LoveFraud reader buzzibee raises some important issues in a recent comment.
How does a tested and proven psychopath usually respond to being told “You have a mental disorder. You are characteristically a psychopath”?
Are [they] so arrogant to dispute a medical diagnosis that they have a mental disorder? Do they display any desire to learn more about the disorder and at any point admit to it?
In order to be diagnosed as a psychopath, a person needs a score of 30 out of a possible 40 on the Psychotherapy Checklist-Revised test (PCL-R). This is a very time-consuming test which only trained personnel can administer, so by and large only prisoners and research subjects are likely to have it.
Psychopaths don’t see themselves as having a problem and so wouldn’t present themselves for testing anyway. Unless they thought they might benefit from the diagnosis in some way. So that’s point number one: psychopaths are unlikely to receive the diagnosis unless they are incarcerated, and probably not even then.
Point number two is that those who do get the diagnosis respond like psychopaths; in other words they use it as yet another tool to manipulate others. Here’s a quote from a December, 13 ‘Nature’ article on research scanning the brains of psychopaths in order to better understand empathy:
All the subjects seem to find the experiment to be nonsense. “It was stupid, boring,” says inmate Willem Boerema (not his real name), who claims to have taken part only because he likes Meffert [the young female researcher]. Then, contradicting himself, he adds that “if they say the study can help people then it’s good”.
Boerema, smart, articulate and multilingual, has a PCL-R rating of 35 and a big problem with the term ‘psychopath’. He views it as a fashionable label abused by the judicial system to keep people like himself from being released. “The courts look at your PCL-R rating and add two years to your sentence, then another two years, and then another.”
When he entered the prison five years ago, Boerema says, ‘borderline personality’ was the fashionable term, and his designated pigeon-hole. “The psychopathy label is more damaging though it prompts everyone to see you as a potential serial killer, which I could never be.” (Note, in reporting this article it was agreed that inmates’ crimes would be neither asked about nor reported on.) But Boerema also wears the score as a badge of honour: “I think my high psychopath score is a talent, not a sickness I can make good strong decisions, and it’s good to have some distance with people.”
I’m reminded of Freud’s comments on the following “piece of sophistry”:
A. borrowed a copper kettle from B. and after he had returned it was sued by B. because the kettle now had a big hole in it which made it unusable. His defence was: “First, I never borrowed a kettle from B. at all; secondly, the kettle had a hole in it already when I got it from him; and thirdly, I gave him back the kettle undamaged”….We might…say: “A. has put an ‘and’ where only “either-or” is possible.”
‘Boerema’s litany is classic. It’s ‘nonsense’, ‘stupid’, ‘boring’. I’m going along because I like the doctor, I want to help people. It’s ‘fashionable’, ‘damaging’, labeling, used as an excuse to keep him in prison. It’s a badge of honour, a talent. It’s not a sickness… In short, there is no such thing as psychopathy, but to the extent that it’s true, it’s a good thing.
Just two other uses to which the diagnosis might be put are: as a threat, and to elicit pity.
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There’s never anything wrong with the psychopath. This is perhaps the main reason why therapy doesn’t work with them – they have no motivation to change. But that’s a topic for another day!
Thanks for that link. That’s a very good (if emotional) description of narcissists.
But I saw this:
**””In fact, all psychopaths are malignant narcissists, but whether all malignant narcissists are psychopaths is still being debated.””**
I’ll believe that most or all sociopaths have many or all narcissistic traits.
However, I know that not all people with Narcissistic Personality Disorder are sociopaths. It just doesn’t make sense.
The reason being is that to be like the described Narcissist, you would have to have really intense feelings underneath in order to have those motivations described. For example, they use people for emotional sustenance of a type (popularly called narcissistic supply).
Sociopaths have no such feeling-motivation. The problem with sociopaths is that they don’t have those higher emotions.
That’s why a sociopath has no qualms at all about trying to get pity from people, to get people to feel sorry for them to get what they want, and they use it all the time. And most of their motivation is based on material desires.
Narcissists usually do not use the pity ploy, they wouldn’t want to be seen as weak in that way, their pride just won’t allow it.
But otherwise, as far as the effects of dealing with one, I really believe narcissists are just as uncaring toward other people, just as likely to behave immorally, just as likely to take advantage of someone, can be just as abusively destructive, and are just as hopeless as far as them ever changing their ways.
The differences seem to me to be that narcissists won’t generally use the pity ploy, they’re not always after money or the material, and they’re far less likely to wind up in jail – though not necessarily less likely to commit crimes.
But they’re con artists just the same, just pretending to be like the rest of us so they can get what they want.
I totally agree. I am still somewhat perplexed by all the facets of these people. They adapt to whatever situation they are in. They can be poor or rich, happy, sad, etc. It’s become kind of interesting to me to just see how they will react and who they are today. The ones I’ve dealt with have a combination of all the traits. I’m someone who has a reason for everything I do. If someone were to ask me why I did something, I could respond. But with the ones in my life, nothing made sense, because there was a different excuse for each happening. I don’t know how they keep up with themselves.
I question the simplest answers because most of the time it could be a lie or a half truth. It’s so difficult to converse. Most of my family and friends will answer a question immediately. The one in question in my life hesitates before he answers anything. Like he had to think of a suitable answer or wants to say something that will be profound. I use to think it had to be me. Until I got out working and was around a variety of people and they actually like me. They keep coming back just for the heck of it. That’s when I began the comparison. I couldn’t help it. That’s when I saw the flaws and became really upset at them for blaming me for their deficiency. I keep saying, all these years. All this time, I could have had my head back on straight, instead of waiting for them to get it. They just won’t get it and it really has nothing to do with them being a man vs woman. They just don’t get it.
I see a life that is filled with disarray. I like order in my life and that’s why we just couldn’t agree. It had nothing to do with man/woman. It really was personality and the disorder that followed. I guess there would be no way to find the tie that binds, because there isn’t one. The only thing I saw that was consistent with them was their inconsistency. I’m so glad I journaled through all that. I very seldom look back, and if I do, it’s just to see how far I’ve come and I’m not there anymore. I’m becoming freer of my past and it sure is a good feeling. God’s word says, forgetting the past, I press on towards the mark…That’s what I want for me. We none of us know the end, but we can walk in freedom as a result to coming to terms with this disordered relationship. I know for me, I’m much calmer in my demeanor and know I’m not at the mercy of this person who didn’t think I was worth much, except to toy with. I like the sound of no. It is okay to say it. We are to say no to drugs and such. We can say that to someone who doesn’t have our best interests at heart.
I overlooked this blog entry, I shall do my best to respond. Italicized text represents quoted text, for ease of reading.
The thing is, you say “I don’t mean this to sound ominous or cold” – so you must have some idea that it does indeed sound ominous & cold. But do you not feel the deep aversion when someone refers to another human being as “valuable” or being “more or less valuable”? It has a sharply negative emotional connotation that I would’ve thought obvious.
Well, yes. Of course I understand that phrasing it that way has negative emotional connotations. I’ve been around long enough to understand that. However, it’s the most accurate way for me to describe how I consider these concepts. Does that make sense?
Oooh, foul. I’ve seen men operate this way too. I don’t think either gender has a monopoly on this.
Ok, fair enough. I haven’t witnessed or paid attention to the men who have done this.
For example, some people value “not being single” so highly they’re willing to cling to a horrid unhappy relationship out of fear of being single for any length of time, because they really feel that’s an even less happy state to be in. And this isn’t so crazy really. Society has always put significant pressure on people to couple.
This isn’t so crazy? And people call me crazy… The threat of misery is so great that they much clutch the real thing so fiercely?
There has been people in my life who have endured ridiculous abuses, OBVIOUS and overt abuses, and when that abuse is threatened they cling desperately to it, with excuses that “I don’t understand the whole story” or they make some other ridiculous excuse for their addiction. They confess for someone else’s sins. It’s all because they are “in love”. I’ve seen so much misery in the name of love I count it up there with religion in terms of the amount of human suffering it’s caused.
I’m the least of the worlds problems. People need to have some self respect.
I wouldn’t count on your self-diagnosis of being “cured.” Your blog suggests otherwise.
Tongue-in-cheek. Proclaiming myself as cured is about as ridiculous as someone self diagnosing any host of mental illnesses.
It appears from your writing that your wife will be your next victim. I was initially saddened for her but not so, now. By orchestrating your divorce, you’ll actually be doing her a favor in the long run. I hope you’ll tell her about this site when you do. She sounds like a lovely woman, like one of us.
Nonsense. People get divorced all the time for a host of reasons other than their husband/wife happen to be sociopaths. My wife would never end up on this website and if she did, she’d count herself lucky to have never ran into a sociopath. She won’t ever consider herself a victim.
I can’t think of a single woman I’ve been involved with that has ever considered themselves victimized by me. Even the few who caught me cheating – they just think I’m a jerk. One of them I still talk to today. We’re “Friends”.
There was probably more I could comment on but it’s late.
SecretMonster
While I have to reluctantly agree with you, SecretMonster, about the fact that we all need to have far more self-respect than we do and the notion that more stupidity and wrong is committed in the name of love than possibly religion, I have to say that one of your statements really smacks of the characteristic arrogance one has come to expect from a sociopath:
“”I can’t think of a single woman I’ve been involved with that has ever considered themselves victimized by me. Even the few who caught me cheating – they just think I’m a jerk. One of them I still talk to today. We’re “Friends”. “”
I’d be willing to bet that more of them feel victimized than you realize. Women like me tend to get ourselves in over our heads and sublimate our own feelings so thoroughly in the interest of taking care of yours that we don’t realize what’s happened until it’s all over with. That’s how we get sucked into relationships like this to begin with. We forget to take care of ourselves at all because your sort has us thinking you’ll do that part, but it just isn’t true. It can take months or even years for the anger to surface after a relationship like this. I even tried so hard to stay “friends” with my former sociopathic lover that I even found myself giving friendly advice to subsequent girlfriends because I genuinely wanted to see the son of a bitch happy! What you’ve had are the willing victims your sort seeks out. You still manage to think you’re doing them a favor by gracing them with your charm and presence even though you’re emotionally breaking them down without any remorse at all. Look at what you’re doing to your wife. And you’re evening rationalizing the behavior by saying she’ll never know what happened to her because you’re some sort of gentleman sociopath. And here I thought you were trying to be honest with us and with yourself. I’m not sure you’re capable.
Go you, notquitebroken,
How can he(secretmonster) or anyone else justify cheating on someone and cheating them out of an honest relationship, and just call themselves jerk? Now that there is a check list and the ones who do what they do can be labeled, they are more than a jerk. There is no justification in someone duping another, just because that person responds to you, probably because you fed her all the typical lines generated by your kind, and you get these women to fall in love with you, only so you can take full advantage of them. You are like Satan, on the prowl, seeking someone to devour. It’s one thing to pursue, but another altogether different matter to prey. When you set out with the only intention of using someone for your pleasure, and they are innocent of your deceit, it will rest on you, totally.
Obviously from your comments and your cavalier attitude, your heart must be full of guile to want to do this to another. You really don’t deserve love if all you want to do is see how far you can get, until you become so bored, and you go on the prowl again. Maybe once these women of yours, secretmonster, start seeing you in the right light, they will label you just like the rest of society will. You make light of what you do to another. That’s sadistic and cruel. It would be one thing if you were evenly matched with another “jerk”, then you have an even playing field, but when you just use the love and innocence of someone who wants to love you and be with you, to provide entertainment for your sick mind, you have a problem. You are more than a jerk.
But I don’t even want to waste words on someone like yourself. I’m sure you get off on setting someone on your case. Time is wasted on the likes of you, when you see no value in another human being, other than sport. You’re actually cheating yourself out of a real life. But I forgot. You don’t know what real is.
Gentleman sociopath! That’s rich.
And yes, I’m actually trying to be honest and no, I’m not sure I’m capable. Which is a little more than disturbing. I’ve always demanded, at the very least, honesty with myself. Know where my motives come from, know my own agendas.
Maybe you’re right, I don’t know. I just read stories like the ones you all share about how their anger overwhelmed you, or they ruined your credit, or took you for everything you had, or emotionally/physically abused you – all sorts of torturous things. When I take a look back at my life, and with exception of my younger years, I can’t see how I’ve done any of that.
Do relationships end naturally or for normal reasons or is it your position that if a relationship goes south, clearly one of them is a sociopath? Are all men/women who cheat on their loved ones sociopaths?
I’m just trying to figure this out. Remember my overriding agenda throughout my life has and is to remain hidden.
apt/mgr: Yes, I’m more than a jerk. You know that, I know that, but do the people in my life know that? That’s sort of the point. And when you say “Take full advantage of them” what do you mean? Specifically.
You may be surprised at how well I handle negative emotion. Don’t assume so quickly – You’re talking to a person who’s lived decades with a diagnosis that means if that ever comes out into the light, I get ostracized from every social group and person in my life. Just like you, I don’t want to be alone. Just for different reasons.
So with that said, everyone has condemned me but no one has offered an alternative. What am I supposed to do? Seriously?
SecretMonster
ummm…get help?
Hasnt it alot to do with personal perception and intention and personal integrity. There are different ways of intepreting these qualities. If we cultivate these qualities from the weak ego self, then our intention will be self interest and then some of the outcomes from our actions will be from a lower denominator and will be in the short term self fulfilling for one and disruptive to the other. In the longer term, there will be no long term foundational quality to life for the instigator, because the results of these actions are not coming from a unity consciousness.
ummm”get help?
What I am is a result of years of therapy. Who knows what I would have been if I hadn’t of received it. I was exceedingly violent. A serial killer? Never know.
Beverly: Some of the vernacular you’re using is a bit over my head. Also, you’re assuming the long term foundational quality to life is the same thing for you and I. I think that’s an inaccurate assumption. What makes you ultimately happy with life is very different from what I need out of life.
And I think that’s where there is a big disconnect. How can you identify with someone who doesn’t ultimately want the same thing out of life that you do? Something that’s so fundamentally human and hard wired into almost everyone. Almost.
SecretMonster
apt/mgr: I have thought much along the same lines. I’ve had those thoughts about how many times, there are people who seem to have no reason for something they do, at least no rational reason, or probably more accurate to say they had no reason they could comfortably tell other people! If someone has a sinister reason for something they’ve done, they usually won’t give the real reason, that’s for sure!
And you’re right, I no longer believe too much in that “mars / venus” bullcrap to explain the inconsiderate actions of the opposite sex. The fact is, inconsiderate behaviour is inconsiderate behaviour. Both genders have their guilty parties who can’t carry on a healthy normal human interaction, and both genders have their respectable members capable of communicating with each other, and getting along with each other, fairly successfully on a regular basis.
Most normal, healthy, people want a fairly ordered life that runs smoothly & sensibly as often as possible. I used to be tempted to buy into the “I’m spontaneous & you’re too rigid” nonsense that people would throw at me, to explain their inconsiderate unconsciencious behaviour. No longer. It’s one thing to make a mistake once in awhile, or do something on the spur of the moment occasionally, or forget something here or there… But someone who habitually finds it difficult to stick to a plan or respect someone else has larger problems than “free spirit ism” or whatever!
As for secretmonster’s posts… It’s possible he’s hell bent on blaming the victim for the behaviour of perpetrators. If that’s the case, there will be no talking sense to someone in that mindset. For someone who places the full shoulder of blame on a victim is someone who has an underdeveloped concept of personal responsibility.
That said, I have some time, and the topic is interesting, and may be of some interest to someone.
Secretmonster: What should you do in order to have the company of others?
The answer is bloody simple and I should’ve thought very obvious.
Follow some moral rules. If you know about them, you can FOLLOW them.
That alternative you’re asking for is so clear a blind man could see it with a cane.
If you can’t, it’s because you don’t want to, and you’re just looking for someone to feel sorry for you & let you get away with whatever wrong behaviour you happen to want to get away with.
And you won’t find that sort of blindness here, of all places!
If you don’t want to choose right over wrong, then don’t expect decent people to cut you slack & want you around. Simple as that.
I think that applies to everyone. If you’re unwilling to operate decently and rationally, you’re just going to wind up, best case scenario, having no choice but to associate with other dysfunctional people. And even they probably won’t put up with it for very long.
I’m certainly not going to feel sorry for someone who just doesn’t see the value in playing by the rules, and so doesn’t. I’m certainly not going to feel bad for someone who knows right from wrong, and chooses to do wrong.
If someone wants pity for that, that’s so preposterous it’s laughable.
The way this thread has gone on reminds me of some of the comments posted on Amazon.com in reference to the book “The Sociopath Next Door”, criticizing the book for “targeting” sociopaths and dehumanizing them.
I was dumbfounded by those (para)moralizing reviews, and had to laugh at the incredulity of it – because I think sociopaths don’t need any help from Martha Stout, or anyone else, for that. Sociopaths do a fine job on their own seperating themselves from humane humanity.
But a split second later, the lesson of the book itself was clear.
Again with the seeking pity!
The sociopath’s favourite & best ploy.
Like how dare you try to protect yourself from poor me! How could you be so nasty as to object to my wrongs!
doh!
Another fine example of turning the tables on their own wrong actions, and making themselves the victims, even in their own wrong actions.
If there are sociopaths who obey the laws, and follow the moral rules of society and human relationships, nobody would notice them as the sociopaths described in that book, or here on this web site. Nobody would wish to jail, them, ostracize them, or even criticize them if there was no reason to avoid them, no reason to criticize.
Hello – Logic.
They could probably get along with the rest of humanity quite easily if they put their effort into using the same play book as the rest of us.
If they refuse to follow those rules & laws, or find themselves unable to want to, it’s absolutely preposterous to assert that anyone should be obliged to put up with it!
That’s like saying you shouldn’t fight off a crazed attacker simply because the crazed attacker is crazy.
Utter nonsense and completely illogical.
I’m going to defend myself, it’s as simple as that.
Even in the most dry sense of the law, if someone is found not guilty by reason of insanity, that doesn’t mean society gives them a free pass to break the law with impunity, and everyone would consider it OK.
And in the case of a sociopath, all evidence shows that sociopaths DO know the difference between right & wrong, and therefore CAN decide between right & wrong. Which makes the idea of a free pass all the more strikingly ridiculous.
The alternative. Simple! CUT THE CRAP and start behaving like a decent person instead of “a jerk.”
If you want to cheat, if you want to behave inconsiderately, if you want to break the law, if you want to use or abuse people, if you want to play con games, if you want to take & not give…
Then accept the fact that there are consequences to that. Accept that you will be judged, ostracized, criticized, or even institutionalized or jailed, by the majority of decent society on the planet.
You either behave correctly and reap some benefits, or you behave incorrectly and suffer some consequences.
There’s no magical Door Number 3 decent moral healthy people are going to show you to.
You can’t stick a round peg into square hole & make it fit. That’s a lesson most people learn as toddlers, but some fail to apply the lesson broadly enough later in life.
But it’s never too late for any of us to learn & apply.