are writing about this stuff YEARS after the fact (and in the middle of the night to boot!): because in a sense we are still trying to regain our footing that we lost due to our former “existential rigidity.”
Oh my, but how loose my tongue is tonight! Ah well, just wanted to share some random thoughts. On that note, have a great day!