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 definitely the page to send to friends and family who don’t get it. Thank you Dr. Leedom.
I hear and read about the S/P social motive of power quite a bit, but really need to understand the motive of sex much better. I understand that sex can be the power, but what if it’s not? What if the S. could care less if he gained power, control or coned someone. What if the S. just had poor impulse control and had to have the sexual gratification. Is it then “just” sex addiction?
Dear all,
I am so greatful to have found about this side. This is my first post, and I am not a native English speaker. I broke up with my P-friend end of this April 08 after 7 months, but I found out that I have been around P and S all of my life (my father is a “garden”-P and my Mom is a worldclass N). All of a sudden all my distorted feelings during my childhood and my “inability” to find a boyfriend in my teens and my huge ability to be “too kind” and “be the one to steel horses with” and to be “used” make sense to me. Thanks alot!
I kept reading alot almost every day in the last two months, and your comments on the various aspects were VERY helpful.
I just want to make a comment on the “why they do not get it”. When I first found out about psychopaths (my sister who is a divorce lawyer and who got conned by two P and has a child with one of them, told me to look up “Psychopath” in the Google), I read on a German page that EVERYONE wants to be A LITTLE like a Psychopath and that they are envied, as normal people get in troubles by their remorse and guilt psychopaths are lacking, trying to be even a bit like a psychopath. Think not about Hannibal Lecter but of James Bond for instance. A world class psychopath who goes effortless from one beautiful woman to the next woman, who all can’t wait to be at his complete disposition and do whatever he wants, and when one is trying to put on pressure he just leaves her and moves to the next. AND EVERY MAN wants to be A BIT like him, and I know many colleagues who rehearse lines of certain scenes of the various James Bond Films to impress women. Another example: Don Juan initially was invented by the Spanish Inquisition as a very bad example of a miserable man who does evil in his life behaving or being a psychopath, and who is finishing in hell. It was one of the greatest disasters in “advertisment and indoctrination” as everybody envied HIM and had NO PITY with the poor women. Mozart wrote one of his finest operas about him. The best paintings by Picasso are also his mistresses he used and discarded, and HE stayed young and invigorated until he died over 90 years old. No pity with the women who became famous because of HIM. His last paintings were rude paintings about copulating couples. When we were seeing them at age 10 with my Granddad, a very wise man, he just said “Girls, these are Picassos “Would like to’s”. Unfortunately there is nothing new under the sun, and the only hope is that the 10 commands, especially rule number two Love thy next as you love yourself will rule, or there will be some Kant’s cathegoric imperative in life, or that at least people are taught in school about self esteem and ANY KIND of abuse and about the true forces in life.
I wish all a very relaxing weekend! Libelle
I hear and read about the S/P social motive of power quite a bit, but really need to understand the motive of sex much better. I understand that sex can be the power, but what if it’s not? What if the S. could care less if he gained power, control or coned someone. What if the S. just had poor impulse control and had to have the sexual gratification. Is it then “just” sex addiction?
The question of when a sexual indescretion or a series of indescretions is a symptom of psychopathy is pertentent to the John Edwards story. People who are high energy extraverts get into trouble with all sources of reward. They tend to get excited when an opportunity for reward is before them. It is as if they are race cars and can go from 0-60 very quickley.
All psychopaths/sociopaths are extraverts as described above, but there are many people who are extraverts and share elements of sociopathy/psychopathy but not the full disorder. DSM puts it very well we are looking for a “pervasive pattern of disregard for and violation of the rights of others”
My guess is that most sex addicts are quite psychopathic. If a sex addict or a person who slipped up sexually is not significantly psychopathic he/she will work to overcome the issues. If you know you get excited by the prospect of sex reward and lose control over yourself then you can’t be alone around the sources of reward right? Remorse and desire to change are demonstrated in a person’s actions. A very large number of people are not sexually faithful. Most of these people though are not pervasively psychopathic.
Just like love and sex can be simultaneous pleasures, so can love and power. Social psychologists have done studies showing that having power makes some people sexually excited. A politician with a very strong engine has to have very strong brakes or he will mess up!
The problem with strong brakes is that they make people unattractive and less charismatic. Inhibited people tend to be too serious. So we want the impossible when it comes to our politicians. The best solution is for the politicians themselves to realize thier own personality defects and to surrond themselves with family and staff who will shield them from the willing sources of reward.
Dear Libelle,
Thank you for that wonderful and insightful post. YOu have hit on a good point about the James Bond thing and how most men want to be a “little bit like him.” I hadn’t ever thought about that, but you are SO right. Also about Don Juan. Thank you ver much, and welcome here.
Dr. Leedom,
I saw an interview last night with John Edwards and his interview came across as very sincere….except, I did think that he was lying about the payments his friend made to that woman. It is of course possible that this man was acting without the knowledge or consent of Edwards.
You are very right in your assessment that people in power have sexual excitement. I read somewhere years ago, I don’t remember where, that power and wealth makes any man “attractive” to women. With politics, where there are constantly women around such men, it is “bound to happen” unless a man is very vigilent about his behavior.
I think Edwards at least gave a “very convincing” interview, but at the same time, my P-son could convince you that black is white and very much APPEAR repentent in such a situation. I hope for his sake and for his wife’s that Edwards is simply a human being with a moral compass that just got temporarily misdirected and that he has truly been sorry for what happened, not just “sorry for getting caught.”
PS: What does sort of make me “wonder” about Edwards though is his ARROGANCE in thinking that this affair would NOT be discovered when he ran for the presidential nomination.
There is a past record of many many candidates being shot out of the nomination potential by past or current affairs, so WHY was he arrogant and ambitious enough to think that HE would be able to skate through the process without being found out—was it the fact this woman was being paid $15,000 a month to keep quiet and he thought she would not want to speak up and lose that amount of money?
It is just disappointing to me that many of our political people seem to have lost moral compass whether or not they are Ps.
Dr. Leedom:
Thank you for the continued explaniation.
I am 48 years old, and after 20 years, began dating again three years ago. To my knowledge, I have never had a personal relationship with an S /P until now. I have walked away and had no contact with this S for a short time, but I am too curious (needy-?) and keep playing with his fire. The more I “get it”, the easier it is for me to see who he is. I am the director of a social service program that serves approx. 1500 clients at one time. Many of my peers don’t “get it” and this has kept me too embarassed to tell my story anywhere. Thank you again for this outlet.
This S/P is 44, moested by an uncle as a child, confused sexual relationships as a teen, very charasmatic and smart, flunked out of college, kicked out of the Air Force, developed an addiction to crack in his 20’s, never married, 3 children by two women, abortions, std’s, 300+ assorted types of women by the time he was 35. Today, clean from drugs and alcohol for 15 years. This is his life accomplishment and speaks and guides others now. Still, no job or female relationship for longer than two years (except a couple of long time sex buddies) and none of these were committed relationships. Still, struggeling financially and emotionally (he displays this very well) but always seems to have women very interested in him and vise-versa. I have always wondered if his primary addiction is sex, and because he hasn’t tackled that as he did the drugs, this is why his life is so messed up.
Blondie:
I had not read your post when I wrote mine last night and it seemed like you may have needed someone to talk to. I don’t know the nature of the call you took from your x yesterday, but it may have caused your inability to just focus on your conversation with your friend and have a nice time. Missing him may have made you feel guilty for going out w/o him. Keep going out with friends so you find yourself again!
I’m sure you have already analyzed this to death by now. You know Ox has her skillet in hand if we keep up the contact with these men.
thanks lib. yeah im back to NO Contact. I Honesty dont have any wanting of talking to him. i want him gone, so far gone. i never want him to email me, call me or anything. he has a new girl, nothing new. i wish i would of never dated him, but i cant go back in time. all he does is play games. he is one person to my ears on the phone or email, and another person behind my back. playing it off like i ruin the relationship. when really all he did was play with my heart and use me. he never ever had feelings for me, and he never ever cared about anyones well being or feelings over himself.
Way to go Blondie! I can’t wait for the day that I can say that out loud, with complete faith in myself.
Lib-
While I don’t recommend you have a relationship with your S, he represents the end of the S spectum that may respond to treatment. What is tragic about the man you describe is the combination of trauma, personal strengths, self-defeating behavior and inability to love. His strength is shown by his ability to achieve some measure of sobriety. It would be unkind not to give people like this a lot of credit for what they have been able to overcome and achieve. If he was committed to working on his impulse control and got serious about setting better life goals he would have better well-being. Still ladies, all of this would not make him capable of the kind of relationship you would want for a lifetime.