Today’s New York Times Magazine has an excellent article on the signs of psychopathy in children. It presents a heartbreaking story of parents trying to cope with a “callous-unemotional” 9-year-old, and covers much of the current research on the disorder in children. Very well done.
Read Can a 9-year-old be a psychopath? on NYTimes.com.
Story suggested by a Lovefraud reader.
Skylar, I just googled, “Revalation,” and yes, I have read it. It was very good, as I recall. O’conner has a way of revealing the pettiness in the average joe. We can all learn something from her.
Well, I liked the story and what it says about comparing ourselves to others. But then I feel like, ok, wait. What about spaths?
I’ve always said, Spaths are good for one thing, as an example of how not to be. Is that being judgemental?
Isn’t our lack of judging how we ended up being taken in the first place?
I am 100% in favor of more programs, studies, and tons more research being done on children that have disturbing behavior at an early age and teenagers as well.
In MHO the very best way for the professionals to REALLY understand personality disorders better is to study it from the ground up…The begining. Children showing disturbing signs.
Dr Hare devoted much of his research to criminal psychology and although he has offered so much in terms of valuable information on the subject of this disorder….The fact is that when most people hear the word the word psychopath/sociopath they STILL interpret that to mean serial killer/murderer….And not the guy who could be living next door to them.
But I also think again just mho it is going to be a LONG while before we see the medical profession actually “labeling” young kids budding psychopaths. Because the medical profession is ALWAYS afraid to label kids. And rightfully & respectfully so because once labeled it is hard to reverse that label.
The Dx is only as good as the doctor doing the diagnosing. And I have in my own experience with trying to find a good mental health professional found too MANY that are pretty clueless to this disorder….
There was a time not so long ago that they wouldn’t even Dx a young person with bipolar disorder. Because they were afraid to label a young person with such a disorder & give children mood stabilizer meds that can often have bad side effects & were not even tested on kids under the age of 18 years.
Kids being labeled budding psychopaths also brings up ALOT more questions than answers. Troubling questions….
Like for instance kids that go through rebelious stages but do mature and change their ways? Oppositional behavior….this often escalates and gets worse but there are cases where kids do grow out of this….What about those kids? This is one of those things that really does require asking the questions….
In my opinion it is like putting an innocent person behind bars….If there is even the slightest DOUBT your not supposed to convict…This same responsibility would have to be to error in favor of a doubt with addressing kids and labeling them at a young age. What about the teenagers many of them have N self centered symtoms, and impulsive behaviors. But they don’t necessarily grow up to be personality disordered.
First of all how many people here on LF have encountered and/or had a relationship with an adult spath that has never been professionally diagnosed? Probably a good portion…
Most adult spaths don’t go willingly to get a dx…So there are probably more mental health professionals out there than NOT that couldn’t even properly Dx this disorder if they had spaths standing in line outside of their office.
At this point we will be lucky just to see more focus and research dollars being targeted to youth studies. I APPLAUD any and all efforts that would be made to study PROBLEM children and teenagers. And maybe come up with solutions to help SOME of these kids.
However at this point in time I do NOT necessarily think that the medical profession is READY to label them.
They still argue and debate among themselves over to much when it comes to this disorder….
The professionals FIRST have to all be on the SAME page before they can start Dx kids with a budding psychopaths labels in my opinion.
More research needs to be done and MORE HELP & PROGRAMS for parents who are raising these kids with extreme problems is needed first…
If the medical profession can confuse the public with what they have already done by having to MANY labels for adults with this disorder
psychopath/sociopath/anti-social personality….Just think the damage they can do with to many “labels” when it comes to kids???
As a parent who turned to the “professionals” & outside resources myself when my son was a teenager I got VERY little of what I really needed from them.
The system is really broken and until it is fixed parents are pretty much left feeling overwhelmed and really unprepared to KNOW what to do because the professionals are not prepared to give parents options of what they can do. They kind of pass the “buck”….And the insurance companys if you are lucky enough to have insurance have so much “criteria” that has to be followed that even if you have a concerned medical professional in your corner their hands are tied.
In the book Columbine there is an interesting “blurb” (I wish there was more information mentioned about it) of a juvenile treatment center in Wisconsin that started a program developed independantly but based on one of Hares own programs for adult psychopaths out of prison. The program Hare developed accepts that psychopaths will remain egocentric & uncaring for life but some can be willing to adhere to rules (to stay out of prison) if they are lead to believe it is in their OWN interest. “Convincing them that they can get what they want without harming others” is the key Hare said.
The juvenile program in wisconsin is based on these principals but also heavily addresses the psychopathic drive for instant gratification & control. A four year study in 2006 concluded that these kids were 2.7 times less likely to become violent than kids with high psychopathy scores in other programs. The program has had some sucess and awaits replication according to the author.
So obviously this program isn’t a prep school where these young men are someone you would want your daughter to marry. But it is still a relatively new idea that with the right program they are making some progress in curbing the violence with some of the kids that were certainly destined to violence. It is a start…..
Skylar, you have a way of cutting right into a person’s undealtwith conflicts. There is much I could say, but think I would do better to think this through a bit.
I will say that the word “judgement”, to me, at least, carries negative undertones…ie; “judge not, lest ye be judged”. I prefer the word, “discernment.” I can discern something without the one up, one down implication in the word, “judge”.
Witty,
As much as I appreciate Hare’s contributions, that statement scares me:
“Convincing them that they can get what they want without harming others” is the key Hare said.
Spaths only WANT to hurt others. My spath has given up golden opportunities and tons of money because he doesn’t want a high profile. He flys under the radar, literally and figuratively because he wants carte blanche to hurt and to kill without retribution.
One of the last things he said to me when I left him, was, “I can disappear to where no one will ever find me.”
I wish.
Kim,
Discernment is a good word. Can we discern between good and evil without judgement?
hmm…This little conundrum took me by surprise today, as I was looking for more writing on Girardian Theory. I had just written a blog about compassion and I wondered how much I was like Ruby Turpin… by judging the spath as being pathetic.
WELL THEY ARE!!! I just can’t think of them any other way!
There is some discussion that Ruby’s judgements were all about earthly values: Her works, her deeds, her looks, her disposition, her behavior as opposed to others’. These are compared to the salvation of spirituality. The discussion said that Flannery believed people were saved because they wanted to be saved by Jesus.
Well this scares me too because my spath prayed to be saved from his evil. He asked God to make him better and he would turn his life into saving others.
Then he kept poisoning me.
If more people experienced a spath, they wouldn’t be so quick to come to those conclusions. Spaths can be complicated too.
skylar,
I agree with what you said. I think the problem with Hare although he spent over 35 years researching is that he spent most of those years with convicts….So my thoughts are basically consider the source. Still he contributed alot when alot wasn’t known.
However the program he made this statement for was not the spath who has never been in prison or operating under the radar and getting “away” with his crimes.
But men who have spent much time in prison & DON’T want to return to prison. So the “shiney object” he holds in front of them is the key to trying to teach them to not go back there I am assuming.
There were no “results” for Hares program mentioned in this book I read. So not sure if it has had any sucess or not?
Just that some of his (Hares) ideas were adapted in the juvenile program….
The program I was basically trying to mention was the one for young people. That has had some sucess….In curbing violence in youth.
By the way this book had alot of blogs and journal entries written by Eric who was the one that was Dx the P after the Columbine killings….And he didn’t hate his mother! At least not according to what he wrote. I was surprised because I expected him to in the begining of the book….
Witty,
my spath never admitted to hating his mother. He was a “devoted son”. It was only at the end, when he was trying to off me, that his hatred for her spilt out. He called her on the phone and cussed her with the most vulgar words.
The year before that, he had gone to her home (he works near there in the summer for 2 months.) and vacuumed her house. Then he had her call and tell me about it. The reason, was because he NEVER lifted a finger around our house. I mean NEVER. If he ate a banana, the peel would lay on the couch for days, until I picked it up.
The only reason he was nice to her for so many years, is the 180 rule. He only portrayed the exact opposite of the truth, which is that he hated her. He refused to go to her funeral.
The other reason he did things for her was to make me jealous. I could see through it, but I pretended not to because I couldn’t understand it. It made no sense that he would want to hurt me, so I ignored it. This made him think I was really dense and consequently, he didn’t try to be as conniving as before. I’m glad for that, because it really helped me to understand him better.
skylar,
It is my believe that spaths & other disorders can be VERY complicated.
Yes there are so many cookie cutter versions of what they do.
But there are still certain things that do complicate figuring them out.
I know people that would argue up and down that a pathaological lier just tells PURE lies.
But I would bet my life on it that when my son lies there is almost ALWAYS a kernal of truth in those lies. I might not be able to figure out always what that kernal of truth is….but it is there somewhere.
He might say “yesterday, blah. blah, blah, blah” And yesterday might be the only truthful word in the sentance….But that kernal of truth ONE WORD is also how he convinces himself that he isn’t lying.
To complicate things further I think he also lies just for the sake of lying and knows he is telling lies at these times.
But there are also times that he is lying but BELIEVES he is telling the truth. He is convinced that his lies are his truth.
Twisted stuff….
Witty,
there are probably layers of lies and layers of beliefs for spaths.
If you consider that they envy us and want to slime us with their being, and then consider that they live a lie and believe their own lies, then it sort of makes sense that they want US to live in lies and believe lies.
So they will lie to us just so they can feel that we’ve been slimed like they are.
There is also the irony of the 180 degree lie. It actually IS funny, when you’re not the butt of an evil joke, to expect one thing and get something else. Dual meaning IS the essence of humor.
In native american mythology, they are called tricksters and symbolized by the coyote and the crow, which are wiley, clever animals.
So they get a joke when they’ve thought of it, but they don’t get the most BASIC of concepts when the joke is on them. My brother in law (a spath) didn’t understand that the Colbert Report is a comedy show. Despite the fact that it airs on COMEDY CENTRAL! And he’s a cop with a law degree (he’s always been a C-student, though).
Yeah, twisted as hell.