Unfortunately clinicians and researchers often tend to interact with a specific segment of our society and to develop their own ways of describing the problems of the people they work with. For example, there are professionals who work with clients who have “personality disorders”, there are professionals who work with criminals in the justice system and there are professionals who work with perpetrators of domestic abuse/violence.
Each of these three groups of professionals has their own lingo for describing very similar people with very similar patterns of behavior. Each group also has a different “theoretical orientation” or view of the problems of humanity.
Because those who work with family abusers often lack experience with sociopaths in other settings they do not know that family abusers are sociopaths.
Where does that leave you, a victim or family member of a disordered, abusive individual?
To spare you the task of sorting through these three distinct ways of looking at the person who created havoc in your life, with the help of The Abusive Personality, I will present here more on the work of Dr. Dutton a psychologist who understand the personality profile of abusers.
First of all, I can say with confidence that individuals who abuse and victimize lovers, friends and family members are personality disordered. As Dr. Dutton points out on page 8 of The Abusive Personality, “Because IPV (intimate partner violence) occurs in a minority of relationships it cannot be explained by social norms. In fact, normative acceptance of IPV is low in North American populations. .. When people act in a chronically dysfunctional manner that violates the norms of their culture, their behavior is attributable to a personality disorder.”
Dr. Dutton makes a compelling argument that the “abusive personality” stems from what is known as borderline personality organization. According to psychoanalyst Otto Kernberg, adult and adolescent patients with antisocial personality possess an underlying borderline personality organization. Attachment theorists also suggests an association between borderline personality disorder and antisocial behavior or even antisocial personality disorder. Dr. Dutton acknowledges that many perpetrators are violent and antisocial outside the family and many appear to completely lack empathy and remorse. All chronic perpetrators have an extreme inability to empathize with their victims and seem to only express remorse as a means of maintaining the relationship. These emotional deficits are considered to be diagnostic of sociopathy.
According to Dr. Dutton, both male and female abusers experience cyclical changes in personality that relate to abuse perpetration. These cycles, have interfered with understanding the personality of abusers. The cycles happen because abusers experience a great deal of negative emotion and they blame this negative emotion on those closest to them. After they “blow off steam” by abusing loved ones, they experience a temporary relief from these negative emotions. During the time they “feel better” they may seem like model spouses and parents.
In my opinion, there are four other characteristics of men and women who perpetrate partner/family abuse that have interfered with our understanding that these abusers are psychopathic and are truly sociopaths. These are:
1. The degree to which they cling to those whom they abuse.
2. Their high level of anxiety and other negative emotions.
3. Lack of abuse of strangers and non-family members.
4. Lack of criminal arrest for other offenses.
I want to address each of these characteristics by asking then answering the related questions people have asked me over the years.
Question #1 Does the fact that my ______________ keeps calling and doesn’t want to lose me mean that deep down he/she really loves me?
Answer#1 NO! Although sociopaths are not capable of love they are very social and most often want to count themselves in as part of a family, extended family and friendship network. If they are alone how will they be able to do what they do best which is abuse and control people? Also if they are alone, how can they use people to get the other things they want. Especially as sociopaths get older and their ability to charm others declines they tend to want to stick with those they have taken advantage of in the past.
Question #2 My poor _________ is just depressed/anxious/angry about being mistreated and abused as a child. Won’t my love and reassurance help him/her get over it?
Answer #2 NO! If your______ has a long standing pattern of abusing you and/or other family members it means something very important so listen. It means he or she equates abuse with being in a relationship, just like you equate love and caring with being in a relationship. Since that is true, your love will only make the person more abusive.
Question#3 My ___________ only abuses me and no one else so it must be my fault. Right?
Answer #3 NO! Your __________ would abuse others if he/she thought he/she could get away with it and will abuse anyone else he/she feels close ties with. An intimate relationship brings out abusive behavior in people who have a borderline personality organization.
Question#4 My _____________ has never been arrested can he/she still be a sociopath?
Answer #4 YES! Antisocial behavior is behavior that hurts other people. When this hurtful behavior is perpetrated by someone who lacks empathy or remorse it reflects psychopathy/sociopathy.
In summary, I recommend that all mental health professionals who work with the victims and family members of sociopaths read Dr. Dutton’s book The Abusive Personality. I also recommend another of Dr. Dutton’s books, The Batterer a Psychological Profile for victims of domestic violence. Order it through Amazon today with these links:
The Abusive Personality
The Batterer a Psychological Profile
Does anyone want me to try to explain what “borderline personality organization” is?
Is there anyone who still has trouble accepting that partner abusers are sociopaths?
Hi. Yes, I am interested in learning what “borderline personality organization is! I was reading and thinking “what did I miss here?” This is a term I am not familiar with. Thank you for taking the time to write this interesting article! I have seen the “blowing off steam” phenomenon, usually followed by why it was the other persons fault it all happened. Questions #1 & 2 certainly ring a bell !!!!!!!!
Isn’t studying sociopathic behavior part of a clinicians or researchers education? Not even a teenie bit?
Dear Dr. Leedom,
If I had any doubts left whether or not my EX was a sociopath, your 4 statements above with the questions and answers certainly solidified my belief that he is one, for 100% sure.
I always have to research for myself before I can “believe.” (I like that aspect of myself actually!.)
And if I haven’t thanked you for writing and publishing, “Women Who Love Psychopaths” let me heartily thank you now. I read it first to validate my own assessment about “why” I was targeted. I am now reading it again to “solidify” former research about the psychology of these “critters” from another planet.
This current article is very timely, well-written, and pertinent. Thanks for writing it.
I forgot to mention my interest in borderline personality “organization” as you asked. I would be interested in learning more about this disorder but not because I am interested in learning more about the causes of my Ex’s disfunction. My interest would be in adding to my “arsenal” of info for educaional purposes of others. Very valuable, I think.
Question: Would the research being done about the cyclical nature of abuse fit the category of our informal description of Dr. Jekyel/Mr. Hyde? It seems to reflect that aspect, doesn’t it?
Dr. Leedom,
Thank you for another terrific article, full of useful information, and so accessible, which is deeply appreciated.
Please talk about borderline personality disorder — I find it confusing and would like to understand.
Best wishes,
Betty
Over here in OZ we have more information on borderline personality disorder than ANY of the other personality disorders or mental illnesses ! Libraries and bookshops and the net are filled with info on it ! It is literally everywhere. I don’t know why that is.
When you give us YOUR explanation of it, could you please make it as straightforward and succinct as possible ? Their are so many differing opinions and views over here!
Thankyou!
I’d like to mention that another word that contributes to victims of sociopaths not being able to recognize them is the word “abuse”. MOST people’s minds interpret abuse as physical abuse. They don’t see the S constant attention needs, cheating, jealousy…all about me…traits as ABUSE. I get it but I have to admit that I kept questioning myself about my ex S because he was never physically abusive towards me although Biddy recently wrote and told me that he threw her to the ground when she tried to leave him awhile back and then threw her belongings in the yard. Trust me, he would HAVE never done that to me in a million years! He knew that my sons would have beaten him to a pulp and he also knew that I had already been in a physically abusive relationship prior to my involvement with him. He told me he would NEVER hit a woman, blah, blah. If he had of gotten physical with me, it would have blown his cover. All of her family lives out of state and they live 1/4 mile up in the mountains with NO nearby neighbors. That’s scary!
Dr. Leedom,
Wow! Reading this article was just one lightbulb moment after another for me! It totally explains why my mother who has never been formally dx’d as borderline but is a textbook example seems to “cycle” so regularly – to the point that in a discussion with a psychiatrist I stated she was likely borderline and he replied “Or bipolar given the cycling.” The comorbid nature of her disordered thinking/personality obscures a diagnosis.
This article also explains something that I have wondered about for a while… in my attempt to make sense of my ex S’s behavior – behavior that I now know makes no “sense’ to the rest of us – I realized that he fits the criteria for BPD, AntisocialPD, NPD… and in hindsight it appears that his behavior just before and during the “Devalue & Discard” (there were mini D&Ds before and after but this was the BIG ONE) was suggestive of Bipolar Disorder. As my therapist pointed out, (regardless of what you actually call him) that combination was the “recipe” for “one of the most disturbed, disordered and abusive people [she has] ever encountered” (by proxy) in her career. And *that* conversation was before I learned about sociopathy! He is an alphabet soup of the DSM -IV!!!
As this article and Dr. Dutton’s work suggests, though, the concept of the “abusive personality” accurately encompasses this multiplicity of personality traits/disorders exhibited by such severely disordered and destructive people. Perhaps a DSM category of Abusive Personality Disorder could end the debate about Sociopathy and AntisocialPD that has inhibited the “system” for too long. The diagnostic criteria would be almost too simplistic:
Multiple co-morbid personality disorders resulting in a history/pattern of exhibited behavior/traits that are abusive and destructive to self and others.
Can we nominate you and Dr. Dutton to the DSM revision committee??!!! The various LF authors could serve as an advisory committee…
Thank you so much for sharing this information with us. I have a mental list of “must read” information that I reccomend to others trying to understand sociopaths and this post will be added to my list of must read information.
Thanks again,
Hecate
For those of you who are interested in learning more about borderline personalitydisorder/borderline personality oranization, I found two books to be especially helpful:
“I Hate You, Don’t Leave Me – Understanding the Borderline Personality” and “Stop Walking On Eggshells – When Someone You Love has Borderline Personality Disorder”
http://www.amazon.com/Hate-You-Dont-Leave-Understanding/dp/0380713055
http://www.amazon.com/Stop-Walking-Eggshells-Borderline-Personality/dp/157224108X/ref=pd_bxgy_b_img_b
They are both really good books for understanding the nature of borderline personality organization. At the same time its been a while since I read “Stop Walking on Eggshells” so I feel that I need to give a disclaimer: the book gives suggestions for how to “deal with” the borderlines in your life, which are helpful when setting boundaries with borderlines (like a parent or boss) who are toxic and emotionally draining… however I don’t recall the book being explicit about “dealing” with dangerous, abusive, malignant people by the most effective means which is going NO CONTACT. It might have done so but it’s been a while since I read it… and truthfully the place I have found to be most informative about the value of going no contact is LF!
Liane, this ONE ARTICLE clarifies more than the entire rest of the stuff on LF—and that is going a long way!!!!!!! thank you so much, so VERY much.