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.
People don’t “get” sociopathy because they have no clue as to the nature of evil; they can’t accept that evil people will go to monstrous lengths over long periods of time to hurt totally innocent victims FOR THE SHEER EVIL JOY OF IT. When a victim tries to convince people of what the sociopath did, (s)he appears to the uninitiated as a liar, a lunatic, or as if they themselves are evil and trying to turn people against someone who can’t POSSIBLY have done all those terrible things.
I think this is part of the sociopath’s strategy; behavior SO outrageous that no one will believe the victim.
I have recently escaped an S, and I am not sure others really can acknowledge how much hurt is caused. They can feel for the victim in as much as they can empathise with money that has been lost or other practicalities of the relationship, but how can anyone really understand how devastating it is unless they have been through it themselves? That is precisely why this site and its blogs is so important. I would not have believed that people like sociopaths existed, I thought all people were trustworthy to one extent or another……..it wasnt until I started saying to myself “I am doing nothing different, so how comes he is treating me this way? HE HAS NO RIGHT TO TREAT ME THIS WAY AND I WILL NOT BE TREATED THIS WAY.” At that point I wanted answers so I started reading, reading reading about personality types.It was fascinating and led me to the diagnosis of sociopath. It all fittted – no empathy, self-absorbed, etc etc it was quite a revelation! BUT you try to explain about this to someone else who is watching you hurting, and they cannot “get it” – how could they it is bizarre behavior!
stargazer I had my internet disconnected – when i am stronger I will have it reconnected – but I will not attempt to (out) him on the internet – the internet is cold and heartless – I will save my power and knowledge and compassion for people seeking to understand their encounter’s with evil predator’s, for people who ask for it or come to website’s like this looking for help…too try and explain too someone that doesn’t ask or need to know just makes me look even crazier and if that get’s back to the evil doer they just love knowing your still upset…just my opinion….my daughter in law loves snakes!!!! yikes not me, I leave them alone or run like hell – kinda like seeing a (P)….
many years ago, late one nite I heard a commotion out in the chicken house, well in my underwear and flip flops holding a flash light I went out looking for the source of the noise, with my face 6 inches from one of the chicken nest was a 6′ black chicken snake curled looking at me eye to eye, you talk about an adrenaline rush!!!! he had swallowed all my newly hatched baby chicken’s, well if someone had seen me in my underware in the laste hours of the night screaming with an axe in hand well ….good thing I am out in the sticks….sorry stargrazer for the most part I just leave em alone not that nite….
Maybe you are right about the internet. It just bothers me that I had to give up my reptile site in order to have no contact with him. I’m looking at the positive side that it doesn’t hurt to break my internet addiction once in a while. It hurts too much to see him there, even though there is no overt evidence he is hitting on women (yet). One of the cruel things he does is to befriend other people on the site who were disrespectful toward me while he and I were dating. He promised me several times he would never talk to those people. And yet he would turn around and send them private messages and chum around on their threads two days later. It was just one of the many inconsistencies in his words and actions. He often told me that those guys who hurt me were not real men, and they were acting all macho. “But I’m not anything like that” he would tell me. “Just you wait, you will see that I’m nothing like that.” He was right. He was 1000 times worse. I don’t think I have the world’s greatest self esteem. But I’m glad my self esteem was high enough to get out when I did, even though it killed me. When I think about him, deep down inside some part of me still cannot even believe I got played. He really seemed like the greatest guy I’d ever met. He was a total sweetheart, seemed very sincere, treated me like a queen (for about a month), and all my friends loved him! It’s this ability to fool people that is the reason people don’t “get” it. Look how long WE don’t get it! They are SO believable, likable and sociable. I really think you have to be on the receiving end of the bizarre and inconsistent actions to really get the gist of it.
Regarding the snake in your chicken house, henry, I only have one thing to say about that. Why does EVERYBODY and their grandmother find snakes in their yards, houses, and in nature? I LOVE them, and I can’t find a snake near my house to save my life!!! LOL It’s not fair.
me having my internet disconnected is self imposed recovery – no contact of any kind what so ever – considering how evil and manipulating they are – it’s a small price right now – am forcing myself to reconnect with me – however I do still find a way to come here………..
Internet is like the antichrist sometimes, no doubt about that.
But anyway.. guys I have something to say about the above article, that is, about “getting” sociopaths.
I’ve had a little bit of a revelation about them recently. I am sure they can be motivated by lots of different things just like the rest of us, in their case the things they value are more likely to be money, power, sex, control, etc.
BUT: I think they whole thing that drives them, since they aren’t “society” driven, I think they move on to another well known sociological outlook, CONFLICT THEORY.
For them, the whole point of society is conflict, that is, winning and losing. It may be (in the short run) about sex or money or w/e, but in the long run it’s about WINNING.
If you look at it in this context it makes a lot more sense. They see others including their “lovers” as their competition. It makes sense that they would use devious means, lying, cheating, anything, to get what they want “AWAY” from us. After all, all’s fair in love and war.
They think they are somehow TAKING stuff from us by their powerful manipulative powers, they never realize that we are freely giving it.
With this outlook, it makes sense that they would betray us, since we are the enemy. It only makes sense they would instantly move on to another “better” alliance when one comes along.. doesn’t every single government do the same? They haven’t got any feelings for any of their temporary allies either.
And doesn’t it make sense that they would try to stay friends with us afterwards, don’t enemy countries always make nice after a war? And when we cry, don’t they think it’s just the self-pity of a sore loser? And when they rub our noses in their “victory”, how they got away with something with us, which we see as betrayal but they do NOT, isn’t is just the victory dance of the opposing quarterback?
Dear Kat,
I completely agree with you. It IS about winning and power. I was always wondering why I had become a MD and my sister became a lawyer. She is very good in self defense and I am absolutely not. It is because of our position as siblings to dysfunctional parents (father P, mother S). I always had to fight for everything and lost everytime, because my father is a lawyer and he constantly played with me “in court”, and of course for him it was a game and for me it was vital, for instance to get permssion to learn to ride a bicycle, it was mandatory in school. His argument was “traffic augmented since WWII (HE learned to ride the bike in 1936 or so). Could do nothing about it; but when my 5 year younger brother wanted to ride the bike it was no question that it was OK that we all got a bike, and I had to share it with the brother, my sister got her own). I learned at a very early age that it is OK that I have no right to defense myself or to have a wish as I will constantly lose. So I chose, I think now, instinctively a profession where I do not have to defense myself but can care for others as the other is weaker, the patient (translation: the sufferer, the waiting, the passive). I could also become a teacher for instance, pupils are also weaker than the teacher by definition. I found out about this 20 years ago after reading the book “The helpless helper”. I wanted to quit as I did not want to abuse patients because of my weakness. I then came to the conclusion that I am not here to HELP but as a guide to people in difficult courses in their life’s journey, as an equal partner they chose deliberately, like a mountain guide to be chosen, equipped with mountain gear, specially trained to guide people through rough terrain. THEY HAVE TO WALK THEMSELVES, I CAN’T CARRY THEM, AND WHEN THEY DO NOT WANT MY GUIDE/ADVICE IT IS THEIR DECISION AS IT IS THEIR LIFE’S PATH. The goal is that they can walk on smoother terrain without me. This I found out a long time ago, but the WHY I choose the profession and made strange choices with people came to my mind just recently. I am not competing anymore (or at least I try). Have my boundaries, and walk away when they are violated. Not negociate with anybody about MY boundaries. And I try not to take it personally when “my” profession is being challenged/questioned. Mostly I see and hear “my” people I have to look after struggling with the circumstances they are in and they do not think too much about the “guide”.
kat wrote: “They think they are somehow TAKING stuff from us by their powerful manipulative powers, they never realize that we are freely giving it.” wow! i used to tell my s/p this all the time. i’d say, “i’m not faithful to you because you DEMAND it, i’m faithful because i know who i am!” “i don’t give you anything because you DEMAND it, i do it because i want to.” but there’s something wrong with this too … isn’t there?
if all is fair in love and war, and we know they think that way, aren’t we culpable for falling into their trap … or at least, staying there?
(i’m in the ‘blaming myself for all of this’ phase)
I can not tell you how thankful I am that I found this site. I am a 26 year old, educated, professional woman, who just got “dumped” by her loser, moocher, unemployed, STILL married, boyfriend. All my friends repeatedly told me he was no good, did I listen, NO!! He always needed money for something dire, to pay off a loan shark for instance (that was supposedly going to shoot him if he didn’t pay). Well I paid, for that and a lot more. Why?? Cause I am a good person, he was an old “booty call” I had always wanted to have a relationship with 5 years ago, suddenly he reappears in my life and realizes he loves me the first night we hang out, sounded like music to my ears!! I was infatuated with the nostalgia of him. Soo many things on this site has helped me to move on, and recognize that he is a Sociopath, there can not be any contact, I don’t want or need him in my life, etc. This just happened last week, because I finally wised up and stopped “loaning” him money to get on his feet, and “poof”, he was gone. BUT I know he will be back, cause he’ll be needing money real soon to pay court fees and stuff. And this site has helped me “GET IT”, and not get back in a hurtful relationship that drained me of myself, my friends, and my money!! Thank you to all of you on here!!