Sociopaths, psychopaths–just call them evil

Medical and mental health professionals have differing views and opinions about the personality disorders that are the topic of Lovefraud—sociopathy, psychopathy and antisocial personality disorder. You could also include narcissism and borderline personality disorder.

There is disagreement among professionals about how the disorders should be defined, what causes them, and what can be done about them. As an example, take a look at a recent post along with the comments: ASK DR. LEEDOM: Is there a gender bias against men in the diagnosis of sociopathy?

No matter what discussions are raging in the professional world, here is what the rest of us need to know: There are evil people among us.

“I never knew such evil existed”

Lovefraud receives plenty of e-mail from people who have been deceived, manipulated, bankrupted, assaulted and deserted by sociopaths/psychopaths/antisocials. One comment that I frequently hear is, “I never knew such evil existed.”

Yes, it does. This is what evil people look like:

• They are charming and say all the right things
• They are supremely confident in their own greatness
• They are highly sexual
• They crave excitement and are easily bored
• They are impulsive, risk-taking and irresponsible
• They are pathological liars, telling falsehoods large and small
• They feel no guilt or remorse; nothing is their fault
• They use you and then spit you out
• They do not play by the rules
• Once they are adults, they cannot be rehabilitated

M. Scott Peck, M.D., in his book People of the Lie, says: “Evil is that force, residing either inside or outside of human beings, that seeks to kill life or liveliness.” In other words, evil people seek to kill the life force of their victims. Sometimes this means turning victims into broken shells of what they used to be. Sometimes it means murder.

Three points for professionals

It is extremely difficult to fight evil. Therefore, the best thing we can do is avoid it. We need to accept that evil exists and learn to recognize the key symptoms so that we can keep evil people out of our lives.

So what does this mean for the professionals? In many cases, these are the people who are making recommendations and decisions that affect the lives of both the evil and the victims.

In my opinion, professionals—and this includes legal professionals, especially court judges—need to learn three things:

1. How to distinguish the evil people, who cannot be helped, from those who have succumbed to terrible life circumstances, such as poverty, crime and bad parenting, and may possibly be helped.
2. How to save the offspring of evil people from growing up to be evil.
3. How to help victims recover.

There are people in the world who feel that everyone has good within them, that with enough love and understanding, anyone can be helped. As much as I would like this to be true, it is not. Evil exists. We’ve experienced it.