Research help

I was recently contacted by Willem H.J. Martens, a psychiatric researcher known to many of you as being the source of some of the most insightfully sympathetic and understanding portrayals of psychopaths in the academic literature. He is author of, among others, "The Hidden Suffering of Psychopaths" and "Emotional Capacities and Sensitivity in Psychopaths." He is writing a book on psychopathy and is soliciting more examples, histories, and illustrative stories ("self-reports") from psychopaths (either diagnosed or self-diagnosed), particularly regarding certain diagnostic criteria. From Dr. Martens:

I am Willem Martens, psychoanalyst, psychiatrist and chair of the "W. Kahn Institute of Theoretial Psychiatry and Neuroscience." I have published on psychopathy in many international journals. I am a psychopath myself, which became obvious during my study and work. My PhD trajectory was a horrible road with numerous conflicts. I spoiled three teams of promotors in three universities. But, I graduated on a controversial study on the correlation between remission and maturation in psychopaths (only 14 of 667 cases). This idea was inspired by the life of my brother, a very gifted and charismatic person who did all the things which were forbidden. Suddenly he changed after a series of impressive incidents. My psychopathy and my childhood experiences gave me an advantage during my work for decades with psychopaths in forensic settings, I understood them and they understood me.

I'am writing a book on psychopaths's reflections on their personality features, condition and characteristics. The intention of this book is to form a counterbalance against the existing superficial, incorrect and incomplete theories of and viewpoints on psychopathy and sociopathy. This internet forum provides a huge amount of valuable and revealing information. However, with regard to some topics (diagnostic features of the PCL-R; psychopathy checklist of Hare) I need responses in order to make my book complete and convincing because it must cover all the topics of the PCL-R and related references.

I need more self reports for the following traits. If you are a sociopath and manifest one or more of these traits, please contact me at martens_92 at hotmail dot com.

1. Glibness/Superficial Charm
2. Grandiose Sense of Self worth
3. Need for Stimulation/Proneness to Bored
8. Callous/Lack of Empathy
9. Parasitic Lifestyle
10. Poor Behavioral Controls
12. Early Behavioral Problems
14. Impulsivity
16. Failure to Accept Responsibility for Own Actions
17. Many Short-Term Marital Relationships
18. Juvenile Delinquent
19. Revocation of Conditional Release
20. Criminal Versatility.

Please provide self-reports rather that theoretical visions.

I believe that this is very important work, so I may be updating or reminding you periodically to contact Dr. Martens. I hope that through our extensive collective cooperation, the book will more accurately depict the realities and spectrum of the psychopathic experience.

Hidden Suffering of the Psychopath

Willem H.J. Martens* has published his book, heavily featuring some of the readers of this website and participants of the forum.  Martens says: "The money (8 dollars) is for our Kahn Institute os Theoretical Psychiatry and Neuroscience."

About the book:

This book provides new insight in the nature of psychopathy. On basis of analysis anonymous self-reports and case reports of members of an internet forum for psychopaths it was concluded that psychopaths are suffering too and demonstrate a different psychodynamic mechanism as was proposed untill now. Dr. Martens is a forensic psychiatrist/psychoanalyst who published in many international journas.


It is for behavioral scientists, forensic psychiatrists/psychotherapists, criminologists and staff members of forensic psychiatric hospitals extremely important to know how persons with psychopathy experience their disorder and how do they think about their behavior, tendencies and attitude. Until now this is not clarified. 

Psychopaths might regard their features, attitude and behavior quite differently than their non-psychopathic counterparts and researchers do. This distinction might be the result of a) ignorance of non-psychopaths about the true nature of this complex disorder, b) a very different perspective of psychopaths and non-psychopaths in analyzing this phenomenon, c) the fact that most empirical data is gathered from incarnated, criminal populations who are very able to manipulate tests (most of them know much about the PCL-R), asessments, researchers, and therapists (just for fun, revenge, hatred, or disgust) and d) a lack of utilization of and unavailability of reliable and voluntary self-reports of psychopaths in informal settings, and so on. Informal, non-academic and non-clinical settings are important because the psychopaths I investigated hate formal academic and clinical settings because they consider them as bulwarks of repressing authority which are harmful for them. They consider current theories and concepts of psychopathy as inadequate, incomplete, incorrect, stereotype which bring about stigmatization. 

I revealed that reliable self-reports of psychopaths (which would not have negative consequences) were posted on the anonymous internet forum discussion for psychopaths (www.SociopathWorld.com). I discovered that Internet Forums of Psychopaths were true goldmines of information which form the missing link in current research, treatment and theorizing. On the internet forum the participants can tell their stories, concerns and discuss their items freely and anonymously. They trust the fellow psychopaths and their stories are really revealing and provide profound analysis of their behavior and many unknown details. Their otherwise defensive attitude appeared to be vanished and it seems that they are able to help and support each other. Potentially persons with very violent tendencies are guided and supported by other forum participants in a rather “social” way in order to stay out of problems and avoid harmfulness. Many visitors of the forum tell that the discussions and the chance to tell their true stories caused relief for them and there were many we were thankful to be part of a sort of community which gave their life structure and new insights.


*Willem H. J. Martens - MD, PhD - Composer and Chair of W. Kahn Institute of Theoretical Psychiatry and Neuroscience and Advisor appointed by the European Commission (Leonardo da Vinci). Address: Henk van Tienhovenstraat 67, 6543JB Nijmegen (Gelderland), The Netherlands.

Curing Psychopathy

I got this press release and a copy of Willem Martens' new book on psychopaths who are no longer psychopaths:

[T]he new book of William Martens – MD, PhD. The Firebirds among the Psychopaths – Development and Remission in Psychopathy,” will be available from January 15 2015 on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Google Play, Kobo, Apple iBookstore etc; ISBN: 978-2-7659-0740-4

This book is an attempt to describe and make understandable this rare phenomenon of complete remission in psychopathy and the developmental embedding of it. In this book the history of the concept of psychopathy; the psychosocial, psychodynamic, genetic and neurobiological aspects, the diagnostic tools as well as the therapeutic determinants of the phenomenon will be discussed in this volume.

A complete remission of psychopathy is defined as complete disappearance of all such manifestations of disease.  The case reports of remitted criminal and noncriminal psychopaths which are presented in this book are the only examples of real remission in a sample 667 patients which were treated in a forensic psychiatric hospital between 1966 and 1995. This a percentage of just nearly 2% .They might become “weller than well” as Karl Menninger called this phenomenon in his study of remitted in schizophrenic patients. This means that these patients are not just cured, but their life as very much enriched by the experience of conquer the disorder and self-transformation. They will continue improve still further.