When is history predictive of future behavior? Who can change? Who will change? Can sociopaths change? What is meaningful versus unmeaningful change?
I would argue that history is most predictive of future behavior when the mindset of the individual—especially the motivational mindset of the individual—remains static. By this I mean that short of a radicalized mindset, one can assume that the individual’s historical behaviors and attitudes will not change, at least not meaningfully.
So motivation goes directly to the question who is likely, or unlikely, to make changes in historical behavior patterns. One must ask, what is the individual’s motivation to change previous behavior?
This isn’t always easy to answer for several reasons—one, we can disguise our motives; also, we can want to believe that someone’s stated motive is their true motive, when it isn’t (sometimes against our better judgement). Plus, as change-intenders, we can also deceive ourselves about our own motives, further complicating the task of ascertaining the true motive(s) behind an intended change.
In the case of the sociopath, we can be quite sure of this: His motives will be self-serving (which alone isn’t necessarily a fatal problem). What makes the problem “fatal” is that the sociopath’s motives will be exclusively self-serving. Sure, he may be motivated to please you, but it will be, exclusively, to benefit himself (from his pleasing you).
This means the sociopath won’t be looking genuinely to benefit you with his change, but rather, principally (if not entirely) himself.
And so sociopaths, if motivated enough, can make changes. But one can’t stress enough that their motives to change will be shallow. Now it may not look like this on the surface—that is, a slick sociopath can seem to want to change with convincing, genuine intent. But eventually, often much too late for his partner, the underlying, dominating self-centeredness of his agenda will surface.
This is a fancy way of reminding ourselves that the sociopath is manifestly out for himself; thus any changes he endeavors will be pursued with the aim to protect and advance his interests, his gratifications; not yours.
Let’s consider the case of the abusive personality—more specifically, someone with a significant history as a serial emotional, if not physical, abuser. Can this individual change? And, if so, under what circumstances?
If he’s a sociopath, we have our answer—no. The sociopathic abuser is a flat-out hopeless case; he will never stop his abuse in a permanent, reliable way. The reason why is that he’s lacking an essential motivation: to want, genuinely, to cease his role as a cause of his partner’s suffering.
In the sociopath’s case, he lacks this motivation permanently because, basically, he lacks love and empathy for his partner. This is the sociopath’s essential defect—his incapacity to love and empathize maturely. He is primitively, functionally deficient in this respect. Consequently, he has no intrinsic incentives to sacrifice himself meaningfully (including to make meaningful changes), especially in the long-term, for others.
Can the sociopath cease his abuse temporarily? Yes, if the short-term incentives are strong enough. The sociopathic abuser can sometimes suspend his abuse just long enough to recapture what he wants (like renewed sexual attentions), or just long enough to avoid losing what he’s unprepared to lose (like a doting partner who makes his life convenient in many ways).
But bear in mind the shelf-life for his changes will be temporary; also, i think it bears repeating, these changes will be driven to improve his, not your, sense of security and comfort.
Conversely, where you have an abusive individual who is capable of feeling love and empathy for his partner, it is possible that he may reach a point of recognition that he no longer wants to be a cause, through his abuse, of his partner’s suffering. This is where the kernel of hope lies and where the work begins–from the recognition that one can no longer justify, or rationalize, being a source of suffering to another. However this requires a capacity to empathize; and where one feels love, as well as empathy, for one’s victims, then one has a chance to begin to work through one’s abusiveness.
Unfortunately chronic abusiveness is often associated with, and supported by, a highly narcissistic mindset, in which capacities for mature love and empathy are limited. This explains why it is often very difficult to treat successfully chronic relationship abusers.
(This article is copyrighted © 2010 by Steve Becker, LCSW. My use of male gender pronouns is strictly for convenience’s sake and not to suggest that females aren’t capable of the attitudes and behaviors discussed.)
“SINCE I GOT OUT OF PRISON”
That is the tell-tale tip off Whyme! Past behavior is indicative of future behavior, I have come to realize (far too late!) that there is an EX-con is as RARE AS HEN’s TEETH, they are for the post part ALL CONs and never EXs.
Yea, it is “your fault’ —NOT! Now don’t make me hit ya wid da skillet Whyme, it is NOT YOUR FAULT. It is not my fault. It is the fault of the person who LIED. But, now we have learned and we WILL quit blaming ourselves (or, *wink* YOU KNOW WHAT WILL HAPPEN!!! KER POW!!!) ((((HUGS)))))
You know “marriage” to these guys is to “winning” like an “all expense paid HIKING trip to Northern Iraq.” (with a FREE “private room” in the Iranian Police “hotel” for the next year or so!)
ROTFLMAO
Why Me,
I also have felt recently that I would quit all this reading on Narc/Socip because I was starting to get bummed out but I realized that just hearing what others have been through has been very enlightening for me.
Since I have not been in a long term relationship with a spath for a really long time (my ex husband was more Bi-polar and Narc than anything) but just had a recent encounter with one I was seeing, I began to think that maybe I don’t qualify to be on here.
Maybe I am just wasting mine and everyone else’s time posting my thoughts. I hated my ex-so I could not feel I was in love with him. He had physically hurt my little son and for that I could never feel “love” for him anymore so I’m not hurting as some of you are.
But since I found LF I have made a time line of all the men I have been involved with and wow, I was able to pinpoint MOST of them as spaths/narcs in some fashion or another. What that tells me is that I am a prime target and for THAT REASON alone I need to stay on here if not commenting just reading and reading! I am an empathetic sap who attracts them wherever I go .
I have had the thought that maybe the dark side of the universe was about to send me that one spath that could tailspin me into the hell I am reading on this site. One person even warned me that what my “friend” was doing to me is “a roller coaster ride from hell”. One that she had experienced first hand.
Believe me that post stayed with me especially when I was wondering what was wrong with my friend. I knew something was off but could not pinpoint it. The posts on here did that for me.
I am SO THANKFUL that I have kept coming here or else the guy I recently broke with could be that very devil that I have been spared from. I am still very physically attracted to him in spite of all the junk so I will stay put here to make sure I don’t cave. Our minds can be so vulnerable and these people know just how to mess with us.
God Bless!
p.s.
I have just started reading ‘The Gaslight Effect” by Dr. Robin Stern and I have just finished “The Sociopath Next Door” by Martha Stout. I got them at the library. I do encourage you to read them especially the one on gaslighting. I am trying to understand it also.
To Frank Lee
I believe I know of two female sociopaths. They both enjoy parasitic life style. They maintain their extravagant lifestyle on your dime. They both seem narcissistic, they have no concern for anyone but themselves. They get hostile and abusive if their plan fails. OR if anyone ‘catches’ them.
I think that female sociopaths fly under the radar because they usually use their female friends. Men are just an extra bonus.
Of course there are the polished female sociopaths who get men for every dime they got. I think those instances usually make the news.
Adamsrib,
KNOWLEDGE=POWER. We start out learning about THEM and what they are….but we end up learning about OURSELVES and why we become prey for them.
WE can and must become stronger and wiser, they will never become wiser or better.
I am here after more than 3 years because I learn more about ME every day here.
Every post I post to others reaffirms my own healing and my own need to protect myself so that I will never become a victim again.
I sat down a year or so ago and made a list of every person I knew who was HIGH IN PSYCHOPATHIC TRAITS–the number was over 50.
You might say “how on earth?” But think about it….my P sperm donor qualified as a TOTAL PSYCHOPATH, including murder and physical, financial and emotional abuse of every woman he was ever with or around and most business associations and I know for a fact, he killed at least 2 people, maybe more.
My P-son, has killed one girl for which he is in prison, tried to kill me by proxy by sending one of his ex cell mates to do it.
I’ve had a BF that was a P, no doubt about it at all. He burned his X-GFs house because she dumped him, he cheated on his wife for 32 years.
I worked with a Female P who destroyed a 120 bed hospital completely, and ended up bankrupting it from her position of power.
I had a business partner who cost my husband and me a fortune, and ended up with a long list of psychopathic abuses of women, business partners, neighbors etc.
etc etc. no sense in me naming them all. They might not score all that high on the PCL-R but they sure scored in the TRAITS that make a person EVIL, lacking empathy, and willing to hurt others for the sheer sport, for financial gain, power, control, etc.
While it take a score of 30 on the PCL-R to be “labeled” a psychopath, how about those with 20, 22, etc. points? ARe those people you want to do business with? How about the guy with 15? Are you safe with such a person? Will they treat others well?
While we “label” our Xes here as “psychopathic” they are not all a 30 on the PCL-R but it doesn’t mean they are not TOXIC or mean or hateful, or jerks, or people we want to have a relationship with….but we are not psychological researchers, or medical practitioners, or testifying in court….we are just looking at the TOXIC and DESTRUCTIVE things these people have done. What difference does it make what we call them? They are EVIL!
That is all we need to know to qualify for being here! To qualify for needing some sense in this chaos and insanity and to learn the manuvers that TOXIC people do to lure us into their webs of deceit.
There are several “kinds” of PERSONALITY DISORDERED people, not just psychopath, and heck even the experts can’t agree on a name for them all or where they OVERLAP. So what we call them just doesn’t matter to me at least. We are learning what we need to know to protect us from predators.
Keep on reading and learning. Believe me I have a library of books on personality disordered people and I am learning and learning and learning more each day…and healing. It is a JOURNEY not a destination. Hopefully I will learn and grow until the day I die!
Today is a tough day for me, working on the final final version of the stuff I go to the parole board with about my P-son and pray to God that he never gets out of prison! If he does, I will have to relocate and I don’t want to, but I will do what it takes to preserve myself. Caution. But not terror!~ Right now, though, I am feeling high anxiety, but working on controlling it. Some days even now it is tough, but I couldn’t do it at all if I hadn’t learned what I have learned HERE and in the books and articles I have read. If I hadn’t put a lot of effort into growing! Realizing how I allowed so much of the abuse. But now I will not! I am going to survive this! We all can!
Oxy,
I will light a candle for you and will pray for your situation, safety etc.
You are an amazingly astute person. You WILL come out of this. I have no doubt.
HANG IN THERE and TOWANDA, GURL!!!!!
Adamsrib, Thanks and I WILL survive, it is still amazing to me sometimes just how antsy I get when something like this that I must do…makes me realize I still have a way to go and have to KEEP ON THE ROAD and not let myself get side tracked or get to feeling that I can be complacent. I have to work on the healing just like an alcoholic has to work on it one day at a time.
Sometimes one minute at a time! No matter how strong we think we are or how far we have come, we must not let our guard down or think that we are “100% safe”—we are human, and humans can be vulnerable. But that doesn’t mean we are push overs. I’m not, and I won’t allow myself to become one either!
TOWANDA!!!
Okay, Oxy,
I knew I needed to be ducking the skillet when I said that about claiming the blame! Don’t hit me wid it!
My therapist & FNP have decided that I needed to double my Wellbutrin dose to 200mg, so that I can get my seratonin/synapses/personal chemistry leveled out enough to rise above the depression. I can’t seem to get out of the depression & despair, so my thots don’t move forward—>they just stay stuck in re-living, re-living, re-living the last 8 yrs, trying to *figure it all out.*
[I Know, Oxy! DON’T whack me!]
I’ve at least been able to create an inner voice that tells me, “STOP! It’s over it’s done it’s finished it’s gone & he’s gone & there’s Nothing about the past you need to try to *figure out*, so Hush up with it!”
I know I need to figure out the present, so I can start thinking about my future….but thinking about the present just depresses me further & even 1 tiny thot about the future drops me to despair & then catapults me into anxiety attacks! If I can just start doing the present with an eye toward an Attitude of Gratitude, & know that Joy will return after that…..
When I say “I just can’t do it,” (life) my therapist & pastor & my son all tell me “But you’re doing it now..every day you’re Doing It….just be patient with yourself & realize you’re taking as many steps forward as you can every day.”
My friend the geriatric counselor described the path out of grief & depression like this: “If you’re driving down a mountain, you can’t drive straight down….you have to take switch-backs or you’ll fall ass over tea kettle….sometimes you have to go sideways….but with every switch-back you’re getting closer to your goal.” I think that’s what all of us who are moving toward healing experience……feeling that you’re not getting where you want to go….but it just takes patience & awareness to drive safely off the mountain & out to a horizon of wholeness….
I have questions.
Oxy,
your list of psychopathic people in your life is stunning. I totally believe it. But what’s your best theory about how alla that happened to you, other than being empathetic? Do you attribute it to a past-life karmic thing? I know I’ve seen your previous posts about why you think that’s happened to you, but I can’t remember what you said….& this is the 1st time I’ve seen you list it as clearly as you did today.
Also, Oxy,
what’s the PCL-R? And how do you access it? (so you can determine the psychopathic traits score.) I’ve seen a couple of fairly short tests online, but didn’t trust them as being comprehensive.
Next question. One I asked in my earlier post.
“I have to admit that I hadn’t quite understood what “gaslighting” is”..but after what I read above, it seems to be when they turn it back on you—-to make it all your fault, to make you feel that there’s something wrong with you. Is that right?
If so, then are these [see my post at 2:45 today] examples of gaslighting?”
adamsrib,
I’ve read The Sociopath Next Door. My therapist recommended it for me shortly after we found out about J’s *other life*. I’ll check into The Gaslight Effect. Thanks!
Last question:
WTH is a TOWANDA?
Dear Whyme,
1) TOWANDA is the “battle cry” from Friend Green Tomatoes when what’s her face rammed her car into the one that deliberately cut her off from a parking place! We adopted it here on LF a year or so ago.
2) No, I don’t believe I earned this by past life screw ups though I know others do, but I do believe in a higher power who controls the universe and offers us a chance to learn lessons. I kept on FLUNKING the lessons so had to REPEAT THE CLASSES! LOL
Seriously, I grew up in a moderately dysfunctional family, with an enabling mind set for the women and some of the men out and out psychopaths and abusers. So I didn’t realize I could set boundaries and make them stick, or that my opinion mattered or that I was important…I kept on trying ot please my egg donor, but to no avail. Never dawned on me she really didn’t even like me, must less love me, she “was my mother after all.”
But I kept thinking that I had to keep everyone “in the family–which included close friends—happy” and that was my DUTY…no matter what they did to me, I couldn’t stand up and say NO MORE!
So when I did come up against a psychopath, many times I tried to PLACATE THEM and you cannot successfully do that—no one can. If you “give’em an inch, they take a mile.”
So it has been a long hard road of game playing on my part and theirs, with me convincing myself I could “fix” them if I just loved them enough. WRONG!!!!! Didn’t matter if it was my egg donor, or my P son, or my P sperm donor, or the BF-P I had after my husband died.
I EXCUSED all the bad behavior, the disloyalty, the meanness the lies, on their part, in the meantime letting them pound me on the head with a HUGE IRON SKILLET for me not being “perfect.” DUH? What is WRONG WITH THIS PICTURE? I’m the one doing the “nice things” and they are the lying stealing sacks of carp, and I am the BAD GUY?
Nah, I am starting to see the light!
GASLIGHTING is a term taken from an old movie by that name where a man wants to drive his wife crazy and convince her and everyone else she is crazy so he can get her fortune. It is TWISTING reality so black is white and white is black, up is down, and cold is hot. There is also a book about it. GREAT concepts and helped me to see (and others have said them too) how we were FOOLED and GASLIGHTED.
You are coming along, Why me, I can tell by your posts that you seem stronger and starting to point your feet in the right direction on the road to healing! You will get there, and I am glad you found this place! I think it is has been my salvation. (((Hugs))))