The Talented Mr. Gerhartsreiter
Phony Rockefeller
Eyed in 1985 Case – Cops Say Suspect Is German Con Man
Multiple identities.
Claim of amnesia.
Repeatedly inspired confidence.
Ease of lying.
Full expectation that lies will be believed.
Unlimited nerve.
The complete chameleon.
A special report in the Boston Globe (by Levenson & Ellement) on Clark Rockefeller:
Detailed story
Posted in General | Tagged Christian Gerhartsreiter, Christopher Chichester, Clark Rockefeller, con artist, conman, psychopath, sociopath | Leave a Comment »
This story of a faked death, insurance scam and bewildered immediate relatives (sons Anthony, 29, and Mark, 31) just screams sociopathy. I don’t understand how the word is not used in all the news articles. Anne Darwin is the complete manipulative, lying, contemptuous sociopathic-to-the-core actress. The pair make the classic “evil couple.”
It is worth noting that the sons never suspected anything or were ever aware that their mother is almost certainly an “equivalent of an alien passing as human” level sociopath (or the more pejorative term, psychopath). Their unawareness is not at all surprising however. Also from the articles, I see no sign that they have been told (or figured out) that their mother is sociopathic. Instead they are left trying to explain what happened to their family within the framework of normal human motivations — which is an impossibility.
Posted in General | Tagged Darwin family, faked death, insurance scam, psychopath, sociopath | 1 Comment »
Here is a list of a few stories that feature what I consider to be sociopathic behavior and thinking patterns. Whether actual sociopaths are involved would require more investigation.
Hedge fund fraudster hunted after suicide ‘mystery’
link
Samuel Israel of the Bayou Group hedge funds who faked his own suicide to avoid going to jail.
Anne Hathaway’s ex-boyfriend Follieri arrested
Italian businessman faces wire fraud conspiracy, money laundering charges
link
The account of conman Raffaello Follieri.
Entwhistle receives life sentences
link
Neil Entwhistle who was found guilty of murdering his wife and child.
Critics Slam Boston Doctor Who Offers Sex Change Treatment to Kids (though see comments below)
link
It is hard for me to imagine anyone but a child-minded sociopath thinking we have the key to male/femaleness and that we can play god with this information. It is a trait of sociopaths that their interpretation of the world is often grotesquely simplistic. This story reminds of the tragedy of David Reimer who committed suicide in May 2004. He was raised as a girl on the advice of a Dr. John Money of Johns Hopkins after his penis was cauterized off while being circumcized as an infant (John Colapinto, As Nature Made Him: the boy who was raised as a girl).
Posted in General | Tagged Anne Hathaway, bankers, Bayou Hedge Fund, Boston Children's Hospital, David Reimer, Dr. Norman Slack, Neil Entwhistle, psychopathy, Raffaello Follieri, Samuel Israel, sociopathy | 8 Comments »
I received the following comment on another site. The tone is perhaps questionable but the points and implied questions are quite reasonable.
“. . . following Siegel’s and Schore’s writings, I have good reason to suspect that we’ll find abnormalities in the right orbitofrontal cortical regions of true psychopaths. And BTW “sociopath” is an older term, not in common clinical usage. Psychopathy isn’t in the DSM-IV either. Hare tried to get it into DSM-V but I don’t think he managed. The closest the DSM comes is Antisocial Personality Disorder, but criminal psychlogists, following Hare’s lead, do measure and define psychopathy with the Psychopathy Checklist (Revised form), and consider it essentially a subset of ASPD. Also if you’re familiar with Raine’s work on brain scans of criminals (e.g. convicted killers), you’ll know that he turned up some interesting abnormalities (mostly frontal & prefrontal) in those populations.”
1. Brain function and structure are not my area, but I’m not surprised it’s a fruitful area of study. I’m more interested in behavioral observations that anyone can make and take into account.
2. I use the term sociopath because it’s less pejorative. I find that the word psychopath is so pejorative people simply won’t consider that it might apply to people they know. However, I may be forced to use the more common equivalent term.
2. Concerning the DSM-IV, I have no respect for it whatsoever. ASPD confuses faux psychopaths with actual psychopaths. It also doesn’t allow for the existence of successful psychopaths who can pass for normal at will. Robert Hare: “. . . most individuals with ASPD are not psychopaths.”. Hare article on ASPD
(I post here and there, sort of as advertising. These posts, mostly very short and written very quickly, can be found, if anyone is interested, by searching for “pathwhisperer” google search.)
Posted in General | Tagged Anna Nicole Smith, David Hampton, DSM-IV, J. Howard Marshall, Keith Morrison, Kurtis Productions, psychopathy, sociopathy | 4 Comments »
Fritzl, of course, is the Austrian accused of imprisoning his daughter in a cellar and fathering a family with her (three of the children also imprisoned, three raised in the aboveground household), BBC. All incest fathers are vampire fathers, they truly are draining the child’s lifeforce, but this is absolutely the most extreme case in my memory.
The question here is whether Fritzl is a sociopath. Roughly what I do is check facts and behavior against an informal checklist and then attempt to flesh out the individual and understand his motivations. For those interested there are well-thought out formal checklists for sociopathy. The linked Mask of Sanity lays out a checklist in Section III, Clinical Profile, pgs 337 – 366, or see the Table of Contents. Robert Hare, author of Without Conscience, has a formal diagnostic one, which can be used informally by anybody, in my opinion — not to diagnose, but in an attempt to understand behavior. This seems to be a reasonable overview: PCL Overview. His own site is www.hare.org.
Fritzl certainly appears to be a sociopath. There is no internal prohibition against incest for sociopathic fathers at all. Non-sociopathic incest fathers need to overcome their conscience and a very severe prohibition against such acts. For sociopathic incest fathers it is merely childhood sexplay, as is all their sex. They are absolutely, totally unaware of any “soul effect” on the daughter (or often, the son). The sociopathic sense of entitlement is absolute — check. Urge to dominate — check. Lying ability — check. Telling his wife the imprisoned daughter had run away and joined a cult. Explaining three foundlings to the authorities and his wife (the three infants he brought up from the cellar). This ability to lie while appearing totally sincere, with complete eye contact with the target to be duped is one of the key sociopathic abilities. Self confidence — check. Arrogance — check. Optimism — check. No remorse or guilt — check.
I understand he’s been complaining that his wife hasn’t visited him. Sociopaths don’t understand the “beyond the pale” aspect of their extreme behavior. For them it’s not beyond the pale, it’s not extreme. Presumably they believe all of us are capable of the same behavior or would behave the same if we thought we could get away with it. So now he’s hurt and perplexed that his wife doesn’t visit.
It’s reported that the possibility that he also molested his 19 year old daughter/grand-daughter, Kerstin, is also being investigated. (It was the hospitalization of Kerstin that exposed the whole situation.) It would be shocking if he hadn’t.
Posted in General | Tagged fritzl, incest, psychopath, sociopath | Leave a Comment »
Welcome to The Path Whisperer. My aim is to seek stories of possible sociopathy (focusing on sociopathic behavior and thinking patterns) in daily news and current events. Our popular culture is already soaked in sociopathy. The only thing missing is recognition. The only joke in Borat was that he wasn’t joking. There are movies made for adults based on bodily functions. Parents can’t understand their teens’ wildings — sociopathic teens, feeling no need for restraint, have raised the bar, and teens being teens strive to outdo their peers. Millions of parents wonder why a child behaves the way he or she does. The phenomenon of sociopathy is everywhere but the recognition of it is not. I truly believe the world is anxious for this discussion.
Without going into them here, I will also be touching on related matters: the relationship between sociopaths and incest; sociopaths and the rigidly narcissistic and the corrupt; and sociopaths and the phenomenon of the evil couple.
There is also a subcategory (probably) of sociopaths termed pseudologues — pathological and fantastical liars who actually believe what they say, seemingly unaware that there is a real reality out there, confusing reality with the verbal claim of reality. Geniuses at gathering sympathy they often claim a deadly illness miraculously recovered from or lived with. Traveling to the Holy Lands they claim divinity. Seemingly not very common, they do appear in the news from time to time
Finally, two additional points of interest, first, in our economy corporations are essentially given sociopathic freedoms. Not surprisingly sociopaths often then climb to the top. Second, I believe this country could use a political movement that excludes the pathologies of the right (a sociopathic lack of generosity and empathy) and the left (a self-congratulatory rigid narcissisism capable of creating a welfare system that rewards the breakup of the family).
Again welcome. I hope you find this of interest. I try not to hold my opinions dogmatically and see this as a journey towards the truth. Hopefully some of you will wish to add your own comments. I’ll start by organizing past writings and notes and then begin searching the news for items of interest.
[on edit] It seems I should add what I claim to be my alternate credentials for claiming insight into sociopathy (as opposed to the traditional credentials of higher degrees, specific jobs, etc.). There are really three. First, I believe I have a very intimate knowledge of sociopaths and their thinking patterns. I have always gotten along with sociopaths very easily. Back in elementary school slightly odd classmates (who I now recognize as being sociopathic) I hardly knew would make my acquaintance, telling me things and asking me questions, as though I might have some insight into their experiences. To this day sociopaths continue to do this.
Second, my father’s career was in mental health (this career took him to a state commissionership of mental health). So I would say that I grew up with the idea of an almost infinite complexity of the psychological universe.
Third, among other things, I am a professionally trained actor — I studied around 5 years with Bill Hickey and around 3 years with Sandy Dennis. We were taught to respond spontaneously to our instant reading of the emotional vibes of an acting situation (the theatrical buzzword was “organically” as I recall). Much to my surprise this gave me one foot in the world of sociopaths. Sociopaths simply use words for strategic reasons, as a life tool — meanings are another thing entirely. The truth is read behind the words themselves.
In terms of my educational background I have a B.A. in Anthropology from Columbia. While I don’t think this gave me insight into sociopaths specifically it did give me a non-judgmental ‘people are what they are and do what they do’ approach. Sociopaths fall into the ‘just are’ category of life.
I’m not sure the above will carry weight with anyone else, but I do believe these factors have helped give me insight into sociopathy.
Posted in General | Tagged holocaust gold, psychopathy, sociopathy, Swiss Bank, UBS, Union Bank of Switzerland | 5 Comments »
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