Two weeks ago I started a series on the treatment of sociopathy/psychopathy. That series was interrupted by the need to discuss the case of the con man who kidnapped his daughter. Now it looks like he also may be implicated in the disappearance of a California couple. The con man, like many in his profession has had a number of different identities. Before I go back to talking about treatment, I want to discuss con artists and the nature of sociopathy/psychopathy again.
Donna and I had the good fortune to speak with Dr. Robert Hare this week. I wanted to talk with him about the fact that there is not much in the scientific literature linking psychopathy to con artistry. In that conversation, he said something very profound that deserves repeating. Since I can’t quote him exactly, I’ll give you the gist of it.
According to Dr. Hare, people saw the movie A Beautiful Mind and they “got it” about schizophrenia. People saw the movie Rain Man and they “got it” about Autism. Thousands of movies have been made about psychopaths/sociopaths and people still don’t “get it.”
We did not go into a detailed analysis of why people don’t “get it” about sociopaths/psychopaths but I will here because until you “get it” about the disorder, you cannot “get it” about treatment for the disorder.
This week I received a letter from a woman who is struggling to “get it.” We receive at least one letter a week that reads like that woman’s so she is not alone. The letter reads something like, “The father of my child is in Jail for assault. He is a pathological liar so I can’t believe anything he says. He also has cheated on me repeatedly. He has conned me out of all my money and now I have to declare bankruptcy. I don’t think he is a sociopath because he has remorse. Is there any hope for him and for us?”
Now if you read these letters as an outsider you get it! But the people who write them are really struggling with what they themselves are saying. They are struggling to make sense out of two conflicting points of view. The first point of view is that there is “good in all people” and that all people need a “family to love.” Just like the many people who say the con man from last week who goes by the alias Rockefeller, “loved” his daughter. People saw him caring for his daughter and assumed love motives. They interacted with him and he was charming and funny. One lady said “He had a lot to offer as a person.” People think that when they interact with someone who is “charming” and “caring” and they then like or feel affection toward the person, the charmer feels likewise. Sadly this is not always the case.
The second point of view is that there are some people who lack love motivation completely or are severely deficient in it. The psychological consequence of not having love motivation is not known by many people. If you understand what happens when love motivation is missing or lacking, you will “get it” about sociopaths/psychopaths. When love motivation is lacking, a person does not stop wanting to be around people! Everyone thinks that just because an individual wants to be around people and seems to enjoy affection, the wanting proves that person is a loving human being. People think that all unloving individuals just want to be alone. That assumption is wrong and is deadly.
In most cases, when love motivation is lacking or missing, the person retains his/her desire for social contact. Since love motivation is not at the root of social desire, something else is. When love motivation is lacking, power or dominance motivation takes its place. Also remember that sexual motivation keeps people social as well.
When con artists take care of people, it is about power motivation. When con artists go to parties and meet people, hob knobbing with the rich and famous, it is about power motivation. When con artists steal $250,000 only to squander the entire sum in 6 months, the theft wasn’t about money it was about the power of the get over.
So, if you look at the situation with the preconceived notion that all people are motivated by the same human motives you can’t possibly “get it.” I challenge you today give up on your preconceived notions about human motivation. Instead come to understand that there are three human social motives, love, power and sex. Thankfully, 90 percent of everybody has a personality organized primarily around love motivation.
The problem is that a sizable percentage of people (perhaps 10-15 per cent) have a personality that is organized around gratifying their need for power rather than their need for love. These people are not loners! They are even more social than loving humans. If you are motivated by the need for love and intimacy, your need can be satisfied by one spouse, other family members and a few friends. If you are motivated primarily by the need for power, then you won’t be satisfied until you rule the world!
Just like the need for love has its associated behaviors, so too does the need for power. Care taking can be part of both motives. The need for power is also accompanied by controlling and aggressive behavior. The degree of control and aggression shown in a relationship is a sign of the amount of power motivation that is behind that relationship.
If you think about it you already know I am right. There is a saying, ”If you love someone set him free. If he comes back to you he’s yours, if not he never was.” A sociopath/psychopath can never set anyone free because he/she can’t love. Sociopaths/psychopaths can only own or possess. Of course a sociopath/psychopath is going to cry when alone or if someone abandons him/her. The sociopath/psychopath just lost all of his/her power. That is very upsetting you know!
Now that I have beat that to death, please understand that love motivation can either be deficient or absent. Therefore power motivation can either be somewhat excessive or the only motivating force in a person’s life. Excessive power motivation makes people emotionally, psychologically, spiritually and physically sick. It also makes them evil.
This is an important point–the article was right on. It is painful and frustrating that people in my church community do not recognize my ex boyfriend as a predator.
He blends in so well socially, and his motives are so unfamiliar, and no one wants to think a person is just plain evil.
A book that helped me to understand why this is so was “In Sheep’s Clothing” by George Simon. Thank goodness there are people who DO get it!
I have noticed that dramatic portrayals of the psychopath/sociopath often give the impression, as you point out, that they avoid normal social relations.
JMB,
Because most churches “forgive the sinner” the sociopath has a “happy hunting ground” cause no matter WHAT he gets caught doing, all he has to do is FAKE repentence (and O, are they GOOD AT THAT!)
I came into knowledge of a “letter of repentence” my XDIL wrothe the church we attended, and one written on the same day to her daughter that showed her REAL THOUGHTS. 180 degrees apart, the letters were. We can’t “judge” what is in their hearts but someitmes we get a chance to “inspect their fruit” (behavior) and it lets us see what is going on and what they really think. I am glad that I had this opportunity to find out THE TRUTH.
Still sorting it out, if you had been a former miss Universe, nymphomaniac, whose daddy was Donald Trump, owned a yacht and a liquor store, he would still have found a reason that YOU ruined his trip! LOL There is no satisfying these people unless you say “Yes, dear, I’m responsible for every bad thing in your life, I am so sorry, let me sign over the bank account, all our real estate, and you don’t have to pay chld support.” That would still not be enough.
My sociopath showed all kinds of feelings and seemed very sincere. What gave him away were his behaviors over time. He was extremely inconsistent. Stories told that seemed very sincere and heartfelt just didn’t add up. Promises were repeatedly broken. Then there were the repeated and automatic lies told in response to every question. I am still shocked at how human he seemed. It’s easy for me to go back into denial, thinking “maybe he really did have feelings for me.” His eyes would tear up when he told me he was in love with me and wanted to spend his life with me. I have to keep reminding myself about seeing the recent picture of him with his wedding ring on (and hearing him lie to someone about it). Or remembering how he told me he would never abandon me on Friday, then stood me up on Saturday. People who have never experienced a sociopath really just couldn’t even fathom these types of behaviors.
This might not be the forum, nor the same discussion, and please forgive me, if this is out of line.
but one poster had mentioned the church, as well as the PERFECT blending of the Living ghost’s condition
I’ve done { As many of us here have} extensive reading on the condition, It became sort of a New outlet, lets call it a Major Breakthrough! in regards to the insanity, i had been placed in.
I guess my discussion leads to religion, I’ve found two conditions that address the very condition, one being the jezebel spirit, and the other swedenborg writings in regards to insanity and the giving of oneself unconditionally to evil.
any other religious points of view discovered?
Again i’m sorry if this offends anyone, but my general thirst for this knowledge would have eventually taken me to a higher source.
Schmooly, we’re pretty open here so please don’t feel as if you’re offending anyone. I have read a little on the jezebel spirit. Wow, if that isn’t a perfect description of a sociopath! I’m not familiar with swedenborg writings though. I have to say that the description of sociopaths and the demonic are too similar. My experience had most everything to do with my spirituality in the end. I don’t find that a coincidence!
Stargazer, I am still amazed at the same. How sincere he seemed saying the same lies to me about being in love and wanting to spend the rest of his life with me. Oh and how easily he could bring on the tears. But as with you, I started to notice when the stories didn’t add up. The automatic lies. He could never be wrong, never be caught doing anything inappropriate, he HAD to be perfect! It didn’t matter how much he had to twist reality to paint that picture either. Didn’t matter how much he hurt me in the end. It was never about me. The feelings he had for me were the one’s I reflected back to him. He ony saw himself. The first time I questioned his behavior, the mirror started to crack. He didn’t like the image he was seeing of himself and eventually it shattered. Denial can be a tempting place to fall back into if we let ourselves. But denial is where they exist as the lie. Better to be in reality. In time it is truly the most peaceful place to be. You can see what’s coming down the road. In denial, we’re driving with blinders on.
Schmooly,
Most of the world’s religions recognize an “evil spirit” (or spirits) i.e. Satan, by any name, as a spirit that enjoys evil, rebels against good. I don’t know if these are literal or figurative (and to me it doesn’t matter) I believe in God, therefore I believe also in Satan. I believe that God influences us and I also believe that Satan influences us. We have choices.
Just as the woman in the story in the Bible, Jezebel (an obvious psychopath) gave in to her base desires, not caring what happened to others if they stood in her way, everyone on earth (adults with full mental abilities) have CHOICES about how we live our lives and the things we do.
We “know the difference between good and evil” and we have a choice to do what we know is good, or to do what we know is evil. The psychopath has these same choices. I agree that they have some genetic tendencies to “not care” and to “not bond” but just as a person with the genes for addiction to alcohol has a CHOICE to drink or not, the psychopaths have a choice to do good or evil. To lie or to tell the truth.
I probably have as much genetic material in my system for psychopathic personality disorder as anyone on the planet, I have a raging psychopathic father, a mother that may or may not be narcissistic, but certainally disfunctional. quite a few of my grandparents and great grandparents were psychopaths, and my mother’s brother is definitely one. I can trace one line of psychopaths back to before 1840 through court documents.
But I have bonded with others, I have empathy, and I do not choose to hurt others. I have a son who is a murderer and a psychopath “with the best of them”–the ony reason he isn’t a serial killer is he got caught after the first murder.
People have choices. I’m no “goody two shoes” and I have made my share of “bad choices” and done things I knew at the time were “not good” but did them anyway. The difference between me and “them” is that I have guilt when I do something I know is bad. I admit my responsibility, and try to change my behavior. They don’t.
To me, Spirituality, whatever “brand” yours is doesn’t matter, but some kind of spirituality, to me at least, is important to our healing from the tremendous trauma and injuries that they do to us with their EVIL ways. The Bible talks about people’s “hearts being hardened” meaning that they will not accept correction (boy, is that a psychopath!) They feel no guilt (again, perfect P description) etc. There are other stories and descriptions of psychopaths in the Bible and several that illustrate how they operate. They have been with humankind for a LONGGGGG time. Mankind came out of the trees with the “knowledge of good and evil” and we became fully human with that knowledge. We can choose—the Ps have the knowledge, but they just don’t CARE. Their “hearts are hardened” and nothing moves them. In fact, it seems to me that pain of others excites and pleases them. Like a winning field goal excites the team.
Many “normal” people that I know subscribe to the “there is good in everyone”—Boulderdash! There are those Ps that there is nothing but EVIL in their hearts, and denying that is what got me into a LOT OF PAIN during my life, trying to believe that somewhere deep down my Ps had a shread of good.
I had a run-in with Spirit of Jezebel years ago that I will NEVER FORGET. Though I’m pretty backslidden now I’m afraid, I still love the Lord. My life is a little too messy for the church folks to handle right now, but I’ll likely get it together sometime this year.
Kat, no one’s life is “too messy” for the Lord to handle, don’t worry about the “Chruch Folks”–those people are NOT your judges.
Remember the story in the Bible about the “good folks” of the town who brought the woman who was “caught in adultery” and they were going to stone her. Jesus said, “Yes, that is the penalty for adultery, So the one of you who had NO SIN, pick up and throw the FIRST rock” Wasn’t long til those “good folks” had all left the scene. Those “good folks” of the town every one admitted to themselves that they were not “sinless” either.
At least there wasn’t a P in the crowd, or he or she would have flung the first rock! LOL
The “church” my mother attends is full of people like her who are “rock flingers” and I don’t go there because I don’t answer to THEM, and I don’t intend to duck their rocks. Fortunately, not all “churches” are made up of people like that, so if you want to go to church, keep your head high and find you a place without a “rock pile” and go there. (((Kat))))
Stillsortingitout and Oxy, ah the middle-weight side of life LOL. Yeah, I can relate. Yet sadly my experience with the S, in the end, led to a sudden weight loss due to lack of appetite, with a side of insomnia and constant worry. Less than three months after last contact I was in the hospital with meningitis (for the third time). As I’ve learned, whatever’s dormant in our system comes out after traumas like the S-experience. Now, if only they can find out what is dormant leading to the meningitis. So far tests reveal nothing. Ugh!
Needless-to-say, I didn’t find it a surprise that the S’s late wife died young from Leukemia. Lived less than a year after the diagnosis. He claims he took care of her. That makes me shudder. So does the fact that they would have divorced had she not gotten sick (according to the S and his family). They never got along for the whole 10 years they were together. Not until the year before her diagnosis. Talk about getting a hair-raising creepy feeling about that.
It is horrid how what they do to us mentally and physically makes them see us as “weak”. But any accident or blunder makes them mad. I remember when I got into a tussle with my mountain bike (the bike won btw), the S was sooo irritated. I couldn’t understand this. I was the one bleeding and laughing and he was annoyed. I told him to go and finish the trail without me and I’d head back and clean up. He did. When I asked him why he was annoyed at me he blamed his late wife. Said she would have been mad if he wasn’t right there when she fell. Hmmm…bad liar. That makes no sense. I told him to go ahead on the trail and asked nothing of him. There was no reason to react as he did. EXCEPT that I showed weakness in falling. To him that was a no-no. Now I have the scars to remember that wonderful day.
What I find interesting as well is how accident-prone I was the entire time I was with the S. I had a nasty spill on my mountain bike, I accidentally got cut with broken glass (that poked out of a trash bag I was carrying to the trash can) and ended up with 5 staples in my leg and two nice scars on my hand. Fell off the sidewalk (yes, sidewalk) at my parent’s house and sprained my foot, etc. I have more scars from that one year of my life than all my years combined.
Not to mention all the other things that went downhill during that time. Like my car’s engine “suddenly” blowing and being totalled as a result. Had my car not been in his care shortly before this I don’t think I’d be as suspicious. I try not to think in too paranoid of terms about it. Then hmmm…my new car being vandalized while parked in his driveway. Where was I? Passed out in the car with zero memory of a) how I got there b) how my back windshield got completely smashed in, driver’s side mirror shattered and dents along the driver’s side as if someone took a bat to the top of the doors and c) how I ended up with the bump on my head, deep cut on the underside of my hand and bruises on my legs. Most interesting part to that story was being told when I woke up in the hospital that I had run off the road in a cornfield. The S claimed that he was out all night spreading the rest of his late wife’s ashes forgiving her, me and his father. Wow, out of those three I am the only one still alive. He, btw, was with the other two when they took their last breaths. So he didn’t “know” what happened to me. Really? So the email to our friend the next day claiming that I was at his house the night before and tried to break in and vandalized his cars was what? A guess? How come 5 days later when I went to his house I found no damage to his car or his front door as he claimed. To my face he told me he was mistaken. Big, big mistake there buddy. I told him I wasn’t at his house, I was found in a cornfield, and it wasn’t until two weeks later that I found out I was, indeed, taken by ambulance from his house.
So what have I learned from all this? That sociopaths are hazards to your health in NUMEROUS ways!
Oh, and the man that was out “forgiving” me for who-knows-what that night told me to my face 7 months later that he has NEVER forgiven anyone, especially me. AND I was trying to destroy my life and make him homicidal last year. Is that a contradiction or what? I couldn’t even respond. My jaw was laying on the ground! I’ve got one word for him- CRAZY!
Here’s a good example of crazy. Standing in your ex’s driveway picking up glass off the ground while talking to him and later realizing that you were picking up pieces of your own windshield! CRAZY! No wonder he was totally frightened when he saw me after I was released from the hospital and admitted that he was paranoid. Should I mention that he didn’t visit me while I was in the hospital as he had a wedding to go to that weekend? LOL CRAZY!!!
Ok, I’m done.
Hey Oxy whatcha doing up so late again? LOL
“Lucy”
Oxy, I love your reply to schmooly. You said it all so well! We are all given the CHOICE. And, yes, psychopathy is outlined in the Bible. I ran into a blog from a self-proclaimed sociopath online the other day who wrote, in response to someone’s question, that psychopathy is a new disorder that “evolved” for man to survive in our current society. You know me, I just had to respond LOL.
I let them know that that all of us reading the post were obviously surviving or else we wouldn’t be reading it! I also gave them a bit of a history lesson about the examples of sociopaths in the Bible. Talk about disillusioned. It is so interesting how they try to glorify their disorder as if somehow they have an advantage because of it.
To me, when I read stuff like that saying that psychopathy is necessary for “evolution” I can’t help but laugh. If they want to talk about evolution, perhaps they need to consider this question. What separates us from animals? Here’s a good response I found online:
“The fact that we have evolved intellectually and spiritually. We have instict, but we also have ability to think things through and make choices between right or wrong instead of just following instinct, due to our intellect. We make judgments based on our values and morals which are directly related to our spirituality. And although we are part of that ‘animal kingdom’, unlike them we have a conscience to guide us.”
To me the sociopath is a human in regression denying that which makes us distinct from the animals. I don’t see this as an advantage. I sadly see that as opposite of what God has created in us and for us. That which gives us life and dominion over animals.