Showing posts with label sociopathy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label sociopathy. Show all posts

Thursday, May 20, 2010

Our fate

From the blog of the Lexington correspondent of the Economist.
THE other striking Supreme Court ruling yesterday concerned sex criminals. The court said the federal government could detain them indefinitely, even after their sentences end, if they are determined to be sexually dangerous.

Much of the debate turned on whether the power to detain such people properly belongs to the federal government, or to the states. Justice Clarence Thomas predictably says that Washington is over-stepping its enumerated powers.

Perhaps so. But I think the most important question is how the system will actually work. The government is claiming the power to imprison people forever, not for crimes they have been convicted of, but for crimes they might commit in the future. That's an extraordinary power. It's similar to the power both the Bush and Obama administrations claim to detain "enemy combatants" indefinitely because, although there is not enough evidence to convict them in a court of law, we know they will re-join al-Qaeda if we let them go.

Neither problem is easy. But with the sex offenders, we could be looking at a much, much larger group of people. The lead petitioner in yesterday's case, Graydon Comstock, was convicted of buying child pornography and sentenced to 37 months in prison. Less than a week before he was due to be released, Alberto Gonzales (then the attorney general) declared him to be sexually dangerous.

That is, the government asserts that he:

(1) has previously "engaged or attempted to engage in sexually violent conduct or child molestation," (2) currently "suffers from a serious mental illness, abnormality, or disorder," and (3) "as a result of" that mental illness, abnormality, or disorder is "sexually dangerous to others," in that "he would have serious difficulty in refraining from sexually violent conduct or child molestation if released."

The thing is, he doesn't have to have been convicted of a sexually violent offence, or of child molestation. The standard of proof for holding Mr Comstock for the rest of his life is "clear and convincing". That is less rigorous than the "beyond a reasonable doubt" standard you'd need to establish to send me to jail for a few months for picking someone's pocket.

Will this kind of preventive detention be applied sparingly? Will there be adequate safeguards to prevent abuse? I have my doubts. There are more than 600,000 people on sex-offender registries in America, probably most of whom are not dangerous. Given the immense political pressure to keep our children safe, I worry that giving someone like Alberto Gonzales the power to hold people forever for crimes they have not yet committed is asking for trouble.

Wednesday, May 19, 2010

Growing up a sociopath

Children growing up in this era of digital permanent records have it rough. Every single moment, successes and mistakes, are being recorded and accessible for all eternity. Even if the child himself opts out of the constant chronicling of their early years, their friends are their doing it for them. It's like we have gone back to an earlier era where everyone in a small town knew everyone's personal business. This is bad for empath young people, but potentially devastating for sociopath young people who will make many distinctive mistakes while growing up. From a reader:
I grew up in a small town where everybody pretty much knew each other and being a child i kinda let others see my true self. Everybody there now hates me, i mean everybody. No friends, no nothing, just people hating me. Or so i think...

Anyway. I keep having nightmares and stuff about this. Like people there shooting me or killing me. Is it possible that this is just an overreaction caused by the fact i haven't been there in like a year? Actually i pretty much isolated myself from everyone until i grow up and hopefully not be annoyed by people walking by me on the street, by people. It is hard to say that i am cruel or something, i don't admit anything. But i might be ;). And given this cruelty i am afraid that they might start an angry mob and burn me like a witch. Even as i am writing this i am having some kind of deja vu and that makes me believe that i had dreamt of this. So following this logic i am going to actually get shot by someone who i have wronged. I know this sounds crazy and i know that ... maybe... it isn't real but every muscle in my body is telling me it is real. It is telling me to go back and do nice things, show that i care or something so that it won't come up with me being shot.

When i was younger the people there actually once started an angry mob that wanted revenge for all the bad things i did to them. The leader of the mob knew awful many things about me and that scared me out of doing anything to protect myself. I just sat there and listened how they were angry at me. They got me back against the wall and i panicked. I think that was the best choice at the moment because i didn't know how much they knew. Now when i think back i guess i should've at least protested. Don't even fucking know why i didn't play the victim. Probably there were too many of them knowing all kinds of different things each and playing a victim wouldn't have worked.

Fuck man, this whole e-mail is a deja vu to me. :-s . I wouldn't like telling anybody else about this, cause i don't know where would that lead. I don't even trust a psychologist to tell him. I am thinking that i could go out and make friends somehow but i am afraid of meeting people i previously knew. It's like i can't behave the way i want because people can see through it. I've been worrying about this ever since then and nowdays, when i am interacting with people, i am trying to be as honest as i can. I even keep them from liking me or getting involved in some kind of relationship with me because i know i will end up in that situation in which everything will be revealed. I would pretty much like to get rid of this sensation, so if you have any advice please let me know. Think i am fucking turning into a skizoid. And i also believe that ignoring this and going on with my life will only lead to that day in which i get shot in that coffee shop i keep dreaming about. Anyway. I hope you've seen this before and the whole deja vu thing is just in my head. You can post it on your blog if you want, hope nobody sees it, but keep it anonymous. Even though, in my paranoia, i think that someone that would read this would know it was me. WOW. I'm fucked. I will try to find a psychologist, somehow, someone i can trust, even though i don't know how he would help me. At the moment, i feel like i am going to be convinced that it is all in my head only when i died of natural causes or something different than i think. Anyway, tell me what you think.
Thanks.

Friday, May 14, 2010

On the wrongness of rape

From our friend the law and economics scholar in response to my request: "I wonder, could you give a quick summary of the Posner argument for not hurting people to post on the blog?":
I would be more than happy to provide a summary of Posner's arguments on why harming others is wrong. But I'd like to take a look over his text book again, so as not to misrepresent the Genius himself. Just as a taster I can tell you why rape is 'MOSTLY' wrong :). (God damn I wish it wasn't haha, that'd save a shitload of effort). In some ways I believe an explanation of why rape is "sometimes" wrong is more interesting than harm in general.

Basically, rape bypasses the market in sexual relations in the same way that theft bypasses markets in ordinary goods and services, and therefore should be forbidden. Something that bypasses the market is wrong. Here's the clinch. Sometimes rape is right. I'm going to paraphrase Posner here. Sometimes rapists derive extra pleasure from the fact that a woman has not consented. For these rapists, there is NO MARKET SUBSTITUTE - market transaction costs are prohibitive- and it can be argued, therefore, that for them rape is NOT A PURE COERCIVE TRANSFER and should NOT BE PUNISHED if the sum of satisfactions to the rapist (as measured by what he would be willing to pay - though not to the victim - for the right to rape) exceeds the victim's pain and distress.

The PRACTICAL OBJECTION is that rapists are hard to distinguish empirically from mere THIEVES OF SEX and that giving them free rein would induce women to invest heavily in self-protection. Posner goes on...and states "the fact that any sort of RAPE LICENSE is even thinkable within the framework of the wealth-maximisation theory that guides so much of the analysis in this book is a limitation on the usefulness of that theory". I believe Posner is probably not a sociopath. But I mean... writing about the difficulties of giving a 'license to rape' because it's hard to distinguish between genuine rapists and those who are 'thieves of sex': haha :). I recall long conversations with some girls at university on the "license to rape"...I fucked them all in the end without the license. :). To be honest I think I would have to think long and hard to give an explanation of why "rape is generally wrong" in terms that a person of average intelligence and experience would understand. It rests on the idea that the market is supreme...until that is understood it's just empty words.

Thursday, May 13, 2010

Playing doctor (part 2)

From a reader (cont.):
Looking back on that first email I can see that I have selected some 'terrible' things I have done on purpose. So perhaps a little insight into how I view the world generally would be more informing.

I look at things in a very logical way. But to an extent that seems 'wrong' to other people. I am a strong believer in the Law and Economics movement and tend to analyse everything through this lens. Often this is very tame: for instance, it seems fine to me that people should be allowed to sell their organs on an open market: this would clearly save lives.

Other times people seem more shocked. I see no problem, for instance, why a poor man who wishes to feed, educate and clothe his family should not be allowed to sell his right to live to another (even if it means being slowly tortured to death, or just slavery) in order to provide that. I have decided that violence against another without consent is usually wrong after reading Posner's enlightening arguments.

This has also led me to make 'racist' or 'sexist' conclusions, although I see only difference not superiority or inferiority. I never hesitate to make my viewpoint known and can always back it up with an arsenal of data and rationality. In any event I always build strong rapport with anyone I talk to so I can say more or less whatever I want.

I do feel like something is missing. But I don't think it is a complete lack of conscience. I don't think it is a complete void. I've never been completely honest in my life, however. I am always manipulating and lying. It has got to the point where there is really no difference for me. It is effortless... Sometimes I don't even notice I am doing it and I never really care afterwards. As I said, I've never been able to maintain a friendship.

Wednesday, May 12, 2010

Playing doctor (part 1)

A favorite childhood game of mine. Shall we give it a go?
Dear sir,

I just stumbled across your website. I hadn't really considered it but given what I tell you, what do you think is the chance? I don't really care either way but that would be funny.

I used to kill wasps when I was young. When I was 18 I caught a hedgehog in my garden, stabbed it right through and poured boiling water over it, hahaha lol. So I stabbed it again...then I impaled it with a shard of wood and threw it into my neighbour's garden. It was squealing for like an hour. When I saw its little face it almost looked human.

I used to get angry and kick my dogs. I really like them though.

When I was a little older, I was put into a mental hospital for telling a girl I was going to kill her. She pissed me off. I was never diagnosed though.

Past 5 years I've been studying law at one of the top universities in the world. It was only meant to take 3. But I just disappeared for two of them and did drugs and fucked prostitutes.

I've bled my parents dry. I get probably 1k dollars per week from my parents. They are idiots. I've spent it all on drugs and alcohol. I only just got internet cause I'm bored.

I've been caught drink driving a few times...idk. I had a job for a few months but I just left randomly during the day without telling anyone. Lost that, my dad got me that job so he looks like a retard now lol.

I don't have any real friendships. I cut everyone out when an important social circle dies. I've never been able to maintain a friendship.

But I would never consider myself a sociopath because I can get very angry about girls. When I know they like me I assume they are 'mine' and if they do otherwise I rage, sometimes for months. I can be quite obsessive. I think I'm just fucked up...what do you think?

Yours faithfully,
My response:
I don't think that getting "angry" at girls precludes the possibility of you being a sociopath. A more predictive indicator is that you seem apathetic about a vilified diagnosis, e.g., "I don't really care either way but that would be funny." Should we post your story on the blog and see what others think?

Tuesday, May 11, 2010

Raising cain

This is an interesting blog about raising an adopted son/psychopath. Here's a little teaser from the most recent post:
We came back home and checked the video tape. Remember the video system we installed? Yeah, we had it on. And he knew it.

Our camera was set up to look down the hallway past his bedroom and bathroom door. I left the light on in the hallway so the camera could record all night. The video showed me go into his room to kiss him goodnight and then head upstairs to bed. A minute later it showed Lucas come out of his room, look directly at the camera, turn the hallway light out and go back into his room. He knew exactly what he was doing.

A few minutes later the video showed my wife go into the bathroom. The light in Lucas’ bedroom was still on and it spilled out into the hallway, so the camera picked this up. The camera also picked up Lucas coming out of his room, getting down on his hands and knees, and looking under the bathroom door. A few minutes later Lucas hurriedly got up and ran back into his room, just as my wife exited the bathroom, completely unaware of what had just happened.

The camera showed my wife saying goodnight to Lucas and turning out Lucas’ bedroom light.

A few minutes later, after my wife had gone to bed, the light in Lucas’ closet turned on. I could tell it was the closet light because that light is fluorescent and looks blue on camera. That light turned off 25 minutes later and the camera recorded nothing more...

Monday, May 10, 2010

Lying

Friends recommended this episode of "Radio Lab," I think because it tells the story of a rabid sociopath/narcissist con artist (not clear which). There was also some really interesting information about what the brain of a liar looks like:
Yang and her colleagues put all 49 people, both the liars and the non-liars, into a magnetic resonance imaging scanner and took pictures of their prefrontal cortex. They chose to focus on this area of the brain because previous studies had shown that the prefrontal cortex plays a role in both lying and in antisocial behaviors.

If you could look into this part of the brain, which sits right behind your forehead, you would see two kinds of matter: gray and white. Gray matter is the groups of brain cells that process information. Most neuroscience studies focus on gray matter. But nearly half the brain is composed of connective tissues that carry electrical signals from one group of neurons to another. This is white matter. Roughly, gray matter is where the processing happens, and white matter connects different parts of the brain, helping us to bring different ideas together.

The liars in Yang's study had on average 22 percent to 26 percent more white matter in their prefrontal cortex than both the normal and antisocial controls.

Yang speculates that the increase in white matter means that people who lie repeatedly and compulsively are better at making connections between thoughts that aren't connected in reality — like, say, "me" and "fighter pilot." Consequently, while some of us struggle to come up with reasons why we were late for work, or can't go out with someone we don't really like, Yang's liars impulsively serve up a heaping helping of excuses and stories, and fast.

"By having more connections," Yang says, "you can jump from one idea to another and you can come up with more random stories and ideas."

Admittedly, this study is just a first step. It doesn't show that more white matter in the prefrontal cortex accounts for all lying or that it's the only part of the brain involved. And the study does not establish whether the brain differences lead to lying or whether repeated lying somehow "exercises" connections in the brain. While the study was carefully designed to exclude differences that could be due to age, ethnicity, IQ, brain injury or substance abuse, the small sample size means the results need to be replicated. More research is needed to define what behaviors count as pathological lying and to establish the mechanism behind those behaviors.

Friday, May 7, 2010

The moral life of babies

This was an interesting article in the NY Times about the innate moral reasoning that babies seem to have, or more accurately, *not* have. Excerpts:
From Sigmund Freud to Jean Piaget to Lawrence Kohlberg, psychologists have long argued that we begin life as amoral animals. One important task of society, particularly of parents, is to turn babies into civilized beings — social creatures who can experience empathy, guilt and shame; who can override selfish impulses in the name of higher principles; and who will respond with outrage to unfairness and injustice. Many parents and educators would endorse a view of infants and toddlers close to that of a recent Onion headline: “New Study Reveals Most Children Unrepentant Sociopaths.” If children enter the world already equipped with moral notions, why is it that we have to work so hard to humanize them?

[Still, s]ocialization is critically important. But this is not because babies and young children lack a sense of right and wrong; it’s because the sense of right and wrong that they naturally possess diverges in important ways from what we adults would want it to be.

Morality, after all, is a different sort of affair than physics or psychology. The truths of physics and psychology are universal: objects obey the same physical laws everywhere; and people everywhere have minds, goals, desires and beliefs. But the existence of a universal moral code is a highly controversial claim; there is considerable evidence for wide variation from society to society.

In the journal Science a couple of months ago, the psychologist Joseph Henrich and several of his colleagues reported a cross-cultural study of 15 diverse populations and found that people’s propensities to behave kindly to strangers and to punish unfairness are strongest in large-scale communities with market economies, where such norms are essential to the smooth functioning of trade. Henrich and his colleagues concluded that much of the morality that humans possess is a consequence of the culture in which they are raised, not their innate capacities.

At the same time, though, people everywhere have some sense of right and wrong. You won’t find a society where people don’t have some notion of fairness, don’t put some value on loyalty and kindness, don’t distinguish between acts of cruelty and innocent mistakes, don’t categorize people as nasty or nice. These universals make evolutionary sense. Since natural selection works, at least in part, at a genetic level, there is a logic to being instinctively kind to our kin, whose survival and well-being promote the spread of our genes. More than that, it is often beneficial for humans to work together with other humans, which means that it would have been adaptive to evaluate the niceness and nastiness of other individuals. All this is reason to consider the innateness of at least basic moral concepts.
The article explains how babies prefer good actors over those they perceive to be bad actors. Even more interesting to me was that although babies generally equate bad behavior with being a bad actor, if bad behavior is done to a someone or something that the baby thinks is a bad actor, the baby thinks the behavior is justified, presumably as a just punishment.
All of this research, taken together, supports a general picture of baby morality. It’s even possible, as a thought experiment, to ask what it would be like to see the world in the moral terms that a baby does. Babies probably have no conscious access to moral notions, no idea why certain acts are good or bad. They respond on a gut level. Indeed, if you watch the older babies during the experiments, they don’t act like impassive judges — they tend to smile and clap during good events and frown, shake their heads and look sad during the naughty events (remember the toddler who smacked the bad puppet). The babies’ experiences might be cognitively empty but emotionally intense, replete with strong feelings and strong desires. But this shouldn’t strike you as an altogether alien experience: while we adults possess the additional critical capacity of being able to consciously reason about morality, we’re not otherwise that different from babies — our moral feelings are often instinctive. In fact, one discovery of contemporary research in social psychology and social neuroscience is the powerful emotional underpinning of what we once thought of as cool, untroubled, mature moral deliberation.
***
The aspect of morality that we truly marvel at — its generality and universality — is the product of culture, not of biology. There is no need to posit divine intervention. A fully developed morality is the product of cultural development, of the accumulation of rational insight and hard-earned innovations. The morality we start off with is primitive, not merely in the obvious sense that it’s incomplete, but in the deeper sense that when individuals and societies aspire toward an enlightened morality — one in which all beings capable of reason and suffering are on an equal footing, where all people are equal — they are fighting with what children have from the get-go. The biologist Richard Dawkins was right, then, when he said at the start of his book “The Selfish Gene,” “Be warned that if you wish, as I do, to build a society in which individuals cooperate generously and unselfishly toward a common good, you can expect little help from biological nature.” Or as a character in the Kingsley Amis novel “One Fat Englishman” puts it, “It was no wonder that people were so horrible when they started life as children.”

Thursday, May 6, 2010

Shaming

I have become increasingly disenchanted with humanity, particularly these last few months. I think it may have something to do with being sick for a long time and never really catching up. It also may have something to do with the amount of traveling I have had to do, particularly international flights with immigration and customs checks.

The other day I had just boarded a plane and was trying to get an email sent before we took off. It was such a small plane that there was only a minute between when we were asked to shut off any electronics* and enforcement. After the announcement, I finished the sentence I was on and pressed send, but the connection was bad and I couldn't tell whether it had sent or not. I attempted to resend. At this point, I could have hidden the phone while the phone searched for a connection, but i decided to be honest about it and do it within plain sight. Halfway through attempting to resend, the flight attendant reprimanded me for not having turned the phone off already, trying to shame me in front of the other passengers. I quickly got very angry. My friend says "it's when you are trying to be legit and people still chastise you that you get the most irate." True. He also said that the flight attendant would probably not have been so angry if I had actually attempted to hide the phone, instead of blatantly and openly defying the order. Maybe also true. But I controlled my anger well, only giving the flight attendant chilling death glares. I think I must have creeped her out sufficiently, though, because I looked up a few times in the flight and saw her staring at me with a look of bewilderment and fear.

This incident was not a big deal, but it did remind me that I don't respond well at all to shaming attempts. I don't know why people would ever use them (particularly with people like me around) or over something so small as mobile phone etiquette. I always think -- poor phone etiquette is the least of your worries with me, guy. I think if people had to choose only one thing to worry about, there are many other things that should be prioritized, including the wisdom of sleeping with one eye open.

I'm sure there was originally some evolutionary impetus for shame and shaming, but can it really still be applicable? Effective? Safe?


*is there a legitimate reason for this rule?

Tuesday, May 4, 2010

Sympathy vs. empathy (part 2)

My response:
Ha, hard to know if we're bad people, what does that even mean? I definitely think we can feel genuine sympathy or sadness, though. Sympathy just means feeling sorry for them, and has nothing to do with feeling what they feel or whatever else empathy is supposed to mean. I feel sorry for people when something bad happens to them or they cry or are otherwise struggling because I know what it feels like to have something bad happen to you, and it can be heart wrenching. I think we understand emotions a lot better than people think we do, but I also think that our understanding isn't too good unless/until we have experienced that exact same emotion, gone through that exact same experience before. At least for me, the more I can see other people as myself (i.e. the more they mirror me or my own past experiences), the better I can understand them. That doesn't seem strange or disturbing to me, but they keep telling me that there is this magic empathy thing that people are somehow born with a magical sense that allows them to feel what others are feeling naturally.
Reader:
Yes I understand what you mean. I truthfully think we sociopaths have a higher understanding of human emotion than most normal people do. Maybe because we spend so much time trying to analyze it to understand it. I think we are very emotionally intuitive and can pick up on when someone is lying or bullshitting us, or at least I can. I can meet people and within 5 minutes know what kind of person they are. This comes to my aid a lot when it comes to friendships...I know so many things about these people, they don't even realize I pick up on it. It's like you always know their intentions. I like this being able to 'read' people quality. It certainly helps with life.

As for sympathy, I can relate to an emotion someone is having as in...I understand it perfectly...though since it's not me going through it, I tend to not care. It doesn't mean I want them to suffer, I just have no feelings towards it at all.

Monday, May 3, 2010

Sympathy vs. empathy (part 1)

A reader writes:
I ran across your blog and just wanted to say I really like and agree with what you've written. I'm a sociopath myself, so maybe I'm just happy (yes, we do feel some emotions, don't we lol) to run into someone that understands what it's like. You present the information on what it's like to be a sociopath is a very honest and straightforward way, and I respect that. I, too, have come out to people who I've suspected are sociopaths themselves, but generally if I don't want someone to know, they don't. There's a certain kindred feeling I get in recognizing someone who is like me. Sometimes I admit as much to people as I believe I can get away with, such as admitting to being manipulative or deceitful to get what I want. Like everything, there's an agenda to that: it shows the person I consider them close enough to be able to open up to them and reveal intimate details about myself, and it also gives me attention. And if this person is someone I want something from, well you get the idea.

But I wonder, do you think we are "bad" people? I hate using that word because it seems so black and white. But there are times I almost think I do feel genuine sympathy or sadness, or what I imagine it would feel like, but then again this could be me fooling myself into trying to believe I am normal. Oftentimes, I find myself imitating the behavior I see on TV shows or soap operas, and it's like playing a role of sorts. My grandpa is dying of cancer and will be dead in a few months' time and I stand to inherit his home when he passes. The idea of owning a home is of course a plus for me, and I admit when the doctors expressed a slight chance he may live, I was even disappointed because it meant I wouldn't get my house after all. But things have gone downhill and although I do my best to show sympathy, I know I want that house. I'd never kill him myself, but you get the picture. But just thinking that I can behave this way gets me depressed and I can say I can genuinely make myself cry for real, but not in any way that expresses sympathy for my grandfather...more like a self-involved "why do I have to be this way" thing. I realize I am not normal and my emotions are not normal, but that doesn't mean I believe them to be wrong. I often find myself accusing others of having false emotions, but then I realize that's most likely because they seem so foreign to me that I think everyone must be faking it like myself. It shocks me to find out people actually DO care about others and it's genuine.

If I do feel sadness or empathy, it stems from the fact that I realize I am not normal and I can make myself cry about this. Like "What's wrong with me? What am I lacking? Why can't I be normal?" But I can never seem to cry over anything regarding -another- person. If I hurt someone and I cry about it, it's not because of any remorse, it's more like "Jeez I'm so screwed up"...notice the "I'm" there. It makes it selfish, if you know what I mean.

Thursday, April 29, 2010

Sociopaths and depression

From a reader:
I am already sorry that my email has to begin with "my ex-boyfriend is a sociopath..." because I know this is something most women think has happened to them. My ex, however, is what he describes as "caught in the net"; a diagnosed sociopath, treated once in hospital and still in occupational care. Not that it helps, of course.

When we were together, he didn't act in a way that most women would describe their apparently sociopathic exes as acting, in fact he was very loving and caring, and always spoke of the huge amounts of respect he had for me, and how he took me seriously, and this is why he loved me. Before we were together we were friends and I would watch him systematically destroy the emotional lives of his exes, just for fun, just for kicks. My reasons for loving him were the normal ones; mainly, I was attracted to the sociopath in him.

I saw him just the other day, and we had this long conversation, where he told me about how much he feels he is suffering. I am adverse to all people who assume that sociopaths have no feelings whatsoever. Sure, he doesn't feel guilt, which sometimes makes me feel incredibly upset that he could - and has - hurt me spectacularly, and the only remorse he would feel would be the remorse would follow my excommunication of him, not the fact that he had upset me.

He has started to complain of feeling he has built himself a prison of his own behaviours, that his lack of impulse control is what's driving him to his own insanity. He doesn't feel guilty, his problem doesn't lie in his fear that he is hurting people, it is his basic fear that he will be lonely, that he is damaging himself. He has had a few scares that have nearly killed him, a few outbursts that have landed him in the Police Station or the psychiatric unit. He said something to me about his grip on reality; something about the fact that every time he does something "typically psychopathic", he is bored of himself, and he feels another barrier between him and the real world has gone up. I'm not entirely sure what he means by this.

I wouldn't assume that the reason he is saying this stuff to me is to appeal to my empathy, because I currently have nothing he wants. He is always relatively honest with me, in that if he wants something from me, he will ask for it. He respects me, still, so the mind games he plays with me are very minor and are usually just to keep himself on form.

My question is, is this feeling of suffering a common thing? Sociopaths I know only feel very primal emotions, and he has often told me that my downfall in life is that I am far too empathetic and this is slowing me down, that I could be like him if I wanted to but I'm too compassionate and he finds this quite sickening.
Occupational hazard?

Monday, April 26, 2010

Blood lust

In my experience, blood lust is very rare even in the sociopath community (and of course not exclusive to sociopaths). The difficult thing about it is you can never really tell who it will be: you can have some creepy co-worker who turns out to be fine, and another charming one who one day comes to work with a small arsenal. It's hard to tell what is going on there, but here is a reader's description of what it feels like to self-professedly have bloodlust:
Blood cravings or the craving of wanting to hurt someone is weird. I'm holding a fork or a knife or something sharp, and all I want to do is shove it in the throat of the person next to me. I'm curious, but, I know the hell that awaits me if I do it. So I don't. But, I feel the need, the force and thought that pulls me and is pushing me closer to the step where I actually do it. Sometimes, I'm not even angry. I'm fully in control of my emotions and body. But, I keep having images in my head where I step closer and jab and the persons throat. Who, it doesn't matter to me. I've had those images with my friends, people I don't know, even my own mother.

When I'm angry, I have no control. I have lost my temper and destroyed things I shouldn't. I'm more curious than afraid that one day, I'll lose my temper and hurt someone. It could be rather interesting actually. If I end up in a courtroom at least I can plea the "insanity"-plea. Or am I thinking of some other thing?

For me it's more like curiosity. Will the blood pour out of him/her like water? Will it splatter across the room? Will I have to use a lot of force to shove it all the way in? If I pull out the knife, will the blood gash out of her/him like in the movies? Will she scream?

All I know is that IF I do it, unprovoked, I will have one hell of a time explaining it to the police, my family, probably even the media. Who knows? Will my former therapist get an interview in the newspaper? That would actually be fun.

Will I one day give in to the urges? If I do, and I can control it, I will only do it towards those who I see fit to die. Those I hate. Not personally of course, but, to those who I deem evil.

Friday, April 23, 2010

Diagnosis sociopath: DSM/Hare

DSM
The scientific push to explain how actions were determined externally is attributable to the large behaviorist movement that occurred in the United States during the mid-20th century. This focus on deviant behavior was criticized by some because all classes of criminals (e.g., thieves, sex offenders) were pushed into the same category (i.e., Sociopathic Personality Disorder). In effect, the focus shifted from the abnormal internal processes of the psychopath to include generic and overly inclusive deviant behaviors of many types of (offending) individuals. Another distinction for this diagnosis was the existence of antisocial and dyssocial sociopaths. The dyssocial sociopath was identified as a professional criminal who could be extremely loyal to his comrades (e.g., members of organized crime).


DSM-II
The dyssocial sociopath distinction was eliminated with the publication of the DSM-II (APA, 1968). Smith (1978) contended that the extreme loyalty to family and friends made this classification represent no other pathology except illegal behaviors. The personality characteristics of the psychopath were not conveyed in the dyssocial sociopath. The antisocial classification that remained still focused on the psychopath’s personality traits. For example, the DSM-II described this type of individual as callous, impulsive, selfish, and unable to learn from experience. However, some critics maintained that the DSM-II did not provide specific diagnostic criteria for the disorder (Hare, 1996).

DSM-III and DSM-III-R
The issue of explicit diagnostic criteria was solved with the publication of the DSM-III (1980) and the DSM-III-R (1987). Following both manuals, the diagnosis for psychopathy was called Antisocial Personality Disorder (ASPD); however, it no longer focused on personality traits. The criteria were changed by emphasizing behaviors. The DSM-III Task Force felt that the clinical inferences necessary to determine the personality characteristics of a psychopath lowered the reliability of the diagnosis. Therefore, a diagnostic shift to behavioral characteristics commonly associated with the disorder was considered more reliable for identification purposes than were the personality factors explaining why the behaviors occurred (Hare, 1996). However, the new criteria were so broad they included almost every known criminal offense (Stevens, 1993).

At least one member of the DSM-III Task Force was not convinced that this new diagnosis appropriately represented the psychopathy construct it was designed to identify and measure. Millon (1981) wrote of his dissatisfaction with the Task Force’s diagnosis of ASPD, alleging that “the write-up fails to deal with personality characteristics at all, but rather lists a series of antisocial behaviors that stem from such characteristics”(p. 182). In addition, he explained that too great an emphasis was placed on delinquent and criminal behaviors for the diagnosis. Millon also cited instances where some individuals with similar psychopathic personalities will express these characteristics in socially appropriate ways. In other words, he argued that the ASPD diagnosis was overly inclusive. Following Millon’s (1981) criticisms, not everyone who engages in criminal behavior experiences an absence of anxiety, guilt, or has shallow emotions. Furthermore, some psychopaths do not fit under the ASPD diagnosis, given the heavy emphasis on illicit conduct in adolescence and adulthood. Indeed, consistent with Millon’s observations, some researchers conclude that the newest nomenclature for psychopathy (i.e., ASPD) sacrifices validity for the sake of reliability (Hare, 1998). Hart and Hare (1997) contended that “there is little systematic experimental evidence to support the validity of the DSM criteria” (p. 25).

DSM-IV (1994)
The objections leveled against the DSM determination of ASPD resulted in slight changes in the DSM-IV diagnosis. According to the DSM-IV (APA, 1994), ASPD “has also been referred to as psychopathy, sociopathy, or dyssocial personality disorder” (p. 645). Hare (1998) suggested that although this inclusion makes it easier for forensic psychologists or psychiatrists to discuss psychopathy in their evaluations or court testimony, greater confusion exists regarding the association between ASPD and psychopathy. Indeed, although the DSM-IV diagnosis retains the emphasis on antisocial behavior, many individuals diagnosed may not be psychopathic.

HARE’S PSYCHOPATHY CHECKLIST–REVISED
This particular objection prompted Hare (1980) to develop his Psychopathy Checklist (PCL), followed by a more revised version; namely, the PCL-R. Both the PCL and the PCL-R attempt to operationalize the concept of psychopathy based on the primary features of Cleckley’s (1941) original criteria. The PCL-R is a more quantifiable and semistructured interview with good reliability, validity, and norms).

Factor 1 represents interactional/emotional style and has been described as aggressive narcissism . Items that load on Factor 1 are more indicative of personality traits, including, among others, (1) glibness and superficial charm, (2) grandiose sense of self-worth, (4) pathological lying, (5) conning/manipulative, (6) lack of remorse, (7) shallow affect, (8) callous lack of empathy, and (16) failure to accept responsibility for one’s own actions.

Factor 2 items address behaviors or behavioral styles common to psychopaths, including, among others, (3) proneness to boredom, (9) parasitic lifestyle, (10) poor behavioral controls, (12) early behavioral problems, (13) lack of realistic long-term goals, (14) impulsivity, (15) irresponsibility, (18) juvenile delinquency, (19) revocation of conditional release. Whereas Factor 1 items remain relatively stable over time, Factor 2 items can diminish with age. Additionally, in Hare (1996), only Factor 2 items have any correlation with the DSM-IV’s ASPD diagnosis.

Thursday, April 22, 2010

Diagnosis sociopath: mask of sanity

(cont.)
The publication of Cleckley’s text, The Mask of Sanity (1941), marked the beginning of the modern clinical construct of psychopathy, and his characterization has remained relatively stable to the present day. Cleckley based his description of the psychopath on observations of White, middle-class male patients, residing as inpatients of a mental hospital. The conceptualization of the psychopath by Cleckley focused on the patient’s intrapersonal characteristics or “inferred, nonobservable, processes."

Cleckley recognized that many psychopaths never became involved with the criminal justice system. Moreover, many could succeed in business or in other endeavors, particularly in those careers that offered considerable material success. Cleckley observed that the primary psychopathic characteristics of glibness, superficial charm, emotional detachment, and lack of remorse or guilt could be used for successful criminal or noncriminal careers. Psychopaths can pursue what they want without experiencing anxiety attributable to a concern for how their actions might impact others.

In the wake of Cleckley’s findings, the word psychopath became popular among laypersons as well as mental health professionals. Ellard attributes this notoriety to the term’s status as both an explanation for and a cause of depraved and frequent criminal behavior. He cautions, however, that this logic was as inherently circular and suspect during Cleckley’s period as it is today. Illustrating the tautological nature of Cleckley’s psychopath, Ellard questions, “Why has this man done these terrible things? Because he is a psychopath. And how do you know that he is a psychopath? Because he has done these terrible things”.

Wednesday, April 21, 2010

Diagnosis sociopath: the hate

(cont.)
The appropriate designation for what is today known as psychopathy underwent several changes and iterations. In 1891, Koch used the term psychopathic inferiority to characterize individuals who engaged in abnormal behaviors due to heredity but who were not insane. They were determined to have moral defects, but these defects were not equated with viciousness or wickedness. This new terminology (i.e., psychopathic inferiority) described emotional and moral aberration based on congenital factors and found wide acceptance in Europe and America. However, notwithstanding Koch’s efforts, the meaning of psychopathy in subsequent years once again became something quite pejorative but also something more reflective of the internal world and personality traits of the individual.

Maudsley (1897/1977) was a British psychiatrist who asserted that persons prone to moral imbecility could not be rehabilitated in prisons. Maudsley argued that moral imbecility was caused by cerebral deficits. As such, he believed it was useless to punish those who could not control their actions and wrote the following as evidence of moral imbecility: "When we find young children, long before they can possibly know what vice and crime means, addicted to extreme vice, or committing great crimes, with an instinctive facility, and as if from an inherent proneness to criminal actions . . . and when experience proves that punishment has no reformatory effect upon them—that they cannot reform—it is made evident that moral imbecility is a fact, and that punishment is not the fittest treatment of it."

Krafft-Ebing (1904) was even less sympathetic toward those considered morally depraved[,] assert[ing] that such individuals were “without prospect of success” and commented that “these savages . . . must be kept in asylums for their own[good] and [for] the safety of society.” It was at this historical juncture that psychopathic individuals were regarded as impervious to rehabilitation and that chronic social deviance was equated with pathology.

By 1915, Kraepelin expanded Koch’s psychopathic inferiority terminology to contain categories essentially defined by the most vicious and wicked of disordered offenders. His psychopathic personalities described in detail the “born criminal . . . the excitable, shiftless, impulsive types, the liars, swindlers, antisocial and troublemaking types”. Clearly with these characterizations, Kraepelin moved the focus of psychopathy back to one of moral judgment and social condemnation.

Interestingly, as Millon et al. (1998, p. 19) note, his categories of psychopathic personalities more closely represent our conceptualization of psychopathy and ASPD today. He described these disordered individuals as "the enemies of society . . . characterized by a blunting of the moral elements. They are often destructive and threatening . . . there is a lack of deep emotional reaction; and of sympathy and affection they have little. They are apt to have been troublesome in school, given to truancy and running away. Early thievery is common among them and they commit crimes of various kinds."

Tuesday, April 20, 2010

Diagnosis sociopath: origins

(cont.)
As previously stated, the psychopathy construct has a long history with changing personality patterns and clinical characteristics, dating back through the past two centuries.

Phillipe Pinel is generally credited with recognizing psychopathy as a specific mental disorder. Pinel advocated for appropriate, moral treatment rather than cruel interventions (e.g., bloodletting, cold baths) as the preferred method of intervention for the psychiatrically ill (Pinel, 1801/1962). Pinel’s contributions occurred in France shortly after the French Revolution. Prior to this time, France was ruled by a strict class structure and sanity was judged by the Old Testament of the Bible. In 1801, Pinel observed that some of his patients engaged in impulsive acts, had episodes of extreme violence, and caused self-harm. He noted that these individuals were able to comprehend the irrationality of what they were doing. There was no evidence of what is now considered psychosis, and their reasoning abilities did not appear to be impaired. He described these men as suffering from manie sans délire (insanity without delirium). As Pinel explained, “I was not a little surprised to find many maniacs who at no period gave evidence of any lesion of understanding, but who were under the dominion of instinctive and abstract fury, as if the faculties of affect alone had sustained injury” (p. 9). His observations were very controversial during this era, especially because a low intellect and symptoms of psychosis were the typical criteria for identifying mental illness (Stevens, 1993).

In the early 1800s, Benjamin Rush, an American psychiatrist, also documented confusing cases that were described by clarity of thought along with moral depravity in behavior. However, Rush (1812) went beyond Pinel’s more affectively based description and maintained that moral derangement was either a birth defect or was caused by disease. Rush believed this condition was primarily congenital. As he stated, “There is probably an original defective organization in those parts of the body which are preoccupied by the moral faculties of the mind”. In addition, Rush held that “it is the business of medicine to aid both religion and law, in preventing and curing their moral alienation of the mind”. The American psychiatrist maintained that the lack of morality was primarily hereditary, yet unstable environments were largely responsible for fostering its growth. Rush further claimed that offenders with mental defects were best treated in medical rather than custodial institutions. Benjamin Rush is recognized as one of the first to begin what has since become a long-standing practice of social condemnation toward individuals labeled psychopathic.
Join Amazon Prime - Watch Over 40,000 Movies

.

Comments are unmoderated. Blog owner is not responsible for third party content. By leaving comments on the blog, commenters give license to the blog owner to reprint attributed comments in any form.