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Quadruple search today: “how to cross examine a sociopath”

Posted in General, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on March 4, 2010| 66 Comments »

I often get searches asking how to beat a sociopath in court. I keep intending on writing a “major post” but haven’t gotten around to it. The short answer to both searches is that I don’t know. So here’s a thinking aloud post.

In trying to answer “How to cross-examine a sociopath?” I’m aiming at jarring the sociopath into revealing their true self. I’m trying to find that “cape of red,”  that challenge that can’t go unanswered.

Unfortunately, this still will not usually happen. I’ve worked at a number of law firms, and for the times I’d hear, “The opposing party has a real temper, we’ll try to get him to blow up on the stand,” I rarely heard of it actually happening.  However, I’m betting it happens more often with sociopaths. The prosecution team must have thought they had died and gone to heaven when Wayne Williams said, “You want to see the real Wayne Williams, I’ll show you the real Wayne Williams.” So here goes:

1. All sociopaths are in a state of arrested development. Try to figure out where personality development stopped (from 6 to 12, more or less) for that individual. Target your approach for that age.

2. The sociopath will have a child’s emotional hypersensitivity corresponding to that age. Recall Clinton’s airplane seating takedown of Newt Gingrich (http://community.seattletimes.nwsource.com/archive/?date=19951116&slug=2152925, http://www.thewire.com/politics/2012/01/where-crybaby-gingrich-meme-came/47093/, https://pathwhisperer.info/2012/03/01/frequent-search-newt-gingrich-sociopath-fer-shure-fer-shure/).

3. Since sociopaths live in a pejorative universe, state things as pejoratively as possible. What’s important to them are the emotions behind the words, words themselves are simply tools. In Keith Morrison’s interview of David Hampton (the subject of Six Degrees of Separation), David Hampton was essentially bragging about his lying prowess. Morrison then said (paraphrasing) ‘you know what I think? I think you’re nothing but a goddamn liar‘. David Hampton then threw his glass of wine in Keith Morrison’s face. I believe it was that derisive ‘goddamn liar‘ and its negative connotations that did it.

Once I was called into HR (at Lehman Brothers) for handing out 8-10 pages (from Hare’s Without Conscience and Cleckley’s Mask of Sanity) to friends on recognizing sociopaths. (I wouldn‘t do this again, there is no way to learn that from reading material alone.) When I told the SVP why, she suddenly started screaming at me, ‘we have 15,000 employees, of course we have sociopaths working here’ — and then she collected herself. This sociopathic SVP interpreted my comment as criticism of sociopaths working there, imo, and this was too threatening to maintain ‘her cool’.  In this case, it was regarding one of the two most monstrous sociopaths I’ve ever known.

4. From both David Hampton and that SVP I concluded that the self control of a sociopath is only relative, that it is difficult for them and can slip at any time under the right pressure. That’s what the cross examiner should aim for. (I also concluded from that SVP that sociopaths recognize and protect each other. If at all possible screen the jury to prevent the seating of fellow sociopaths.)

Ask medical or dental personnel how often they run into patients who attack them upon their giving injections.  This is one point where the curtain is ripped away and the sociopath (some sociopaths) will react like an animal under attack — all self control is thrown aside by the dictates of self defense.

5. Show as much disrespect as you can get away with.  In sociopathic biker/criminal gangs no one lights another’s cigarette just to be friendly.  It is all defined by the food chain pecking order.  Similarly being polite is taken as respect for their place on the food chain vis-a-vis yourself.  We were all taught to do unto others as we would have done unto us — this is totally misunderstood by sociopaths.  Speaking for myself, I was raised a Quaker and I find it almost impossible not be stay polite.  However, looking back, there were definitely times when that was a mistake.

6. Sociopaths are very elemental. Such simplistic tactics as having someone stare at them can be very unsettling for them.  Or put together a legal team of big, imposing individuals.  They seem to think that the civilized world is only onion skin thin and at any time the world could revert to the law of the jungle.  You want them to stay off kilter.

7. Depending on the circumstances, the cross examiner may want to let the sociopath ramble in order to disclose their arrogance and disordered thinking.  Rodney Alcala (https://pathwhisperer.wordpress.com/2010/03/03/psychopath-on-tape-rodney-alcala/), Rabbi Israel Weingarten (https://pathwhisperer.wordpress.com/2009/03/08/incest-dad-represents-self-in-court-cross-examines-daughter/), and Jon Alexander (https://pathwhisperer.wordpress.com/2008/11/15/october-and-november-items-with-that-sociopathic-flavor/, http://www.popeater.com/2009/09/01/top-model-designer-gets-life-in-prison/,  http://www.fashionlurve.com/tag/anand-jon-alexander/) did themselves no favors by being their own counsel.  Imo, their mistake was not imagining they could lose, being pathologically optimistic.

8.  Find a way to call out a sociopathic party or witness for fake tears and grief.  Of course it is considered bad form to question another’s expression of grief but this is a tactic sociopaths use all the time.  Recall Steinbrenner’s “tears” on the stand, or Jesse James’ recent performance, http://www.popeater.com/2010/05/21/jesse-james-nightline-video .

9.  Read The Psychopath’s Bible, http://www.scribd.com/doc/11554313/The-Psychopaths-Bible (or if you can find one, read the original).  This is one of the most stunning things in the world, it’s absolutely for real.  As the psychopathic authors attest:  “One of the axioms of life is this: even if you tell the truth—perhaps because you tell the truth—no one will believe you.”  Well, I believe them.

These later posts might also be of interest:  https://pathwhisperer.info/2015/09/30/teasing-truth-out-of-communications-with-psychopaths/, https://pathwhisperer.info/2017/04/11/from-quora-select-paras-from-how-do-you-bring-down-a-psychopath-psychologically/.

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Psychopath on tape — Rodney Alcala

Posted in General, tagged , , , , , , on March 3, 2010| 6 Comments »

Taped in 1978 for The Dating Game:   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qpy5AZsEnLg

Timeline:  http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2010/02/rodney-alcala-guilty-in-slayings-of-girl-and-4-women.html

http://www.laweekly.com/2010-01-21/news/rodney-alcala-the-fine-art-of-killing/

http://www.ocregister.com/articles/alcala-235638-murphy-samsoe.html?pic=1

This post has received quite a number of visits.  Originally I had no text, only these photos.  Among what I look for are:

  • the proverbial sociopathic hollow eyes described by Cleckley (his book Mask of Sanity is linked to on the right) and Hare (as I recall) — negative in this case
  • adult inappropriate mannerisms and small behaviors that seem to indicate a child in an adult’s body — negative (still images are not optimal for this of course, this is further complicated by us all still containing our child selves)
  • sociopathic level of arrogance and contempt — positive
  • reptilian coldness — positive.

None of these are definitive, but here we have Alcala’s behavior which is absolutely sociopathic.

Additional Alcala post added later:  Rodney Alcala’s Killing Game

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“The psychopathic personality and human evolution” and why can’t women recognize psychopaths

Posted in General, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on January 25, 2010| 27 Comments »

“Dr. Robert Hare, who did seminal work in identifying psychopaths, refers to them as “intraspecies predators.” This prompted questions from a Lovefraud reader who asked,

  • If psychopaths are indeed natural predators (by implication, their design is part of nature’s plan to maintain some balance) then would we ever be able to weed them out of society?
  • Do they have a purpose in the natural order of things?

In this article, I’m going to address the second question. Then, next week, I’ll suggest an answer to the first question.

I don’t know about a purpose, but there are researchers who believe psychopaths are around us today because they survived the natural selection process of human evolution.

These researchers call psychopathy “a nonpathological, reproductively viable, alternate life history strategy.” This theory is outlined in Coercive and Precocious Sexuality as a Fundamental Aspect of Psychopathy, a paper published in 2007 by Grant T. Harris, PhD; Marnie E. Rice, PhD; N. Zoe Hilton, PhD; Martin L. Lalumiere, PhD; and Vernon L. Quinsey, PhD.”

http://www.lovefraud.com/blog/2010/01/18/the-psychopathic-personality-and-human-evolution/

This article was written by Donna Anderson at  Lovefraud Blog.  The comment I posted is below.

I think it’s worth looking at other species. Another phrase with the same meaning as ‘intraspecies predator’ is biological ‘cheater strategist’.

Some spadefoot toad tadpoles become cannibals while the rest eat the normal algae (http://www.centre.edu/web/news…..storz.html). If there is enough food and the water doesn’t dry up (which is the norm) the normals keep their numbers up and things are more or less in balance. If the ponds dry too quickly then the faster growing cannibals are much more likely to survive to adulthood and reproduce. If the proportion tips in favor of the cannibals they eventually have to turn on themselves and the population crashes. In the rebuild, the normals again come to the fore. Rinse. Repeat.

Spadefoot normal and cannibal tadpoles

Imo, the achilles tendon of psychopaths is parenting. Being in a state of arrested development themselves and pathologically ego-driven, they are incapable of nurturing healthy children.

On a side note, there is also a question of the evolutionary relationship between normals and psychopaths. Specifically there seems to be a biological prohibition that keeps normal human females from recognizing psychopaths. It’s a defect that might as well be invisible to them (in the majority, imo). Why would this be?

I used to think that psychopaths simply had the “evolutionary jump” on normal women, in the same way that introduced predators have on island animals that have never experienced predation. Forgive this example, but the most well known instance of this is probably the flightless pigeon, the dodo, that sailors could just walk over to and hit on the head. In this scenario human females would simply not have evolved a response quickly enough.

However what does evolution “want?” Evolution simply passes on genetic traits that produce greater number of offspring that survive to maturity and reproduce themselves. So evolution “wouldn’t care” (“want” and “wouldn’t care” are simply shorthand ways of speaking) if the father was a normal or a psychopath. If a psychopathic child grew up and murdered their mother, if it was past the mother’s childbearing years, then this would be of “no concern” to evolution. In evolutionary terms, the passing on of one’s genes, that mother would still be an evolutionary “winner.”

In otherwords I’m now inclined to believe that normal women have an evolved blindness to male psychopathy. When I first read Cleckley’s Mask of Sanity I found it very hard to believe the stories of normal female/psychopathic male interactions. However the sheer number wore me down and then I started seeing examples in real life (actually I had often seen real examples but now I could recognize them for what they were).

So where does this leave us? I dunno . . . .

I’m bringing in the two comments below to expand the main idea:

durr

A leeetle angry at the ladies, eh?

pathwhisperer

That’s not the way I look at it. Have you ever read “Mask of Sanity” or witnessed/experienced a female devotee’s devotion to a male psychopath? “Devotee” is a description I proudly claim originator of, in this context. (Obviously there are male devotees also, but I believe they’re relatively rarer and qualitatively different.) There comes a point where there is nothing a female devotee can’t explain away, nothing about the beloved psychopath that the devotee can’t translate into acceptableness. Challenger: “You don’t know his last name.” “You don’t know his first name.” “You don’t know where he lives.” “You don’t have his phone number.” “Did you know he spent time in prison and/or a mental hospital?” “He derides you in public, saying he’s only playing you.” Devotee: “Oh yes, he explained that all to me. And the last, why that’s just locker-room tough talk.” Challenger: “OK, maybe I was wrong, please share and enlighten me.” Devotee: “Oh no, he requested my confidentiality.” Challenger: “Ahhhhhhh! . . . But, . . he throws passes at all of your friends!” Devotee: “That mad impetuous boy, he doesn’t know what he wants. I’m the one he needs, the only one who understands him!” Challenger (the long defeated challenger): “He has no more feelings for you than an alien reptilian shapeshifter illusionist!” Devotee: “Oh pshaw, you don’t think a mother knows her little defiant two year old!!!” Not those words exactly of course, but the impluse, the intensity, the root cause is identical. The “hook” of the male sociopath is triggering aspects of the mothering instinct.

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Modality of the Age? Perhaps the UBS whistleblower’s true crime was exposing the sociopathic code of the hypocrite?

Posted in General, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , on January 15, 2010| Leave a Comment »

Why Is the Whistleblower Who Exposed the Massive UBS Tax Evasion Scheme the Only One Heading to Prison?

A former banker for the Swiss giant UBS who blew the whistle on the biggest tax-evasion scheme in US history is preparing to head to prison tomorrow to begin serving a forty-month federal sentence. Bradley Birkenfeld first came forward to US authorities in 2007 and began providing inside information on how UBS was helping thousands of Americans hide assets in secret Swiss accounts. We speak with his attorney, Stephen Kohn [of the National Whistleblowers Center], the executive director of the National Whistleblowers Center.

http://www.democracynow.org/2010/1/7/why_is_the_whistleblower_who_exposed

UBS Whistleblower Begins Jail Sentence

http://www.democracynow.org/2010/1/11/headlines#12

Can’t call the criminal hypocrites on their true actions now, can we?  Encrypted PCs, what encrypted PCs?

From my post, Sociopathic throughlines (https://pathwhisperer.wordpress.com/2009/04/15/sociopathic-through-lines/):

“What then separates the SAPs [socially adept psychopaths] from the failed (and caught) sociopaths? . . .  The continuum is a scale of talent at being hypocritical.  The advanced SAPs are simply magnificent hypocrites – able to bide their time, be patient, realistically assess their position in the food chain (the concept of the food chain is central to sociopath life stories), restrain their arrogance, desire for dominance and rudeness and wait for opportunities without consequence for indulging their sociopathic wants, etc.  Hypocrisy is simply their main lifetool, as swimming is the main lifetool for a fish.”

Earlier related post:  https://pathwhisperer.wordpress.com/2009/02/26/ah-so-thats-why-ubs-had-us-study-how-to-prevent-money-laundering/

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“Courtroom First: Brain Scan Used in Murder Sentencing”

Posted in General, tagged , , , , , , , , , on December 16, 2009| 4 Comments »

“A defendant’s fMRI brain scan has been used in court for what is believed to be the first time.

Brain scan evidence that the defense claimed shows the defendant’s brain was psychopathic was allowed into the sentencing portion of a murder trial in Chicago, Science reported Monday. Brian Dugan, who had been convicted of the rape and murder of a 10-year-old, was sentenced to death, despite the fMRI scans.”

http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/11/brain-scan-murder-sentencing/

The intent of the defense was to claim that the defendant was not fully culpable due his psychopathy.  Did this strategy work?  Of course not. In the real world, do individuals ever forgive or absolve of responsibility their victimizers upon realizing the victimizer is a psychopath?  No.

fMRI Evidence Used in Murder Sentencing

Dugan exhibits the antisocial behavior, inpulsivity, lack of remorse, and other characteristics of psychopathy in spades, says Kent Kiehl, a neuroscientist at the University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, and the Mind Research Network, who served as an expert witness for the defense. Dugan scored 37 out of 40 points on the standard diagnostic checklist for psychopathy, putting him in the 99.5th percentile, Kiehl says.

Kiehl conducts research on psychopathy in New Mexico state prisons in which he and colleagues collect life histories, anatomical brain scans, and fMRI scans of brain activity as inmates perform various tasks, including tests of moral reasoning. Using scanners at Northwestern University, Kiehl ran Dugan through a similar battery of tests. Kiehl testified that Dugan exhibited abnormalities similar to those he and others have reported in other psychopaths. Kiehl says he was careful not to stretch beyond what the data show. He didn’t claim, for example, that the brain scans prove that Dugan committed his crimes as a result of a brain abnormality. “It’s just one piece of evidence that his brain is different,” he says.

. . .

[from the comments] I think it would be easier to sentence such a total psychopath to death because he is missing an essential piece of whatever it is that makes us human.

http://blogs.sciencemag.org/scienceinsider/2009/11/fmri-evidence-u.html.

I think that comment reflects the way people really think.

These legal strategists need to get out in the real world more.  Maybe take a Greyhound bus from Harrisburg, PA to Omaha, NE or just have beers at the corner bar more often.

Basically I like the idea of brain scans being brought into court — but for the exact opposite reason.  I think the psychopathic guilty would be found guilty more often than they are now.  And that they would be put away for longer sentences.  Juries would know that they weren’t dealing with daily reality.  I believe juries try very hard to walk in the shoes, place themselves in the position of the accused to try to understand the accused’s behavior.  But this assumes that the psyche they are trying to get into is similar to theirs.  This is simply not true for psychopaths.  Thus juries would have to think differently in approaching guilt and innocence in  trials of psychopaths — which I believe they could and should do.

Now obviously there could be a danger of such a situation being too prejudicial.  So this idea would need to be fine tuned, tried out with sample juries, etc. or confined to the most serious crimes or crimes with a high potential of psychopathic actors.  Perhaps it could be restricted to such felonies as pedophilia, child murder, rape and murder.

It would also open up the possibility of involuntary commitment of psychopathic individuals of danger to society, which would have different standards of evidence from a legal trial.  For example, the prolific serial killer Dr. Swango (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Swango) should have been incarcerated in a mental hospital years earlier than when he was eventually found guilty.

Michael Swango, M.D.

For some background info and links:  Neurolaw and Psychopath (http://lawneuro.typepad.com/the-law-and-neuroscience-blog/2009/08/neurolaw-and-psychopathy.html).   The Law and Neuroscience Blog seems to think that brain/genetic research on psychopaths will “change our perception of their moral and legal culpability.”  We shall see.  I predict the exact opposite.

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Quinn Gray — psychopath, psychopath, psychopath

Posted in General, tagged , , , , , , , , , on November 11, 2009| 15 Comments »

Quinn Gray

The happy couple

Wealthy Wife Fakes Kidnap to Scam Hubby

video:  http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/crime/2009/11/10/ng.wife.abduction.cnn
transcript:  http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0911/09/ng.01.html

Ponte Vedra Mom Held On $1 Million Bond

Investigators Unravel ‘Complex, Bizarre’ Case

ST. AUGUSTINE, Fla. — A 10-day investigation into a reported abduction over the Labor Day weekend led detectives to sex tapes, discussions of fake kidnappings, ransom notes, money drops gone wrong and two arrests — including the woman who claims to be the victim.

Quinn Gray, the 37-year-old Ponte Vedra Beach woman who said she was kidnapped and released three days later, was arrested Wednesday afternoon and charged with extortion.

. . .

According to the arrest report, Jasmin Osmanovic delivered two letters to Gray’s home saying he was owed $50,000. He also told investigators that he had a sexual relationship with Gray and the couple spent that weekend together.

http://www.news4jax.com/news/20962746/detail.html#

Husband Sticking By Wife’s Side

http://www.news4jax.com/news/21543262/detail.html

The victimized spouses of sociopaths/psychopaths often are the most ardent defenders of  the victimizing psychopath.  To do otherwise, to face the facts would be to see that every word, look, touch, backrub, sexual union was a fraud.  They were in a relationship/marriage with their own fantasy, which the psychopath “read” and played into — until the psychopathic partner wanted out.

Reid Gray is standing by his wife.

Appearing on the “Today” Show this morning, Quinn Gray’s husband admitted he’s hurt and confused, but he’s supporting Quinn’s defense against extortion charges.

“It’s because she’s mentally ill that I have to stick by her.  The minute you put the divorce hat on, the next second you put on this is a family member who has a mental illness, and I can’t abandon that person”.

http://wokv.com/localnews/2009/11/reid-gray-stands-behind-his-wi.html

Timeline and other details:  http://www.news4jax.com/news/21576839/detail.html#related

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Facing Facts

Posted in General, tagged , , , , , on November 8, 2009| Leave a Comment »

Quoting Liberty from Lies quoting Kathy Krajco:

Facing Facts

One reason why the victims don’t face facts about a narcissist is because we don’t want to face the fact that we mean nothing to them. The ego doesn’t want to know that. For, being valued by another at absolute zero is a degrading value judgement.

When this is someone in your family, that fact is traumatic. We think about how much we have loved them, how often we have stuck up for them, how many times in the past we sacrificed for them. And here all along they cared NOTHING for us in return!

They just fed off us like a parasite, taking us for a sap.

This is why denial is so dangerous. Facing facts, no matter how unpleasant, is better. Because when you do address the issue in your mind, you see who is degraded by the narcissist’s refusal to relate humanly to human beings.

Not the human beings, that’s for sure.

Knowing that makes you able to accept the truth about them. And when you accept the truth about them, you break the cycle of abuse.

Kathy Krajco [who passed away unexpectedly and suddenly]

http://libertyfromlies.blogspot.com/2009/11/facing-facts.html

What Kathy termed narcissists I would term sociopaths (or psychopaths).

From transsociopathica:

For a normal human being at the end of a relationship with a Demonic Sociopath Entity, one of the most startling aspects/horrors of them ending a relationship with you is how they can literally switch you off as if you never existed.

http://transsociopathica.blogspot.com/

One of the reasons that narcissists are often confused with/considered sociopaths is that they can do the above also.  Without going into it here, I think narcissism is a deep psychological choice but sociopathy is an alternate genetic arrangement.

I often feel I should be spending more time posting, but as you can see there is a lot out there.

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Unusual search: Can cats sense someone is a sociopath?

Posted in General, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on October 9, 2009| 23 Comments »

This is the first time I’ve ever seen this search.  All I can say, the most extreme female sociopath I’ve ever known said cats and dogs hated her.  Was this just something unique to her or do dogs and cats have some innate sense of fairplay?  Did they recognize her as a rapacious, reptilian-minded predator?  I don’t know.  [More in the comments below.]

Other searches

Pseudologia fantastica in real person: Yep, it’s real alright.  Actually if one is not immediately caught up and swept away by the pseudologue’s “pity play” then they are more obvious than regular sociopaths — their stories are so extreme and fantastical.

How to get a workplace sociopath to leave: Good luck.

How to let go of a sociopath: This will happen when your soul (not your mind) realizes there is no soul in the other person.  If this doesn’t happen, perhaps the other person is not a sociopath or perhaps you are actually fighting a realization that one of your parents is sociopathic ($50 please).

Or in the emotional immediacy of transsociopathica‘s words:

A few months after you have recovered you will wonder what you ever saw in these things. They will rapidly seem cold, ugly, empty, pathetic, distorted and almost deformed to you. That’s because this is what they are, always were, and you are finally perceiving them in their real unmasked state. This ‘broken beast’ is all that’s left and the only memory you’ll have of them going into the future. It’s all they deserve, because it is all they are.  http://transsociopathica.blogspot.com/2009/10/farewell-my-sociopath-hello-real-love.html

Sociopath at parties: Due to few inhibitions and no shame they can be real lives of the party.  Read “The Incredible Charlie Carewe” (http://www.amazon.com/incredible-Charlie-Carewe-Mary-Astor/dp/B00005W69S). Some are also very, very skillful at party crashing. (https://kat.cr/the-incredible-charlie-carewe-mary-astor-mobi-t7972573.html, https://openlibrary.org/books/OL5798604M/The_incredible_Charlie_Carewe).

Sociopath and blackmailing: Goes together like ham and eggs.  They love crimes without consequence.

Pictures of  Thomas Capano: Hmmm.  This is a repeat search.  He’s the only one of my blog’s possible sociopaths (more than possible in his case) whose picture people seem particularly interested in.  I don’t know why.

I was with a sociopath for 8 years…why? For one thing, since no one is ever informed of this possibility as they are growing up or upon reaching romantic age, it often takes years for someone to realize their situation.  Also, as the sociopath often cons relatives of the non-sociopath, individuals in your position are really on their own.  Addressing this is one of the main missions of my blog.

You have a lot of company.  Ann Landers was married for thirty years to the sociopath, in my opinion of course, Jules Lederer (who she described as the best salesman in the world).  They met while she was shopping for a wedding dress for her upcoming marriage to another person.  Just the kind of challenge that might appeal to a “super” sociopath.  Also, as I recall, her sister, Dear Abby, criticized her after the divorce for not understanding her husband.

Are sociopaths giving to neighbors and friends? I have witnessed such behavior, but it was only used to engender goodwill to set up later depredations.  Like a “pity play” (all sociopaths excel at inducing people to feel sorry for them) it brings people to their side emotionally.  Often, it seems, they want a reservoir of protectors before they commit their antisocial depredations (such as date/friend rape, “dress gray” rape, tricking a teen neighbor into prostitution, outright thievery, “murder by suicide” bullying (this is no exaggeration), blackmail, etc.).  They want the accuser to be met with angry disbelief (anger that such a nice person would be accused).  Not only do they wish to protect themselves through “plausible lies,” they want to place their victims in the position of having to claim “implausible truths.”

Can God change a sociopath? The short answer is no.  That would be akin to changing a stone into a block of wood, or lead to gold.  If the question is actually can sociopaths be lead to see the error of their ways and cease being sociopaths, unfortunately the answer is absolutely not.  Sociopaths have their own nature, they are the way they are born to be.  “Socially acceptable psychopaths” (SAPs) who, by definition are capable as passing in normal society, can choose whether or not to follow society’s norms and laws but they can’t feel them.  Justice and empathy are just empty words, even to them.  This searcher might be interested in the post,  “More structural brain abnormalities seen in psychopaths“.  I think its clear that most sociopaths are born with these brain structures.  Related posts on psychopathy/sociopathy brain structures:  https://pathwhisperer.info/2014/12/09/psychopathy-marker-neurodevelopmental-marker-for-limbic-maldevelopment-in-antisocial-personality-disorder-and-psychopathy/, https://pathwhisperer.info/2011/11/29/criminal-minds-will-testing-the-brain-even-before-birth-separate-the-good-seeds-from-the-bad/, https://pathwhisperer.info/2015/02/01/psychopaths-brains-dont-grasp-punishment-scans-reveal/, https://pathwhisperer.info/2014/02/03/post-redux-what-the-heck-are-these-brain-structures-meaningful-or-not/, https://pathwhisperer.info/2015/09/18/test-all-presidential-candidates/.

Drifter & sociopath: The drifters and rolling stones of life are in fact often sociopaths, driven by boredom and lack of emotional bonds.  Boredom is simply one of their prime driving forces.  Thus the backwaters, catch basins and outposts of empires or large nations have a much higher sociopathic percentage — for example, California, Australia and New Zealand.

Will my baby be born a sociopath?: Here’s a heart breaker.  From the little I know, it seems the genetics of sociopathy is very complex.  I’ll try to look into this further.  If this searcher was attracted to a sociopath because one of her parents was sociopathic the odds aren’t good.

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Open letter to Alice Miller

Posted in General, tagged , , , , , , , , on October 8, 2009| Leave a Comment »

For those unfamiliar with her or her thinking I’ve summarized her thinking in two sentences (as I understand it, or perhaps just the area of interest to myself).  First, individuals when they become parents, all too often, seek to answer their own psychological neediness by “feeding” off the child, rather than answering the child’s own psychological needs — this pattern can last for generation upon generation.  Secondly, children only know they are entitled to their emotions if an adult mirrors these emotions.  I believe these two ideas to be extremely powerful.  The first one shows a way out from the phenomenon of generations of dysfunctional families.  The second promises the possibility of training “witness for soul” therapists as opposed to the hit or miss current system, in which capable therapists are essentially individual accidents.

Dear Alice Miller,

Some ten years back, I read and studied quite a number of your works.  Since that time I have, on my own, studied, thought and written about sociopaths.  I don’t recall much mention of sociopaths in your works but I don’t expect you to believe they are born, not made.  However, I don’t actually know that, this is just a surmise.  I’m very curious to know your view of sociopathy, if you have a chance to answer this.

I don’t see a contradiction between your thinking and the existence of genetic sociopaths.  Quoting my blog, “When one considers all the seemingly conscienceless and subtracts the attachment disordered, the narcissistically rigid, and the hideously abused and needy, there is still a core of the emotionally/morally colorblind, a.k.a. the Cleckley sociopath (from Cleckley’s Mask of Sanity), a.k.a., the Charlie Carewe sociopath (from the actress Mary Astor’s The Incredible Charlie Carewe).” https://pathwhisperer.wordpress.com/past-notes/.

I, and others, see sociopaths as developmentally arrested psychologically — but up through puberty they go through most of the same psychological developmental stages.  So following this line of thought, I would say that Ted Bundy and Jeffrey Dahmer were serial killers due to psychological abuse, their sociopathy simply made them extremely skillful at it.  Unclaimed and left in the hospital, as I recall from their bios, they screamed for their primal birthright, loving maternal attention, until their tear ducts dried and their psyches came to realize that help was not on the way.  This vast, unplacated, infantile rage then went subterranean to reappear again and again throughout life but now with an adult’s capabilities and, in their cases, a sociopath’s talents.

Perhaps you would be interested in my posts on incest, I believe I have adopted your view of psychological cause and effect:  https://pathwhisperer.wordpress.com/2009/03/08/incest-dad-represents-self-in-court-cross-examines-daughter/ & https://pathwhisperer.wordpress.com/2009/03/18/post-redux-josef-fritzl-and-reflections-on-incest-52308/.

I look forward to your reply.

Thank you,

The Path Whisperer

For more information on Alice Miller and her writings:  http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss_gw_3_12?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=alice+miller+prisoners+of+childhood&sprefix=alice+miller&sprefix=alice+miller&sprefix=alice+miller&sprefix=alice+miller, http://www.alice-miller.com/index_en.php.

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Not frat boy behavior, sociopathic behavior

Posted in General, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , on September 3, 2009| 3 Comments »

Our Embassy in Afghanistan Is Guarded by Sexually Confused Frat Boys

. . . security contractors get their kicks peeing on one another, simulating anal sex, doing “butt shots,” and “eating potato chips out of ass cracks.”

. . . According to POGO, employees of ArmorGroup North America—a unit of contracting giant Wackenhut—get their jollies off by “deviant hazing [that] has created a climate of fear and coercion, with those who declined to participate often ridiculed, humiliated, demoted, or even fired.”

http://gawker.com/5350465/our-embassy-in-afghanistan-is-guarded-by-sexually-confused-frat-boys/gallery/?skyline=true&s=x

Think six to eight year old boys’ sex play.  Then add “peeing on one another,” “butt shots” — sociopaths are simply fascinated by the orifices of sex and waste elimination being identical or in close proximity.  Their level of sexual maturity and development is that low.  See the sex scenes of the wooden puppets in the movie Team America, complete with defecation and urination.

I would imagine that the sex play went further than this.  Ah yes, story below.

Kabul U.S. Embassy Guard: Sexual Deviancy Required for Promotion

Whistleblower Says Bosses Required Sex Acts for Guards Seeking Best shift, Promotion

Private security guards at the U.S. Embassy in Kabul were pressured to participate in naked pool parties and perform sex acts to gain promotions or assignment to preferable shifts, according to one of 12 guards who have gone public with their complaints.

http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/story?id=8474937

OK, think boyhood sexplay with orgasms, bullying and dominance thrown in — even more sociopathic.  This sexual bullying by superiors makes this story no longer private, but actionable.  It’s not about what people do in private.

These male sex parties/orgies have also been reported from the Jim Bakker/PTL scandals and the Stanford White scandal.  To quote from my UBS Musings page (https://pathwhisperer.wordpress.com/ubs-musings/):

Sociopaths essentially are pansexual.  Since friction orgasms are all they know or can know, the more variety the better.  All cats are gray in the dark.  The sociopathic architect Stanford White (of “Red Velvet Swing” notoriety) had numerous affairs (one led to his murder by a rival), molested his own daughters and hosted male group sex parties at his architectural firm [http://www.newyorker.com/archive/1996/07/08/1996_07_08_049_TNY_CARDS_000376111] (no doubt some of the participants were heterosexual life style males who developed a taste for such behavior by being incested by their own sociopathic fathers).  Imagine such a group sex party network in an investment bank.

Indeed, there were rumors that approached “common knowledge” that such a ring existed at UBS when I worked there.  It may seem difficult to imagine responsible adult males in positions of authority taking part but the photos accompanying the Kabul story, which included supervisors and managers, may make it less difficult.

The only reason sociopaths are considered adults is due to their adult bodies, imo.  Quoting Robert Kegan from an earlier post:

Robert Kegan in “The Child Behind the Mask: Sociopathy as Developmental Delay.” In W. H. Reid, J.W. Bonner III, D. Dorr, and J.I. Walker (Eds.) “Unmasking the Psychopath“. (New York: W.W. Norton), 1986. (1986), p.  68:
The sociopath can sit still, inhibit immediate aims, defer gratification.  Indeed, if he did not have these abilities (which most latency-age children also have), people would not confuse him with an adult even with his adult-looking body (which most latency-age children do not have, and which has more to do with why latency-age children are not confused with adults than people realize).  [Kegan is saying, I believe, that it is the sociopath’s adult looking body that gets him into the door of adult life which he is actually unsuited for and absolutely untrustworthy in.]  https://pathwhisperer.wordpress.com/2009/02/21/how-could-mado…s-for-13-years/

One thing I’ve noticed is that participants are relatively often married family men.  Perhaps they were molested by sociopathic, or otherwise corrupt, fathers and then took a liking to it (a totally normal reaction paradoxically).  Or some I knew to be graduates of aristocratic boarding schools.  I don’t know what sex games take place in these schools but I can imagine.

It seems that there may be a window of plasticity in early puberty.  Thus after male to male sexual activity during pubescence, the taste remains for recreational male to male sex throughout life. While in other cultures and times this is completely normal (the ancient Greeks perhaps), in this culture the participants are exposing themselves to potential blackmail.  And, of course, sociopaths and pseudologues with their immature sexual development are absolutely attracted to these sex game circles.  Further, blackmail is a natural for a sociopath seeking power or security and such a sex circle would allow both outright and implied blackmail.

Sometimes gay communities will be fully accepting of sociopaths due to their alternate sexuality.  However individual gay lovers will of course be as devastated as straight lovers upon being discarded by their emotionless, predatory chameleon lovers as easily as one turns a page of a book, who they had believed they had been close to.  The survivor blogs, the WTF-happened-to-me blogs, the how-come-I-didn’t-know blogs almost always include gay posters.  E.g., Indigo Blue at the Lovefraud blog:  “It reflected True male beauty but on the inside was rot and emptyness and longing, hopelessness,depravity,envy,greed,anger,madness!” http://www.lovefraud.com/blog/2008/10/20/revisions-and-enhancements-to-lovefraudcom/#comment-14448.

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