This week “Sarah” commenting on Lovefraud wrote:
What is the biggest difference between Narcissists/Psychopaths/Sociopaths and us? The ability to love!
What is one of the over-riding characteristics of the N/P/S? They are they are extremely jealous & envious and must WIN! We have something they will never have . . i.e., the ability to love.
In the Mask of Sanity, the first book to describe psychopathy, Hervey Cleckley wrote:
The psychopath seldom shows anything that, if the chief facts were known, would pass even in the eyes of lay observers as object love”¦ In a sense, it is absurd to maintain that the psychopath’s incapacity for object love is absolute, that is, to say he is (in)capable of affection for another ”¦ He is plainly capable of casual fondness, of likes and dislikes, and of reactions that, one might say, cause others to matter to him. These affective reactions are, however, always strictly limited in degree. In durability they also vary greatly from what is normal in mankind. The term absolute is, I believe, appropriate if we apply it to any affective attitude strong and meaningful enough to be called love, that is, anything that prevails in sufficient degree and over sufficient periods to exert a major influence on behavior.
In my opinion, perhaps the only flaw in our current measures of “psychopathy” is their failure to assess “ability to love.” Fortunately, that may soon change thanks to Donald Lynam, Ph.D. , Professor of Clinical Psychology at Perdue University. In his presentation, Interpersonal Antagonism as the Core Feature of Psychopathy Dr. Lynam presented evidence that inability to love is at the core of psychopathy.
I have long admired Dr. Lynam’s work, and his rather renegade status in the world of psychopathy research. During his presentation, I sat next to an accomplished psychopathy researcher, who has become a friend. After Dr. Lynam finished, I offered a public thanks to him for his presentation and brought up the issue that no one else is trying to measure and assess “ability to love” in psychopaths. The researcher sitting next to me said “You can have him as your Guru if you like, but there are problems with his work.” I did not ask my friend to elaborate because I already knew why he said that.
Dr. Lynam has challenged the status quo of psychopathy research because he says, “Factor analysis of the PCL-R (the most widely used rating scale) are unlikely to reveal the core personality components of psychopathy.” His making that statement at the SSSP meetings is kind of like a minister at a meeting of Southern Baptists saying that The Bible doesn’t necessarily have all the answers for modern humans.
Dr. Lynam says (and I very much agree) that if you analyze the PCL-R to understand “the psychopath” you run into circular arguments. How do we know this person is a psychopath? Because he/she has a high PCL-R score. How do we know the PCL-R symptoms reflect the psychopathy personality type? Because they belong to “psychopaths” as identified by the PCL-R. The way to get around these circular arguments is to separate diagnostic measures from personality measures. This is what Dr. Lynam has done.
The most accepted model of general personality posits five basic traits called the Big Five (OCEAN: Openness, Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Agreeableness, Neuroticism). Dr. Lynam has studied these traits in relation to psychopathy and he has found that “low agreeableness” explains a majority of individual differences in PCL-R scores. That means that the core of psychopathy is explained by low agreeableness.
What exactly is low agreeableness? Agreeableness has 6 parts to it: trust, straightforwardness, altruism, compliance, modesty and tender mindedness. The items on this list reflect a person’s tendency toward intimacy, needs balancing (ones own needs vs. other’s needs) and caretaking of others; core components of ability to love. Dr. Lynam also mentioned briefly that these are more than personality traits and instead seem to reflect “an ability.” I wrote about love as a developmentally acquired “ability” in Just Like His Father? nearly three years ago, and am glad to see this given more attention by scientists.
After I commented praising Dr. Lynam’s work, another researcher stood up and said, “There’s just something about this that bothers me”¦ my gut tells me it is off”¦ If psychopaths lack agreeableness, why do other people find them attractive?”
I talked with that researcher in private afterwards. Consider Dr. Cleckley’s statement about love and psychopathy. Since psychopaths appear to have fondness and affection, their inability to love is often hidden behind their “Mask of Sanity.” It is only when you really get to know them and you put yourself in a position of depending on them that you discover the importance of their inability to love. This is where victims have wisdom and understanding that many psychopathy researchers will never attain.
For more on Dr. Lynam’s work see: Are they just evil people?
Dear Susan,
I am glad that you are here at LF and that you felt comfortable enough to share your remarkable insights with us. YOU ARE SOOOOOOO RIGHT!!!! It is the way we were “programmed” and at first we didn’t see this as “wrong” but yet we never completely accepted it either, but NOW WE DO SEE—unlike the people as Jesus said “who have eyes and see not, who have ears and hear not” —and we finally, FINALLY, FINALLY “get it.” We can ONLY change ourselves.
Accepting that was difficult for me, DOING that was even MORE DIFFICULT but I am starting to “get the hang” of it somewhat and each new success leads to more successes.
Again, Welcome, Susan, and glad you are here! (((hugs))))
Good afternoon, peeps…
You know, I read as many articles and comments as I can here on LF when I have time to really focus on what is being said in an effort to assimilate, comprehend and empathize with you all.
Actually, dagnabit, I make the time! This website not only offers priceless, valuable knowledge but it also has allowed me the privilege, the honor to develop caring connections with wonderful people I might not ever meet in real time.
None of you are only words on a page, but living, breathing, hurting, loving, exceptional people who continuously deeply touch my heart, my mind, my spirit in ways that literally blow me away.
You all have become meaningful additions to my own spiritual journey and I am eternally grateful to you even though you probably didn’t have a clue to this reality.
And really….how can I not foster geniune affection and sincerest concern for kindred spirits?
Lovely, wonderful people who share similar characters and personalities with me, yet many times supercede my own limited view on what it means to be a true human being by honestly revealing, through your life-long trials and tribulations, how exemplary you are.
You all humble me, and that’s a good thing. Keeps me from getting a huge, fat head thinking I’m all this and all that!…..haha.
I remember what Kathleen wrote in one of her essays regarding the misery and devastation caused, during and after involvements with psychos, where she brilliantly proclaimed that if we all can heal and recover from the total disaster, the fallout from loving and caring for psychos and being hourly, daily abused by them, that we will become incredibly resilient to all future obstacles that DARE to cause us harm.
That we begin to easily roll with the punches that life sets before us. After the ridiculous mess of psychos, anything that happens to us doesn’t seem so formidable any longer.
We have become stronger, more resourceful, more capable and competent than we ever gave ourselves credit for before.
So true! Thank you so very much, Miss Kathleen Hawk!!
To a NORMAL person . . . To love someone . . . is to care about THEIR “well being”.
A P/N/S only cares about someone else’s well being, when they are getting something from them (i.e., exploiting them). When the victim is no longer of any use to the P/N/S . . . the N/P/S no longer cares about them.
The P/N/S does get a TEMPORARY “feeling of love” when they are successfully exploiting their victim.
I believe the “OPPOSITE of LOVE is EXPLOITATION”. Because when you are exploiting someone . . . you DON’T care about the victims “well-being”.
Further . . the N/P/S must always WIN. If they can exploit you, to get their “feeling of winning” . . . you are useful to them. If they can put you down . . they win! If they can lie to you & gas-light you . . they win! If they can rage at you . .they win! If they can hit you . .they win! If they can charm you . .they win! I believe the P/N/S creates situations with the victim, where they WIN . . and thus they feel good. They EXPLOIT their victim, inorder to WIN.
They care “not a twit” about the victim’s well being. EXPLOITATION IS THE OPPOSITE OF LOVE.
Sarah999: Yes, you are right, amazing how something so complicated can be worded so simply and yet be so profound.
Yes you are right, they are jealous and envious in the extreme and must win and control to feel powerful. I doubt if they can feel fondness or any other emotion except hate and greed and ambition.
Most days “he” is not in the forefront of my mind. I so agree with OxDrover in that I have really come to believe that until I discover a relationship with ME, I will not be living in the life that God has planned for me. For so many years I was the victim. I didn’t know how to be any other way. I watched my mother be a victim, and to handle her pain, she had an affair with a married man for 30 years – picking someone, once again, who was not available for her. What I have come to see, (and for SOME of us, that takes a long time), is that I have unresolved issues from my childhood. I ran into the arms of many men between ages 19-24, I was promiscuous and thought that sex was love. At 19, I met this “wonderful” man on the beach at Waikiki – he was gorgeous and he paid attention to me. At the time, my self-esteem was in the barrel, and I thought I was fat, helpless and worthless. As I look back, I realize I was not fat; I had long blonde hair and a beautiful body. I was compassionate, nurturing and was suffering from learned helplessness. I had a 19 year old body and a 4 year old mind. I was needy, desperate for love and a victim waiting for its prey – looking for someone to complete me. I hadn’t a clue who “me” was. The s circled me on the beach like a vulture capturing his prey. We fed off of one another. There was a payoff for both of us. I hadn’t a clue what real love was. I only knew what “longing and yearning” felt like, and I needed a fix. That was in 1967. In this year of 2009 in the month of April, I “finally” got it – that I had been in the clutches of an evil predator who had falons dipped in time released poisonous venom that enveloped my soul and choked it mercilessly for 4 decades. The addiction was beyond description as I fought for the little fragment of my soul that was left to have life breathed into it. All I could do was lay on the floor and pray with what little strength I had left to a God I thought had forsaken me. I had truely hit bottom, and was as hopeless as the dying can be – 100% hopeless apart from Divine Help. What happened? Suddenly out of the abyss came a gutteral scream and with it New Life. I had a conversion experience, and the bondage was removed INSTANTLY. God commenced to do for me what I COULD NOT do for myself. I saw through new eyes, and I heard through new ears. I was FREE! God had also placed me back in my hometown 2 months before this happened after a 38 year absence – the town I lived in when I met the s. I have gone back to my Catholic faith, the faith I left to join the s in the cult with his N mother for 16 years. So, you see, I have come full circle in this saga. Am I the same person? No…much wiser, and filled with a knowledge that my MSW doesn’t even touch. I learned this new truth in the school of adversity and thralldom. What does the future have in store for this 62 year old seasoned sage? Only the Lover of My Soul knows. He was there all along, living w/in me, but I was looking for love in all of the wrong places. How RELIEVED and GREATFUL I am to come HOME to myself and know it for the first time.
Beautiful and inspiring…………
Housie, I second Henry’s comment.Your a wise and humble woman. The words you used to describe the Lord- lover of my soul -is the most comforting thing we as S survivors can hear. All we have ever wanted and needed is someone who loves our SOUL- Our being, unconditionally.
Housie- Your post made me think of something- A S can NEver understand how much GOd loves them, b/c they have no ability to. Just as they cant love others in turn, the all encompassing peace that we have in knowing there IS a Lover of our Soul- the S has no comprehension. How scary and miserable to be like them- out in the world completely ALONE with only evil leading the darkness.
Thankyou Housie, and everybody else here- You light up the Darkness!