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.
Swallow and Oxy. I have learned that I have to be very careful who I talk about my experience with the sociopath. I alway’s come off like the crazy one. But there are some friend’s and my son that (get it) because they saw it and stepped in and confronted me with the “truth” when I din’t want to accept the “truth”. They witnessed my three year decent into hell. I think our ‘so’ wanting other people to understand is because we know the sociopath will never get it and that is who we most want to get it. But if they got it, they wouldn’t continue to do it. And that is what they do.. so we are frustrated and want to talk to anybody that will listen. In the end we validate ourselve’s with knowledge and power over those people. And yes Swallow if we come upon someone going through this we will understand and we will do all we can to help them. My best friend is a very sweet LADY that was married to a narcissist for 26 years. Has four children with him. I have shared my story with her and she has discovered through my education that her X is a narcississt with wealth and power. And her daughter who she loves dearly and never been able to have a good relationship with is a narcissist. And one son is a sociopath that she hasn’t spoke to in 13 years because he stole million’s from her. She said she knew (Mike) was not good for me, but that I would have to learn on my own. And we both have looked at the truth and made some scince out of our painfull past. And to have that understanding of what motivates these evil people we love make’s us want to stay as far away as possible from them and strive to leave that pain behind so we can “at last” live to “our’ full potential…
I’m not at all discounting the aspect of the issue where people judge other people by themselves.
I used to be one of those people. And I always wondered why the behaviour of some people confused me so badly.
To assign motives for other people’s actions based on one’s own motivations for doing something is, I agree, very dangerous – or at the very least a recipe for social confusion!
Miss Jones assumes Mr. Smith loves & cares for her because he wants to be with her – I undertand that. But while it does explain how people get mixed up with sociopaths, it doesn’t fully explain why they stick around after the sociopath has repeatedly harmed them.
Because by that reasoning, if Mr. Smith habitually harms Miss Jones, Miss Jones should then reason that she would have to really hate someone to treat them that way… so…
It’s like sometimes people are so invested (not financially – but psychologically) in the person, they just can’t bring themselves to realize the truth. Like I swear, for some people, the sociopath would have to break into their house all strung out on drugs and sexually assault their wife” and they might still be saying something like “Oh, but he’s a good caterer” – while people around roll their eyes because they saw the guy spitting into the punch bowl at their last party” but the guy’s just blind because the sociopath was butt-kissing so intensely that the guy was so cross-eyed he didn’t even notice when he made a pass at his wife or engaged in theft against the guests.
This is just a fictional example, mind you – but it’s pretty much what I’ve seen happen MANY times” while I wondered, confused – for years – before I learned that the people like this were in fact sociopaths… and that the strangely blind people were in fact victims of a very intense con.
The woman who wants to know if there’s hope for the convict cheating thieving father of her child… and somehow still wants the “happily ever after” with the man – who is clearly without merit of any type, as a father, friend, or lover.
And it’s probably because this criminal has some means of butt-kissing (maybe not far from that literally) that he knows how to make the woman lose all sense in her head, & forget about all ill will & mistreatment – or at least be invested in rationalizing it or explaining it away or whatever.
I mean there must be SOME reason SHE sees some merit to this guy, right?
He must take at least a moment here & there to shamelessly flatter her vanity, or rock her world in bed, or something.
And therein lies the weakness that most of us humans have all too often, and sometimes to our serious detriment. We all like to feel special. We all like compliments. We all like our egos stroked. And, yeah, let’s face it, most of us like sex. (lol)
But if we like that just a tad too much, & expect just a bit too much of that sort of thing from other people, for whatever reason, we’re pretty much sitting ducks for the unscrupulous.
Spotting the sociopath who’s zeroed in on us has nothing to do with being clever or intelligence or even worldliness. I think it has more to do with self-awareness about our own needs and how realistic our own desires & expectations really are.
I think, personally, this is where spiritual/religious philosophies of humility come in very useful in life. (Whether it be Christian or Buddhist, whatever floats your soul.) If you make an effort to not put a high priority on the sexual, material, superficial, or ego-based desires, you’re less likely to get the wind blown up your skirt by these types of characters… and you instead see them for what they really are. 99% detriment and 1% flash… and no photo! (lol)
And that’s why I’ll take the shy guy who takes me out for a quiet cup of coffee and listens to me complain about my day over a flashy guy who sweeps me off my feet with wine & roses and a gold bracelet any day of the week.
Re: holywatersalt: love the ornithologist metaphor. Case in point – I’m a birder – and the other day I was watching nuthatches in a tree, and some guy thought I was just inspecting the pine tree – he never saw the birds, even though he should’ve been able to spot them easily, they were rustling & flying and making noises – several of them!
alohatraveler: “filling in the blanks” – great way of putting it. A girl I knew in high school told me I “rationalized” people’s behaviour. Even after it was pointed out to me – I spent years doing just that still, often not realizing it, sometimes knowing it, but somehow thinking myself justified and sensible in doing so. Because after all, all humans have the same basic set of emotions. *thunk*
I did exactly what this post is about – I judged other people by myself. Assumed if someone did X, they did X for reasons I would do X. So then when enough contradiction came along, I was completely confused. And in those times I would be completely set down & feel rather at a loss to understand humanity.
Of course I wasn’t at a loss to understand humanity… I was at a loss to understand sociopaths!
It was a big relief for me to learn about sociopaths. I became holywatersalt’s ornithologist – seeing sociopaths everywhere. lol
But yet when it came to my own family member… I was blinded by the bright plumage I’d been so invested in. Even after distancing myself completely, I still have trouble reconciling everything… I still catch myself ‘rationalizing’… oh it was the war, oh it was this person’s abusive parent… oh, they don’t know any better… It’s just so tempting… It’s not even a member of my immediate family, and yet I find myself sometimes wistful for the days when I thought this person was cool, when I didn’t know the truth about The Dark Side.
On some level I want that… fantasy… back. Even though it was clearly never realistic anyway in retrospect.
I imagine it’s 100 times more tempting to stay invested in a fantasy that involves “the man of your dreams” in a seemingly fairy tale scenario.
I think the fantasy ‘ of the man/women of our dream’s ‘ is just that! a dream or fairytale and when a sociopath mirror’s and becomes that illusion it is more powerful than any realiztic emotion, because we are living in a dream state not in reality—just where they want to take us—on a trip……..
Dear WP,
Some great observations about the “why” do we invest in them.
My X-DILwho tried to kill her husband C my son, has since the divorce been absolutely “sweet”to me, which she never was before the divorce the whole time she was married to my son.
I don’t see her often, but the last time I did, she was almost gushing with “connection” and friendship toward me—and she is so darned charming that I have to keep reminding myself that she TRIED TO KILL MY SON FOR FREAKING SAKE! It dawned on me that if I didn’t keep doing that I could EASILY grow to like this woman. UGH!!!!
I have NC with her now, but you know it was a SHOCK to myself to find myself being won over and “charmed” by her. I have to remind myself of how she looked to me in the court room, with that stare that if “looks could have killed” would have melted me on the spot, as I stood up and told the judge about her stealing money from my mother, about the “dirty” pictures of her, and all the other things she did besides trying to kill my son, so that her bail would be raised high enough she couldn’t get out on bail.
Now I KNOW from her own lips what she thinks of me (I can’t put it here–too explicit) and I know what I think of someone like her who used my son for a meal ticket for 8 yrs and abused him in multiple ways, and yet, she can be CHARMING and I can see how she would do with someone who didn’t KNOW WHAT SHE IS.
I too was “blinded by the bright plumage I’d been so invested in” (wonderful way to put it WP) though I have now quit rationalizing about my P-son–FINALLY. It took years though, and NC to make it come about.
But the “charming” encounter with my X-DIL-P did show me though, that I’m not above being “snookered” again, even by a known P if I don’t keep my guard up. With her, fortunately, I have a “photograph” of “that look” from her etched on my memory forever as she was in the court room that day.
Yes Swallow. We are healers now. I totally agree.
When I went through Massage School, my teacher said something about how when you have suffered yourself, you make a better healer. I never thought of myself as a healer but rather, someone that could help create the space for healing. This, I can do. And, as always, the healing comes from within ourselves.
Validation/confirmation IS VERY important when we first come out of a relationship with a pathological person because a big part of the game/con/gig/hook/ho-down… is taking apart our reality.
My healing began with the words, “The first thing you need to know is YOU’RE NOT CRAZY.” This I read on a website leading to the Book: Tears and Healing. So, I know validation is very very important.
But I am validated now. And, I am at the point where, even if my family or people close to me do not understand, it’s okay because I do. And one day, they may need this information that I have in my bones. When and if they do, I will know it before they do.. most likely.
It’s funny. Just about the time that I found that book and devoured it, a friend revealed to me that she was having trouble with Bad Man Junior. I had to sit with her over and over and validate her feelings. Every story she had about BMJ, I had a matching one. She was convinced that my guy was bad but it took her a little longer to admitt her guy was the SAME! And one more person who benefitted from my nightmare was the man who helped me escape BM. After I left the islands, he started dating a woman and not too long into it, she started showing the signs of Borderline behavior. He called me one night and started venting. As frustrated as he was with me when BM was chasing me all over MAUI in his stupid rickety old car… my friend was going through the same stuff with a woman. AND… it took him awhile to see the behavior for what it is. But after all he did for me, I was happy to explain ti to him over and over and he did finally get it. He called me more than once in that wound up, rocking back and forth, babbling incoherrant stage that we all know so well. :o)
But he’s out now. :o)
This was a gift to me that I could help him in particular because I have often called him my hero and he would have nothing of that.
Well, enough about me. Time for bed. :o)
Dear Aloha,
Thanks for sharing those stories, those are very moving ones. It really is a good feeling when we can return the favor to someone who really went all out to help us when we needed it the most. He is fortunate to have you for a special friend, and I am glad he is out of that toxic relationship. Put a feather in your cap girlfriend! That’s what we all can and I think should do with our knowledge. Be there for the people who will come our way when they need us as “angels.”
Oxy!
What are you doing up? It’s late here and I am in CA!
I better go to bed. I was stressing last night about all that I don’t have… see… I am such a hypocrit. I guess that is why, in my weary state, I am practicing being thankful for what I do have… another day, abuse free. That is something I know I will have to celebrate every day because I will never let someone like BM in my life again.
Now… the ladies at the Group Home.. well, I get paid to take their abuse. :o) Not enough, Oxy. Not enough.
Good night!
onguard 68,
Mind-numbing isn’t it? I was often accused of saying things I didn’t say. Written and verbal content was lost on the S. I kept thinking no one in their right mind would interpret what I just said or wrote that way!!!
I think there are probably a few reasons why this happens. It could be part of gaslighting as it always confused me and kept me explaining and then re-explaining myself. Could be emotional manipulation as every little thing was related to him and interpreted based on his distorted perceptions. Then there’s the fact that semantics are lost on Ss.
This is from the link below…”often misses the semantic meaning of language, misinterprets what is said, sometimes wrongly thinking that comments of a satirical, ironic or general negative nature apply to him or herself.”
http://www.bullyoffline.org/workbully/serial.htm
Regardless it’s absolutely exhausting, in my opinion, to engage in a discussion with someone who accuses you of something you didn’t say or write. It’s an accusation too. A healthy person wouldn’t do that. Then again, a healthy person would not distort what you’ve said like an S does! That’s been a big red flag for me in people now. Got rid of a roommate last month as that was one of her fatal flaws as I see them. Try to use guilt on me and manipulate and then hurl accusations at me regarding things I haven’t said and done…there’s the door! The backlash, she took a lot of my things and then cancelled her last rent/utilities check after it was deposited. And she got furious when I called her passive aggressive months ago LOL! Well, what do we call that behavior? I hate it when I’m right about people but I thank God that I live with my eyes wide open now!!!
Oh and the best thing- I’m doing abso-smurfly nothing about it. Thanks to LF and the obsessive research I’ve done to learn everything I can about Ss and PDIs, I was able to see it, nip it in the bud and say no more! She may have stolen some of my belongings and jipped me on money but I have my home back and peace of mind! I told her in the end that I felt like I was living with my ex, the S. That’s cause I was! Her mother even confirmed it. Ugh!
Friends, family and even my therapist (whom she saw briefly herself…I emphasize briefly as she took offense to any feedback from the therapist who is a wonderful clinician) encouraged me to take her to small claims court (at least for the stop payment she put on her check..the one she wrote rent and utilities on in the memo line…not so smart). But honestly, doing nothing feels soooooo good. I am exerting my right to say, “you are not important to me and neither are material things.” Sadly she parades around stating she’s a christian. I don’t know what God she worships but my God does not look kindly on that behavior.
I was able to process why I let myself get used and, honestly, I don’t think I did. I was a supportive friend but when I recognized what was happening I stopped. I set boundaries and I said no more. I can’t tell you how wonderful that experience was in the end! I also can’t say how validating it was to listen to my instincts, recognize the signs and deal with it in a healthy way.
I just needed to get that off my chest. Daggone S’s. Who do they think they’re dealing with? LOL Been there, done that. Please move along now!