Tuesday, March 19, 2013

"Psychopath"

From a reader regarding Jennifer Skeem's most recent article debunking sociopath myths:


I think she's much closer to the mark, ironically by not really trying too hard to pin down exactly what psychopathy is. As I recall her main line of attack is focused on the current conception, the Hare model. The two areas that I think are weakest with the current model are where she focuses, namely the idea that psychopathy is totally untreatable, as well as including criminality as central to the disorder. Both of these assumptions are based on faulty data. For a laugh, check out the methodology of the first study that concluded psychopaths weren't helped by therapy. They put a bunch of violent convicts together naked in a room and gave them a ton of LSD. What a shocker that didn't turn out well.

Skeem's revised model is more like the lack of a model. Rather than claiming to have an objective definition she argues that psychopathy should be understood as a nebulous constellation of personality traits. I think this is a much more realistic approach because people are always going to be more complicated than a checklist. The more I read about the subject the more I question if psychopathy truly exists. "Psychopath" is something that you call an other person. Anyone who claims that title for themselves without any reservations probably wants to see themselves that way, for whatever reason.

There's another really interesting section you may want to check out that probably would be better as another post than an addendum to the first. The section is called "Does Secondary Psychopathy Exist?" and I think poses an important question. I don't think that high anxiety, highly emotionally reactive people are psychopaths, even if they may exhibit similar behavior.


For what it is worth, I completely agree with that last part. These people who feel overwhelmed by their emotions -- their emotions are the root of their impulsivity -- that just sounds like something too different to include in our general conception of what is a psychopath, even if the outward manifestations of it are similar.

Monday, March 18, 2013

Diagnose me

From a reader:

Hey, I'm 17 and I took lots of the psychology tests online and the results are that apparently I'm a psychopath. But I would like an opinion from somebody who is one (takes one to know one?). Anyways, I've been called cold and inconsiderate of feelings by my friends all the time. I really don't care what happens to anybody, and I don't remember what it feels like to feel bad for somebody, or maybe I don't know. I've killed a few animals just because I can, for example I was walking in a forest with my friend during a camping trip and saw a baby squirrel that fell out of its nest and was trying to clumsily clamber up the tree, I quickly grabbed a thick stick and rammed it into the squirrel impaling it right through the chest, just because I wanted to, because I COULD. 

Anyways later my friend told people what I did and I twisted it so that it seemed he was a bigger part of it. I never feel bad for anything, and at school when it doesn't benefit me, I enjoy degrading people but when confronted I always seem to talk people into the ground. I also enjoy using people and its surprising how easy it is to convince people that I'm not mean to them when I need to use them. I also don't have much patience for things and get bored much too easily, I've went out to go look for some stray cats or somebody's that might be outside to kill (I did it once by snapping its neck) some animals but never find them. Also here's a big part, I ENJOY making people angry, either get them angry at me or at somebody else. The madder I make somebody, the better I feel, a sense of satisfaction overcomes. But this could come with making people frustrated with things or others. Can you explain that part to me and if it has anything to do with psychopathy/sociopath. 

Also I never feel nervous or afraid, we would have a big test and everybody was nervous except me. I've watched videos on the internet of people being decapitated and in one video the decapitee started screaming and I didn't give a shit. I think I'm pretty smart and constantly challenge myself by taking the hardest classes possible, and I see things way differently than other people do, in the sense that how easy it is to exploit and manipulate people, how feelings never inhibit me and they're pretty shallow I think. Anyways can you get back to me with your conclusion ?

Sunday, March 17, 2013

Hitting a wall

I thought this was an interesting recent comment on an older post that deserved to be read:


I've reached the point where I'd like to get some help for my impulsive traits. I'm' saying "impulsive" rather than "psychopathic" because I'd like to focus on what I see as the problem.

You could say that I'm a high-functioning psychopath. I'm Machiavellian, narcissistic and psychopathic. 

I've apparently got enough impulse control (and intelligence) to get me what I need. But I sense that there's a gap. I'm missing something.

In the past, I wouldn't have done this because I was too proud. I wasn't able to admit that I was behaving "badly" or had a problem. And I was young enough that I was substantially getting what I wanted. 

Now that I'm middle aged, that isn't happening. Perhaps because I'm not getting what I want, I can see I've behaved anti-socially, and it has cost me. E.g. I'm heading into old age, and no matter how optimistic I'd like to be, it is clear that it is going to get harder and harder to have sex with women in their twenties. And eventually I will die, no matter how much I fight it.

Have any commenters, motivated by the same sense of "oh shit I'm screwed" sought help? How'd it go? 

Like many life situations, I can sort of tell how old someone is by their attitude about things -- even younger and older sociopaths. I think that a lot of sociopaths eventually hit a wall of ceasing to be functional in whatever life they've set up for themselves. Some react by just riding it out until it's gory conclusion, to be taken out in a blaze of glory without ever having to have compromised whatever it is that they didn't want to compromise about themselves or their lifestyle. Others adapt. I hit mine really early, I think, my very early twenties. I think that makes my experiences a little different than most -- more like Magic Johnson's HIV and less like orphans' in Africa -- i.e., my symptoms have never had much of a chance to flare up and allow me to flame out. I am not an obvious sociopath to strangers, the way that maybe my grandfather was with his scarred face and philandering and scamming ways. You probably wouldn't even notice something was wrong with me, unless you are one of the ~2% of the population that does. But it is interesting to think what would have happened if I hadn't encountered such early opposition and had to change. Would I be hitting my wall right about now?

Saturday, March 16, 2013

Fraudster tips

Pretty entertaining and educational -- "People don't want to appear silly, that's why they don't want to ask questions."


Thursday, March 14, 2013

Fake it till you make it

From a reader:

recently, with xmas on it's way i've started to ponder a little on this subject. i rarely buy gifts for my family, i never saw the point, even with those who gave to me i'd just claim to be broke and it's not like i care about what my family thinks because i don't really want a relationship with any of them, at least, i don't really care whether they are part of my life in the future when i move out ect... (i'm a teenager). i thought a couple of your recent posts were of some relevance, like when you used to go shoplifting, i'm curious about your thought process behind stopping. do you get narcissistic satisfaction from doing things in a legit, socially acceptable manner? were you afraid of getting caught? and did you see something to be gained from changing (like the incentive to go out and earn more money)? personally i thought incentive, gain and even the fear of getting caught would work best but maybe it's a good form of self-control for sociopaths to indulge in a little narcissism, even if i didn't care about something beforehand i'd actually start to feel for it if i simply just started acting in that way, maybe that's why your past seems to emotionally contradict your current self? but it begs the question, where can you draw the line between self-help and self-delusion?

My response:

This -- "even if i didn't care about something beforehand i'd actually start to feel for it if i simply just started acting in that way" is so true. Biologically we know it is true, for whatever reason when we smile we actually get happier. I sometimes coach friends on how to become better speakers and get them to speak in front of me to the point where they seem relaxed. I then take note of the things that they do or say, how they position their body, etc., while they are relaxed. I tell them -- do these things when you speak in public and the very act of doing them will signal to your brain to relax. It is starting to become apparent that our brain is more plastic than scientists have traditionally believed. Every day, every thing that we do is wiring and re-wiring our brain and (I think) for people like us it is even a bigger deal because we don't have the same sorts of mental rigidities and concrete self-concepts that other people seem to have.

With that said, it is very difficult to fight the tide, so to speak. If your current incentives encourage being a jerk to your family (for whatever reason), you probably don't have the willpower to treat them nicely. If you really want to change a behavior and it is impossible to change your physical incentive structures (whatever would be the equivalent of taking antabuse in your situation), you might still be able to change your perspective. Our brains only process a small fraction of what we encounter. The way we see the world will always be distorted, but it is not a static sort of distortion. We can nudge ourself to see the world in a different sort of distorted way that benefits us. People do it all of the time to become more happy and optimistic with things like gratitude journals, or they become depressed and suicidal by doing the opposite. You can easily learn to love or hate something because, as you say "even if i didn't care about something beforehand i'd actually start to feel for it if i simply just started acting in that way".
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