Plenty of scientific researchers have studied psychopaths. But few have studied the victims of psychopaths, so there is little documentation of what we have all been through.
Perhaps that is beginning to change.
Lovefraud has been contacted by a researcher from Carleton University in Ottowa, Ontario, Canada. She is conducting a study entitled Victimization, coping, and social support of adult survivors of psychopaths. The graduate student is working under the supervision of Dr. Adelle Forth, who is a colleague of Dr. Robert Hare.
The purpose of the study is “to gain an understanding of the victimization experiences of adult (18+) survivors of psychopaths, in an attempt to raise awareness amongst the general public, and mental health and criminal justice professionals.”
Everyone at Lovefraud is invited to participate.
The researcher has developed a web-based survey. The survey has both self-report scales and open-ended questions. You will be asked to rate the presence or absence of psychopathic traits of the most recent psychopathic individual you have been involved with on one scale. Questions revolve around demographics, your relationship and experiences with the psychopath, including being deceived and its impact on your mental and physical health, your ways of coping, and your support networks. The survey does not ask for any information that might identify you.
Completing the survey will take approximately one hour, and Lovefraud strongly encourages you to participate. If you are concerned about your safety, please be sure to take appropriate precautions.
Here—finally—is a chance to develop information that may make a difference in how victims of psychopaths are viewed and treated. Let’s take advantage of the opportunity.
Data is being collected from now until Dec. 31, 2008. Be sure to add your voice.
Hey, guys, especially you new folks, take this survey, let’s don’t let it get off the “radar” screen and folks forget about it. It doesn’t take long and we need to ALL get our 2 cents in on this one. Oxy
I did mine last week.
This is Good so I thought I would bring it up front
I was curious as to wether our researcher was still reaserching :)~ Or Did She GorGot :)~ LOVE JJ
Yes, you will be able to see the results of the survey by March 1st, 2009. Send an e-mail (anonymous, no identifiers, account only you can access please) to psurvivorstudy@gmail.com with “want psurvivorstudy results” in subject line, and leave the message empty……..
Has anyone received an email with the results of this survey yet?
Jen, Not that I know of unless it went into my spam box and got deleted. Maybe we should send another e mail.
PLEASE have them add another category for “within 3 months”. Most of my answers fell in the “within 6 months” but ALL were within 3 months. Public education is KEY to public awareness more than any title\label because Hollywood has shaped our identity of what a psychopath is. Maybe Hollywood could help in the ‘education’ part.
Dear R wheaton,
This thread were you posted is from an old survey done for another reason, the one you are talking about now is the one that runs to March 15th and the results will be submitted to the comments for the DSM V (the new diagnositic manual for psychiatrists).
In the past the term Psychopath, sociopath, anti-social personality disorder and several other terms were confused, even by researchers.
The current survey was put together by Donna Anderson, sort of “following” the variious proposals of what we (former victms) experienced with each of these indicators of the behavior of the “psychopaths” we have had experience with.
At the end of Donna’s survey, she will forward it to the committee which is determining the DSM V criteria for “officially” diagnosing what we know as “psychopathy” or “sociopathy”—in the past the professionals couldn’t even agree on a name.
Since “psychopath and sociopath” have both sort of been in the PUBLIC’s eye been seen as words denoting a serial killer type person, and fortunately, only a few of them are serial killers, most do their devestation in more quiet and secret ways, but their devestation is almost as overwhelming to their victims, whose “souls and minds” are serially “killed” instead of their bodies.
I agree that PUBLIC EDUCATION is the key, but the subject is so complex and the psychopaths (my chosen word) are sometimes so subtle it is difficutl to detect them until you start to BLEED either emotionally, financially, or physically.
Glad you are here, thanks for posting!
I work for the government. For the last year I have seen educational classes available to my co-workers about domestic violence, stalking, and sexual harassment. Very few people choose to go to them. The managers and lead workers are required to go to them… AND YET!
My manager had the training and refuses to see, that my lead worker was both stalking his employees, and if he hadn’t been such a good liar, he would have been hit with a zillion sexual harassment claims!
But as it is, he lies so good, all of his victims, except me, are closed mouth thinking they need to protect him because he’s done no wrong. Because he lies so well, all of his victims willingly took part is sexual activities. Because he lies so well my manager and his still believes that I must have imagined the whole episode.
According to DAS, the agency in charge of all the state’s HR departments, he can xyz every woman on his team. Unless they tell him NO, and he doesn’t quit, it’s no one’s business, and he hasn’t broken a single rule.
According to DAS, his manager could be fired for even asking him if he was dating any of the women he manages. Yet they let him have input into promotions, and allow him to help pick women for positions. He can use anything to make his choices including his libido, and as long as he can come up with a reasonable argument any one who questions his intentions can get fired for asking personal questions. Because he’s NOT management, it’s no one’s business and he has the power to control the lives of the women who work with him. He is not required to be accountable to the women he works with, or his managers, because it’s his personal life, even if he’s kissing them in the work elevator, or setting them up for a fall. If he promotes someone because he wants to go to bed with them, or if he holds someone back from a promotion because he doesn’t want them in the limelight where his lies might become visible, doesn’t matter… according to the big wigs in the state HR system, he can do anything he wants with any one he wants, as long as they can not prove he continued, after they asked him to stop.
According to DAS, he can give the virus that causes cancer to every single woman in our office, even if there was a test that could prove he was a carrier, “how convenient that men can’t be positively tested,” and as long as he is killing these women on his time, with their permission, it’s none of their business. In fact he went as far as to say, if they TRIED to stop him, they would end up in court, and the STATE WOULD LOSE!
And yet, if I have to go back to that office, and I warn any one of the potential dangers, both emotionally or physically, I could be fired! Right now as I post this I have 34 more days until I will be forced to go back or quit my job.
It is educated people who said this to me. They also let me know, that they can not call someone a sociopath or allow them to be called a sociopath, unless they have been tested and proven to be so. They let me know, they have no rights to ask him to be tested. They said even using the work could cost the state millions in a law suit that they would LOSE.
So their answer? Fire the victims if they cause too much noise, because their disruptive cry for help, and be proven to upset the work place, and the poor sociopath is just doing his job, and what he does to the lives of those he works with after hours, is none of their business.
Life sucks and then you die. At least that is the way it seems when you are trapped in an eternal loop with a sociopath that you can’t get out of your life.
Educate people? The emotional trauma caused by seemingly well meaning people who point out that “all he did was lie to me, big deal,” or who remind me, “no one tied your hands,” is almost as bad as the trauma from the sociopath.
Educate all you want, but all the people that I worked so hard to make him look good to, now are telling me it’s none of their business. I have in my efforts to protect and promote him have not only put myself in a place where I may get fired, but I have had to drop out of Amaranth because I was the one who talked my mentor into picking him as her Grand Royal Patron.
He will be the top man in the whole state for an organization of WOMEN. He will have victims falling over themselves to catch the “good one”. All because I believed in him, and because all of those I have tried to teach about psychopathy, would rather stay on his good side, and look the other way. I wonder how many women he will kill in Amaranth with his undeclared disease? No one can prove it, and every two years, every one seems to forget about the cries of “cad” from the previous victims.
People don’t want to know… Not even really those of us who have been victims. I would rather that I had never found out, how low someone you thought you loved could be.
Shelly Winter,
welcome. this is an issue too, workplace psychopaths.. not only do they effect people involved in them but many do work and have careers and then the rest of us are faced with them. we also deal with the face of denial and disbelief in the workplace too.
i felt/feel very impotent with my situation but i think little by little the more folks get burned some leeway will occur eventually.
as long as i do my part even if it means my future in this arena is uncertain because of the rampant corrumption going on.
anyhow even fed up folks won’t dare to mention the world sociopath/psychopath or ASPD..
Pleased to meet you
Mike