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.
Dear Aloha
Wise words indeed…I think you’ve hit on something very important.
Deep down I still blame myself for falling into his trap. I’m angry at myself for allowing him to use me, just as I’m angry at myself for allowing my brother to use me for so many years. I’m horrified that two people I trusted completely saw me only as a means to an end. I am struggling to maintain faith in my own judgement. So I think that I seek external affirmation that I’m not a complete idiot, that it wasn’t all my fault.
On a positive note…and this is for Oxy too…my attorney told me today that she confirmed the arrangements for me to get my possessions back from his wife. That’s one thing sorted out! I am busy preparing the information my attorney needs to proceed against my brother and the papers should be presented by next week. I feel better knowing that I have someone fighting in my corner and that I’m not just letting him get away with this.
Thanks again to all of you who keep me going with your words of wisdom and support.
yes aloha…i think it may be an important part of the healing….definitely a new idea along those lines
odette im so happy…once that is over you can move forward much quicker…i had to go thru something similar and a female atty used to dealing with these jerks took a strong stance and stopped the nonsense….i had 2 other male attys before her who got nowhere…they just didnt get it
but of course they didnt mind taking my money…this lady took one third the money they did,was very conscious about not asking for too much and solved the problem…the other 2 guys made fun of her that she thought she could make the problem go away….well she did…..
Dear Swallow. You are absolutely right. My father was a Narcissist and my mother schizophrenic and I can tell you that there is a world of difference between them and how they behave. Yes the schizophrenic person can be manipulative, but the context is different, and whilst the schizophrenic can be manipulating because they have taken a dislike to someone, the sociopath has a well constructed history of manipulating successive partners to con and encouraging attachment in another to hurt or con them (or both).
Dear Kat, Yes, that was THE bottom of the barrel for me, realising that all the energy and care I had invested in him and the relationship, didnt count for anything at all. It was the one relationship where I really put myself into it and it was the worst one – and boy did I feel a fool. It has taught me about making assumptions about what to expect back. You never really KNOW someone, until you REALLY KNOW THEM.
Aloha hits the nail on the head again!!! Good observation, Aloha, and you are SO RIGHT, I think that wanting others to “get it” is a sort of validation that we “aren’t crazy.”
I can remember how VALIDATED and uplifted I felt when the Sheriff “got it”—-and how stomped I feel when someone doesn’t “get it.”
Yes, we ARE angels to someone, and we have certainly had angels there for us (you “Peeps,” as Janie says, are some of my angels!)
Dear dear Henry, I have had a few of those parties myself at 2 a.m. and 4 a.m. and sometimes clear til day light! (((hugs))))
Henry,
I would like to respond to your late night post. (I am so afraid of responding on here cuz I don’t want to-Once again, look like an ass). When I was with the P, I never once told him that I loved him. I held back. To this day, I cannot honestly say if I loved him or not. (tho I know I had deep feelings for him). I don’t know. Maybe I was lonely, maybe I was in lust, maybe I was just so damn tired of being a single parent going to friend’s houses and being the only single, never been married person there, standing in the corner by myself, maybe at the time I was just as sick as he was. (I absolutely am not saying you are sick in anyway). What I do know is that he was/is selfish and did not give a “crap” (am trying to be respectful here) about me. He saw someone who had something he needed. A place to crash, someone who had a good job (money) and someone who was ripe for the picking. But, there comes a point where you know you are a good person, just trying to pay bills, find someone to love, someone who loves you back, that does not make us “less than” it makes us more (which is something they can never say).
Oxy,
I noted to my Dad once, “I have the knack for pointing out the obvious but one thing I have noticed is.. people don’t like that.” He laughed. I love my Dad. He does the same thing in his AA meetings and they call it _____isms. (The blank is his name….. which is our last name.)
Anyway, my thoughts above are true.. for me.
I have recieved some validation.. here at LF and on Craigslist. This was a big part of my healing. Most if not all of my friends don’t get it but that’s okay. I have always wanted to be deeply understood.. which was, incidentally, a BIG FAT HOOK with BM. He did seem to understand me more than anyone else. He even said, “I was just like you when I was your age so I understand you.” We were both Aries. Aries are young at heart, naive, judgemental, opinionated but well meaning.. blah blah.
Anyway, I think we all should consider how much energy and reliving of the nightmare it takes to try to get people to get it. I just can’t go there anymore. Basically, I tell people, “I had a stalker.” They know what that is. It’s really oversimplifying but it works. And, when I say that, it doesn’t give away any of my power like it does when I talk about being with an abuser. Once you admit to being abused… instant drop of respect (5 to 10 notches) from the listening party. I understand now that they just don’t understand.
And I understand that it’s okay. We have eachother at LF. That works for me.
If I remain committed to having all my friends and relations understand, then I am giving more time to the Bad Man. There was a time when it was way too traumatic to relive and review these moments. I think I mentioned that in my first essay for LF in October 2007. I guess I have come a long way since then.
Anyway, I am committed that we all heal and we all learn and that we all find joy again.
It might sound silly but think about this… we now can appreciate something new about life.. we can appreciate that we are no longer being abused. Before this happened, it probably never crossed our minds but now we have a new awareness. We know what it’s like to be abused, manipulated, lied to. Sometimes when I read here at LF, I pause for a moment and think about the women out there this moment, and this moment, and this moment.. that don’t know how to get out, don’t have access to this information.. don’t understand what is happening to them. I was that woman three+ years ago.
Today, I am not that woman. And I deeply appreciate this.
Aloha………XO
Aloha, you are so right on!!!!
It is funny too, I think you and I have more in common than one might think—we both were screaming going down the road ALONE in our cars! LOL Like mad women on the highway, and also I too use the “I had a stalker” line—it does work and you are so right on about if you say “I was abused” your “stock” nose dives, but if you say “I had a stalker” they can relate to that and not put your stock in the pits.
And really, what is the difference between “abuser” and “stalker”? NONE, because that is what they do to us, they stalk us like PREY is stalked by a PREDATOR.
You are also right about the ENERGY it takes to try to help people “get it” and at THIS point, it isn’t important to me for others to “get it” because I have VALIDATED myself now, but at the time it was important because I NEEDED VALIDATION from outside of myself. At least my son D ALWAYS got it and did validate me, and the sheriff validated me, and for a long time that was about all with this last episode.
With my bio-father, I did get some validation eventually, but only from people who actually knew him personally, but even 40 years late was better than never getting validation. LOL
I’m not sure WHY we (as people) seem to NEED that validation of our “reality.” I see evidence of it in myself in several subtle ways. If I am “hot” or “cold” I will ask others in the room if they are “hot” or “cold” before I adjust the thermostat. When I was first starting off on the boundary setting with some friends a few months back, I had to get “validation” from my son D before I felt comfortable setting those boundaries and enforcing them. MY FEELINGS about it were that I did not want to “appear unreasonable” in setting those boundaries. He agreed that my boundaries were reasonable and needed to be done. But, I ask myself now, what if he had NOT validated them? Would I have still set them if he hadn’t agreed I was “right.” How would my feelings have changed about setting them?
Now, a few months later, my “training wheels” have sort of come off about setting boundaries and I no longer “consult” with him for validation before I do something, though I usually tell him afterwards if it effects him in any way.
I guess it is sort of like I am finally validating my own reality, trusting more in my own judgment, and that I don’t feel that needyness about what I am doing being “right.”
We may not be able to convince others about P’s but there is one priceless gift we all have in common. When someone else we know plummetts to earth after the realisation that they have been conned, abused and manipulated, one of us will be there to pick them up.
We are all healers because of what we have suffered.
Swallow