Partners in Evil: The Psychopath and Malignant Narcissist Combo

You probably have heard on the news about the kidnapping of Jaycee Lee Duguard, when she was only 11 years old. The young girl was kidnapped on June 10, 1991 from a school bus stop near her home and held hostage for more than 18 years by Phillip and Nancy Garrido. Garrido raped and imprisoned Jaycee. They had two girls together (age 11 and 15 at the time they were discovered by the police), whom Garrido and his wife also imprisoned in unsanitary tents in their backyard.

At the time they kidnapped Jaycee, Garrido had already been convicted of a sex crime. Despite the fact that parole officers checked regularly the house, they didn’t bother to look in the couple’s backyard, behind a fence. Nancy Garrido is shown on one tape interfering with the police inspection, harassing the inspector in order to distract him and prevent him from finding Jaycee and the girls. She is a partner in her husband’s crime; a fellow abuser. The couple pled guilty to kidnapping and other charges on April 28, 2011 and were convicted on June 2, 2011. Phillip Garrido was sentenced to 431 years of imprisonment while Nancy received a lesser sentence of 36 years to life.

We see this phenomenon of dangerous duos, or partners in evil, on the news over and over again. What kind of women stay with male psychopaths, enable their wrongdoings, participate in them and then cover them up? Sometimes it’s female psychopaths who partner in crime sprees with their male counterparts. The most notable example of this is Karla Homolka and Paul Bernardo, the young Canadian couple who kidnapped and killed several young women, including Karla’s younger sister. They were convicted in 1993 and are perhaps the inspiration behind  Oliver Stone‘s controversial movie, Natural Born Killers (1994). Usually, however, two psychopaths together can’t last long. Each has to outdo the other in wrongdoings; each wants to be top dog; each looks out for number one and, at the slightest provocation, turns against the other (as, in fact, happened in the case of Paul Bernardo and Karla Homolka).

The partnership between Phillip and Nancy Garrido reflects a different dynamic: the equally dangerous yet usually far more enduring combination between a psychopath and a malignant narcissist. In this combination, there is a clear top dog who guides the relationship: the psychopath. However, the malignant narcissist helps him carry out his wrongdoings and covers up for him. What is in it for a malignant narcissist when she teams up with a psychopath? How does this dynamic play out and why does it last? These are the questions I’d like to address next.

I have explained at length the features of a psychopath and why his lack of conscience and empathy, combined with an underlying psychological sadism (enjoyment at causing others pain) would lead him to commit the kinds of crimes Phillip Garrido was found guilty of. But what kind of woman stands by such a man? My hypothesis is: a malignant narcissist. All narcissistic personalities–even those who appear to have high self-confidence and to consider themselves superior to others–crave constant validation. An insatiable need for validation forms the core of unhealthy, excessive narcissism. I say “excessive narcissism” because we all have egos or selves and thus we all have some narcissistic tendencies that are healthy–in moderation–and make us the individuals we are.

Psychopaths are very adept at identifying individuals who suffer from unhealthy, excessive narcissism. Why? Because such individuals appear to be vulnerable and insecure. Caring too much about what others think and pinning one’s self-esteem on the opinions of others is, indeed, a weakness and a vulnerability. Those who suffer from narcissistic personality disorder have a weak and relative sense of self that needs constant validation. They need to feel better than others or superior to others in order to have an identity and feel good about themselves.

Psychopaths form a symbiotic relationship with such highly narcissistic individuals by holding out the promise of becoming a superior and very special couple. Because psychopaths have an inherent sense of superiority and because they’re thrill seekers who consider themselves to be above the rules and laws, they often manage to convince such narcissistic partners that together they make an unbeatable power couple: closer than other couples, better than them, smarter than them, more cunning than them, hotter than them. During the honeymoon phase of the relationship, there are no words in any language to describe this superlative superiority.

The problem is, as we know, that psychopaths inevitably pass from the idealization phase to a devaluation phase in all of their relationships. This is part and parcel of their personality disorder: to become bored with and emotionally detach from every person they are with. Since a narcissistic partner requires constant reassurance of her superiority to other women–especially since the psychopath,with his constant flirting and cheating, gives her plenty of reasons to be jealous of them–she will feel threatened during the devaluation phase, when he no longer finds her hot, virtuous, brilliant, practical, wise, and all the other qualities he formerly (and all too briefly) ascribed to her.

That’s when the most dangerous and pathological aspect of their relationship begins. During the devaluation phase, the malignant narcissist begins to be rewarded almost exclusively by the punishment of other women the psychopath hooks up with, uses, devalues and abuses. She may no longer be as wonderful as she seemed in his eyes in the beginning. However, there’s this reward left in their “special” and “superior” relationship: by staying with her; by needing her as an alibi and cover for him; by harming other women jointly, she proves her (sick) love and loyalty to him while he, in turn, acknowledges her superiority to all the other women he uses and abuses worse than he does her.

The worse other women are treated by the psychopath–in more commonplace cases, used and disposed of like dirty condoms; in extreme cases, raped and murdered–the more this abuse confirms her special status in his eyes. Such women are without conscience, without remorse, without empathy just like the psychopaths themselves. They are manipulative, deceptive and abusive like psychopaths. The main difference between such malignant narcissists and the psychopaths is that the narcissists are in some respects weaker and more vulnerable.

They tend to be followers rather than leaders because of their excessive need for validation, which puts them at the mercy of others and makes them especially appealing to psychopaths: as their partners in life and allies in wrongdoings. If you read about other similar cases to that of Phillip and Nancy Garrido or about the psychology of cult followers, you will see this psychological dynamic at play. There are few more enduring and dangerous duos than these partners in evil: the psychopath and malignant narcissist combo.

Claudia Moscovici, psychopathyawareness

Dangerous Liaisons: How to Identify and Escape from Psychopathic Seduction

http://www.amazon.com/Dangerous-Liasons-Recognize-Psychopathic-Seduction/dp/0761855696/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1318095970&sr=1-1

The Seducer: A Novel 
http://www.amazon.com/Seducer-Novel-Claudia-Moscovici/dp/0761858075/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1326297451&sr=1-1

The Psychopath’s Emotions: What Does He Feel?

So far I’ve asked you to imagine a person who lacks empathy for others and the capacity to feel any emotion deeply. I’ve asked you to imagine a person who is plagued by restlessness and boredom and finds sole satisfaction in duping, manipulating and controlling others. A person who may simulate respect or politeness, but who fundamentally regards others with contempt, as objects to be used for his temporary diversion or satisfaction. A person who suffers from an incurable and absolute egocentrism.

But even this doesn’t even begin to give you a full picture of the extent of a psychopath’s emotional poverty. It may describe what a psychopath can’t feel, but to understand how and why the psychopath is driven to harm others, you need to also get a sense of what a psychopath does feel. Psychopaths can’t tolerate loneliness. Just as all human beings can’t survive physically without food and water, psychopaths can’t survive emotionally without victims.

Of course, psychopaths regard love with contempt. They view loving and loyal couples as an ugly, undifferentiated blob. Because they can’t experience or even understand love and loyalty, they see moral individuals as weak. They have nothing but disdain for the emotions that normal human beings feel. But at the same time, psychopaths can’t live without feeding upon the real and deeper emotions of people who care about them, of individuals who can love: in other words of the people they use, abuse, toy with, lie to and hurt.

Psychopaths are often sexual predators. But even more often, and certainly more fundamentally, they’re emotional predators. What they want from their victims is far more than possessing their bodies or sex. They need to feed their insatiable appetite for harm, as well as sustain their sense of superiority,  by possessing and destroying others inside and out, body and soul. A psychopath’s emotional framework is like a vacuum that needs to suck out the emotional energy from healthy individuals in order to survive. This is why I have called psychopaths real-life vampires, that we need to understand and worry about far more than their fictional counterparts.

A psychopath lacks much more than empathy for others in his emotional repertoire. He also lacks the capacity to experience any kind of emotion that requires deeper insight and psychological awareness. He experiences only proto-emotions, which are as short-lived as they’re intense. That doesn’t make them any less dangerous, however.  The evidence points to the fact that Scott Peterson and Neil Entwistle preplanned their murders weeks in advance. But Mark Hacking seems to have acted more or less on impulse, after having fought with his wife. If we believe his confession to his brothers, Mark was in the process of packing up his things, ran across a revolver and shot Lori while she was asleep.

When angry or frustrated, a psychopath is capable of anything, even if his anger will dissipate a few minutes later. As Hervey Cleckley observes, “In addition to his incapacity for object love, the psychopath always shows general poverty of affect. Although it is true that be sometimes becomes excited and shouts as if in rage or seems to exult in enthusiasm and again weeps in what appear to be bitter tears or speaks eloquent and mournful words about his misfortunes or his follies, the conviction dawns on those who observe him carefully that here we deal with a readiness of expression rather than a strength of feeling.” (The Mask of Sanity, 349)

The proto-emotions experienced by a psychopath tie in, once again, to the satisfaction or frustration of his immediate desires: “Vexation, spite, quick and labile flashes of quasi-affection, peevish resentment, shallow moods of self-pity, puerile attitudes of vanity, and absurd and showy poses of indignation are all within his emotional scale and are freely sounded as the circumstances of life play upon him. But mature, wholehearted anger, true or consistent indignation, honest, solid grief, sustaining pride, deep joy, and genuine despair are reactions not likely to be found within this scale.” (The Mask of Sanity, 349)

For this reason, psychopaths don’t feel distress even when they land in jail. Even there they take pleasure in manipulating their fellow inmates and the prison staff. Even from there they write letters to people outside to use them for money, amusement and possibly even sex. Nothing ruffles a psychopath’s feathers for long. The same emotional shallowness that leads him to be unresponsive to the needs of others and to experience no remorse when he hurts them also enables him to feel little or no distress when he, himself gets hurt. So far, I’ve covered the emotions psychopaths can’t feel. I’ve also had the opportunity to witness up-close and personal the emotions a psychopath can feel, however. That’s what I’ll describe next.

The Psychopath’s Emotions: What Does He Feel?

1) Glee. A psychopath feels elation or glee whenever he gets his way or pulls a fast one on somebody. I can still recall O.J. Simpson’s reaction to getting away with murder (at least in my own opinion and that of a lot of other people who watched the trial, if not in the eyes of the jury): his celebratory glee at pulling a fast one on the American public, on the system of justice and especially on the victims and their families.

2) Anger. Robert Hare notes in Without Conscience that since psychopaths have low impulse control, they’re much more easily angered than normal people. A psychopath’s displays of anger tend to be cold, sudden, short-lived and arbitrary. Generally you can’t predict what exactly will trigger his anger since this emotion, like his charm, is used to control those around him. It’s not necessarily motivated by something you’ve done or by his circumstances. A psychopath may blow up over something minor, but remain completely cool and collected about a more serious matter. Displays of anger represent yet another way for a psychopath to demonstrate that he’s in charge. When psychopaths scream, insult, hit, or even wound and kill other individuals, they’re aware of their behavior even if they act opportunistically, in the heat of the moment. They know that they’re harming others and, what’s more, they enjoy it.

3) Frustration. This emotion is tied to their displays of anger but isn’t necessarily channeled against a particular person, but against an obstacle or situation. A psychopath may feel frustrated, for example, when his girlfriend doesn’t want to leave her current partner for him. Yet he may be too infatuated with her at the moment to channel his negative emotions against her. He may also believe that his anger would alienate her before he’s gotten a chance to hook her emotionally. In such circumstances, he may become frustrated with the situation itself: with the obstacles that her partner or her family or society in general pose between them. Psychopaths generally experience frustration when they face impersonal barriers between themselves and their current goals or targets. But that’s also what often engages them even more obstinately in a given pursuit. After all, for them, overcoming minor challenges in life is part of the fun.

4) Consternation. As we’ve seen so far, psychopaths don’t create love bonds with others. They establish dominance bonds instead. When those controlled by a psychopath disapprove of his actions or sever the relationship, sometimes he’ll experience anger. But his immediate reaction is more likely to be surprise or consternation. Psychopaths can’t believe that their bad actions, which they always consider justifiable and appropriate, could ever cause another human being who was previously under their spell to disapprove of their behavior and reject them. Even if they cheat, lie, use, manipulate or isolate others, they don’t feel like they deserve any repercussions as a result of that behavior. In addition, psychopaths rationalize their bad actions as being in the best interest of their victims.

For instance, if a psychopath isolates his partner from her family and persuades her to quit her job and then, once she’s all alone with him, abandons her to pursue other women, he feels fully justified in his conduct. In his mind, she deserved to be left since she didn’t satisfy all of his needs or was somehow inadequate as a mate. In fact, given his sense of entitlement, the psychopath might even feel like he did her a favor to remove her from her family and friends and to leave her alone in the middle of nowhere, like a wreck displaced by a tornado. Thanks to him, she can start her life anew and become more independent.

To put it bluntly, a psychopath will kick you in the teeth and expect you to say “Thank you.” Being shameless and self-absorbed, he assumes that all those close to him will buy his false image of goodness and excuse his despicable actions just as he does. In fact, he expects that even the women he’s used and discarded continue to idealize him as a perfect partner and eagerly await his return. That way he can continue to use them for sex, money, control, his image or any other services if, when and for however long he chooses to return into their lives.

When those women don’t feel particularly grateful—when, in fact, they feel only contempt for him–the psychopath will be initially stunned that they have such a low opinion of him. He will also feel betrayed by these women, or by family members and friends who disapprove of his reprehensible behavior. Although he, himself, feels no love and loyalty to anyone, a psychopath expects unconditional love and loyalty from all those over whom he’s established a dominance bond.

This mindset also explains psychopaths’ behavior in court. Both Scott Peterson and Neil Entwistle seemed outraged that the jury found them guilty of murder. Psychopaths believe that those whom they have hurt, and society in general, should not hold them accountable for their misdeeds. After all, in their own minds, they’re superior to other human beings and therefore above the law. How dare anybody hold them accountable and punish them for their crimes!

5) Boredom. This is probably the only feeling that gives psychopaths a nagging sense of discomfort. They try to alleviate it, as we’ve seen, by pursuing cheap thrills, harming others and engaging in transgressive behavior. Nothing, however, can relieve for long the psychopath’s fundamental ennui. He gets quickly used to, and thus also bored with, each new person and activity.

6) Histrionic flashes. I’m not sure if this is an emotion, but I know for sure that the psychopath’s dramatic displays of love, remorse and empathy lack any meaning and depth. If you watch the murder trials on the news or on Court TV, you’ll notice that some psychopaths convicted of murder often put on shows of grief, sadness or remorse in front of the jury. The next moment, however, they’re joking around and laughing with their attorneys or instructing them in a calm and deliberate manner about what to do and say on their behalf. The displays of emotion psychopaths commonly engage in are, of course, fake. They’re tools of manipulation–to provoke sympathy or gain trust–as well as yet another way of “winning” by fooling those around them.

I’ve already mentioned that Neil Entwistle engaged in such histrionic behavior. If you’ve followed crime features on the news, you may have noticed that Casey Anthony, the young woman accused of killing her toddler, behaves similarly. She was observed going out to dance and party at clubs with friends the day after her daughter, Caylee, disappeared. Casey’s lack of concern for her missing child doesn’t necessarily prove that she murdered her. But it reveals highly suspicious and callous behavior. It also casts doubt upon the brief and dramatic displays of grief or concern that she sometimes puts on in front of the media and for her parents.

7) Infatuation. When they identify someone as a good potential target, psychopaths can become obsessed with that particular person. In Without Conscience, Hare compares the psychopath’s focused attention upon his chosen target to a powerful beam of light that illuminates only one spot at a time. He also likens it to a predator stalking its prey. Because psychopaths tend to ignore other responsibilities (such as their jobs and their families) and have no conscience whatsoever, they can focus on pursuing a given target more intensely than multi-dimensional, loving men could. This is especially the case if their target presents an exciting challenge, such as if she’s rich or famous, or if she’s married to another man, which triggers their competitive drive. This single-minded infatuation, however, like all of their proto-emotions, is superficial and short-lived. Because for psychopaths such obsessions don’t lead to any genuine friendship, caring or love, they dissipate as soon as they get whatever they wanted from that person, which may be only the conquest itself.

8) Self-love (sort of). Since psychopaths only care about themselves, one would think that self-love would be the one emotion they could experience more deeply. In a sense that’s true, since their whole lives revolve around the single-minded pursuit of selfish goals. But this is also what makes psychopaths’ self-love as shallow as the rest of their emotions. Just as they’re incapable of considering anyone else’s long-term interest, they’re incapable of considering their own. By pursuing fleeting pleasures and momentary whims, psychopaths sabotage their own lives as well. Rarely do they end up happy or successful. They spend their whole lives hurting and betraying those who loved and trusted them, using and discarding their partners, disappointing the expectations of their families, friends, bosses and colleagues and moving from one meaningless diversion to another. At the end of the road, most of them end up empty-handed and alone.

9) CONTEMPT. I’ve capitalized this word because this is the emotion that dominates a psychopath’s whole identity and way of looking at other human beings. No matter how charming, other-regarding and friendly they may appear to be on the outside, all psychopaths are misanthropes on the inside. A psychopath’s core emotion is contempt for the individuals he fools, uses and abuses and for humanity in general. You can identify the psychopath’s underlying contempt much more easily once he no longer needs you or once his mask of sanity shatters. As we’ve seen, psychopaths hold themselves in high regard and others in low regard. To describe the hierarchies they construct, I’ll use an analogy from my literary studies. I was trained in Comparative Literature during they heyday of Jacques Derrida’s deconstruction as it was being applied to pretty much everything: cultural studies, gender hierarchies, race relations, post-colonialism and the kitchen sink.

Although looking at life in general in terms of “indeterminate” binary hierarchies hasn’t proved particularly useful, this polarized worldview describes rather well the mindset of psychopaths. For such disordered, narcissistic and unprincipled individuals, the world is divided into superiors (themselves) and inferiors (all others); predators (themselves) and prey (their targets); dupers (themselves) and duped (the suckers). Of course, only giving psychopaths a lobotomy would turn these binary hierarchies upside down in their minds. This is where the applicability of Derrida’s deconstructive model stops. Although psychopaths consider themselves superior to others, they distinguish among levels of inferiority in the people they use, manipulate and dupe.

The biggest dupes in their eyes are those individuals who believe whole-heartedly that the psychopaths are the kind, honest, other-regarding individuals they appear to be. As the saying goes, if you buy that, I have some oceanfront property in Kansas to sell you. Such individuals don’t present much of a challenge for psychopaths. They’re usually quickly used up and discarded by them. The second tier of dupes consists of individuals who are lucid only when it comes to the psychopath’s mistreatment of others, not themselves.  Wives and girlfriends who are clever enough to see how the psychopath cheats on, lies to, uses and manipulates other people in his life, but vain or blind enough to believe that they’re the only exception to this rule form the bulk of this group.

This brings to mind an episode of a popular court show I watched recently. A woman testified on behalf of the integrity and honesty of her boyfriend. As it turns out, he had cheated on his wife with her (and other women as well). But his girlfriend nonetheless staunchly defended his character. She maintained that even though she knew that her lover was a cheater and a liar, because she herself was such a great catch and because they had such a special and unique relationship, he was completely faithful and honest to her. The judge laughed out loud and added, “…that you know of!”

Women who are cynical enough to see the psychopath’s mistreatment of others yet gullible enough not to see that’s exactly what he’s doing to them constitute his preferred targets. Such women are not so naive as to present no challenge whatsoever for the psychopath. But they’re definitely blind enough to fall for his manipulation and lies. A psychopath will wrap several such women around his little finger. Those who finally see the psychopath’s mistreatment as a sign of his malicious and corrupt nature occupy the third rung of the hierarchy. They’re usually women who have been burned so badly by the psychopath that they don’t wish to put their hands into the fire again.

Claudia Moscovici, psychopathyawareness

Dangerous Liaisons: How to Identify and Escape from Psychopathic Seduction

http://www.amazon.com/Dangerous-Liasons-Recognize-Psychopathic-Seduction/dp/0761855696/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1318095970&sr=1-1

The Seducer: A Novel 
http://www.amazon.com/Seducer-Novel-Claudia-Moscovici/dp/0761858075/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1326297451&sr=1-1

The Psychopath as Self-Proclaimed Maverick: On Losers who View Themselves as Leaders

Psychopaths are Losers who view themselves as Leaders. As we’ve seen, unless there’s a specific advantage for him, a psychopath never admits to being wrong, to doing wrong, to having wronged anyone. Whatever he does wrong to others–cheating, lying, manipulation, hurting them emotionally and physically–he manages to project blame on the victims and on those around them. In fact, the psychopath will see his cowardly actions as superior; on a higher plane of existence than the rest of humanity. Rather than seeing himself as the pathological person that he is–essentially, a Loser who spends his life parasitically using and taking advantage of others–the psychopath is likely to see and describe himself as a maverick: a lone dissenter, a willfully independent hero “ahead of the pack,” who rejects the dated and commonplace notions of right and wrong and of truth and falsehood. Ethical human beings, who care about others, are considered by the psychopath and his followers “moralistic” and “narrow-minded”. 

Like the Nietzschean Superman, the psychopath considers himself beyond the norms of good and evil: except, of course, when it comes to double standards, since no psychopath would want others to use, manipulate, deride and hurt him as he does them. The underlying narcissism that leads the psychopath to focus only on his desires, pleasures and needs also blinds him to his faults and protects him from self-blame. He reframes reality to fit with his narcissistic delusions. Sleaziness, violence, stalking and perversion–-sadistic games played at other people’s expense–are framed as “hedonism”,  “childlike innocence and playfulness” or “libertine freedom”. Lies are framed as “creative interpretations of reality” or clever “modes of persuasion”. Manipulativeness, slander and back-stabbing become, in his deranged mind, “Machiavellianism” or “cunning”. As the psychopath’s idiotic grins which often accompany his malicious actions reveal time after time, his behavior and intentions are as far removed from “childlike” or “harmless fun” as possible. “Freedom” too is a meaningless concept, given that his main goal is to trample on the freedom and rights of others. He intends to control and harm others: control by harming them, to be precise. (hence the picture of Valmont, above, from the novel and movie, “Dangerous Liaisons,” which is also part of the title of my book on the subject of psychopathy).

Dangerous Liaisons by Claudia Moscovici

http://www.amazon.com/Dangerous-Liasons-Recognize-Psychopathic-Seduction/dp/0761855696/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1318095970&sr=1-1

Admitting fault, or taking responsibility for harmful actions would, after all, take a degree of empathy–of putting himself in others’ shoes and seeing himself as they do–which the psychopath is not only incapable of, but also repudiates. For a psychopath, caring about others, putting oneself in their shoes, is only for followers, for the herd. In his own mind, he’s a born leader: even when nobody follows him, or even if he only  leads a few individuals to collude with his wrongdoing and, eventually, to sow their own destruction. After all, from the psychopath’s self-absorbed perspective, humanity exists only to serve his immediate needs.  

The psychopath creates the illusion of a “special bond” for those whom he finds most useful at any given time: meaning those who enhance his reputation; help him lure and procure other sexual partners; or offer him money, property and status. For those individuals he fosters isolation from meaningful relationships (while simultaneously encouraging promiscuity) and cultivates an “us” versus “them” mentality. Everyone who sees through his mask of sanity or exposes his sophistry and lies becomes an “enemy” in his eyes, and therefore a target of his hatred and derision.

The frenetic accumulation of sexual partners, their property and spawning of both “legitimate” and illegitimate children with some of them–a kind of predatory consumption and collection of human beings–takes the place of any emotional depth and of any worthwhile life achievements. The most psychopathic among them are so heartless and callous that they reject their own children, once they devalue and discard the women who gave birth to them. Because of this absolute and fundamental narcissism, a psychopath can’t change and, most importantly, he doesn’t want to change. He inhabits a fantasy world–which becomes more real than reality for him and those he manages to brainwash –whereby truth and falsehood hold only instrumental meaning and where morality is just an outdated fiction for the narrow-minded and weak.

Why? We must remember that at the core of psychopathy is narcissism. The psychopath’s psychological mindset is one of grandiosity, lack of empathy for others, and sense of superiority. He grossly overestimates his abilities and accomplishments and underestimates those of others. Simply put, he should be able to do anything he wishes, however harmful and destructive, because he’s better than others. In making his main accomplices feel “superior” and “special” by mere association with him, he passes on to them this grandiosity and sense of being above the rules. Stupidity never looks more ridiculous and repulsive than when combined with such pompousness and arrogance.

As Robert Lindner states in his groundbreaking study of psychopathy, Rebel without a Cause (New York: Grune and Straton, 1944): “The psychopath is a rebel, a religious disobeyer of prevailing codes and standards… a rebel without a cause, an agitator without a slogan, a revolutionary without a program; in other words, his rebelliousness is aimed to achieve goals satisfactory to him alone; he is incapable of exertions for the sake of others. All his efforts, under no matter what guise, represent investments designed to satisfy his immediate wishes and desires.” (2)

But even this doesn’t fully capture the outlandishness of the psychopathic mindset. Psychopaths live in an Orwellian doublethink world. They believe the truth of the moment while actively seeking new opportunities. We might as well call it a “psychopath-think,” since such individuals have their own language. It is a language of narcissism; a delusional doublespeak. For example, to a psychopathic seducer, “I love you” means “You give me a rush at this moment.” “You love me” translates as “you forgo your needs to bend to my will.” “Trust me” means “What a sucker!” “You’re the woman of my life,” translates into “You’re one of a long, indefinite sequence of women that’s also simultaneous” (Psychopaths have their own version of math as well).

“Mutual fidelity” means “you need to be faithful to me while I cheat on you.” “Betrayal” means “You dared disapprove of something I did” or “You disobeyed me in some respect.” “Mutual commitment” translates into “You need to revolve everything in your life only around me while I do exactly what I want.” “Honesty” means “My truth,” or “Saying whatever gets me what I want at the moment.” “I miss you” means “I miss the function you played in my life because I’m a little bored right now.” “What my Baby wants, my Baby gets” means “I’ll give you attention, flattery and gifts only until I hook you emotionally and gain your trust. Afterwards, Mazeltov Baby! You’re on your own.” “I cheat because my wife/girlfriend doesn’t satisfy me” means “…and neither will you, in a few months, at most.” “We belong together” means “I own you completely while I remain free.” “If anything happens between us, it won’t be because of me” means “Nothing’s ever my fault. If I do something harmful, it’s because you (and others) weren’t good enough for me.” Unless you learn to decipher the psychopathic code, you’re likely to be “lost in translation.” If I put my mind to it, I could write a whole dictionary of “psychopath-speak” and its translation into regular human language.

Every so-called “truth” psychopaths utter is momentary and contingent upon their immediate gratification. Since their feelings are shallow, so is their truth-value. If you add “for now” to their declarations of love, they may sometimes ring plausible. For instance, during the euphoric seduction phase, psychopaths may believe when they tell a girlfriend that they love her and want to spend the rest of their life with her. But, as my novel, The Seducer, illustrates, their passion isn’t grounded in any empathy, love or commitment.

http://www.amazon.com/Seducer-Novel-Claudia-Moscovici/dp/0761858075/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1326297451&sr=1-1

Since the euphoric state of “being in love” comes and goes even during the course of a single day, so does the truth-value of their statement. One minute they might tell a girlfriend with genuine emotion that they love her and will always be faithful to her. The next hour they might be pursuing another woman, just for the heck of it, because they’re bored. While psychopaths scheme and manipulate a lot, they’re short-term, or tactical, schemers. They can’t see more than two steps ahead of their noses, to chase the next temporary pleasure. Tactics, or short-term maneuvers, prove to be far less effective than strategy, or long-term planning, however.

Some psychopaths claim to follow General George S. Patton’s famous quote: “Lead me, follow me, or get out of my way.” Only psychopaths don’t follow, they mirror. They don’t lead, they destroy. It’s difficult to create and easy to destroy. Psychopaths take the easy route in life.  Over the long-term, the lives of psychopaths usually unravel in a sequence of failed careers, sordid crimes and perverse, hollow relationships. However they try to reframe reality, these self-proclaimed “mavericks” turn out to be nothing more than pathological Losers, driven by sadistic desires, consumed by envy and filled with contempt for humanity. 

Claudia Moscovici, psychopathyawareness

Dangerous Liaisons: How to Identify and Escape from Psychopathic Seduction

http://www.amazon.com/Dangerous-Liasons-Recognize-Psychopathic-Seduction/dp/0761855696/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1318095970&sr=1-1

The Seducer: A Novel 
http://www.amazon.com/Seducer-Novel-Claudia-Moscovici/dp/0761858075/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1326297451&sr=1-1

Don’t Give the Psychopath too Much Importance

Lurking in the Shadows

As absolute narcissists, all psychopaths think they’re extremely important. To them, the universe revolves around them and their needs. Everyone around them is either a target they will try to use to fulfill those needs or an obstacle to be eliminated in the pursuit of what they desire. For this reason, psychopaths surround themselves with individuals they can manipulate and brainwash, who idolize them. This not only gives them tools to machinate against others, but also supports the narcissistic bubble, sustaining their false sense of importance.

Imagine that you were raised by such a psychopath in a place where you weren’t allowed out of your house, you weren’t allowed to have friends, exchange opinions, learn, interact with others. Then the tyrant who raised you would assume the utmost importance, no matter how pathetic and insignificant he was in any objective sense. The psychology of cult followers and of those imprisoned by a psychopath has some similarities, particularly in the importance the psychopath assumes in their lives.

For cult followers or anyone who worships a psychopath, this importance seems to be a positive force: they have someone they consider superior to others, who makes them feel “special” and “superior” as well, by association. For those held prisoner by a psychopath, this importance is magnified by fear. In both cases, however, it is exaggerated and out of touch with reality: it is carefully created by the psychopath through brainwashing, intimidation tactics and isolation. For a very interesting and vivid account of how this happens, please see Jaycee Dugard’s account of her imprisonment by a pathological couple:

http://www.amazon.com/Lost-Found-Jaycee-Abduction-Shocked/dp/0312388276 
https://psychopathyawareness.wordpress.com/2011/07/19/partners-in-evil-the-psychopath-and-malignant-narcissist-combo/ 

When their targets no longer idolize them or fulfill their demands, psychopaths often retaliate. They can’t tolerate when anyone bursts the artificial bubble of their complete and utter narcissism.  Psychopaths are bullies. They often resort to intimidation tactics, such as stalking and cyberstalking, smear campaigns and various other machinations. Some former victims feel genuinely terrorized by them and live in a state of fear or even paranoia. They give them a power that they don’t deserve. This is not to say that you shouldn’t take the psychopath’s stalking seriously. Record every incident; report it to the authorities; take actions to protect yourself and your loved ones. However, don’t live in the shadow of the psychopath’s inflated ego or in fear of him. My friend and fellow writer, Sarah Strudwick, recently wrote an excellent article about this. She too has been cyberstalked by her psychopathic ex, but learned how to work through–and move beyond–the trauma, the anger and the fears that this experience has caused.

http://wakingyouup.wordpress.com/2012/03/17/stalkers-trolls-monsters-and-imaginary-friends/

I recall moments during my childhood when I’d go to bed and  my toys would create scary, large and looming shadows on the wall. The toys that seemed so benign during the day sometimes became frightening during the night. In a way, that’s what psychopaths attempt to do to victims who reject them; to those who do not sustain their distorted, inflated egos. They  project scary, larger-than-life shadows through various tactics intended to intimidate and menace. Take their actions seriously, but not the psychopaths.

Psychopaths are trivial human beings. They don’t have any real human relationships and they don’t accomplish any constructive goals, except as a false mask. When you see the psychopath for what he is–a pathetic, insignificant human being–you cut him down to size. Don’t give the psychopath too much importance because, in reality, he has none.

Claudia Moscovici, psychopathyawareness

Dangerous Liaisons: How to Identify and Escape from Psychopathic Seduction

http://www.amazon.com/Dangerous-Liasons-Recognize-Psychopathic-Seduction/dp/0761855696/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1318095970&sr=1-1

The Seducer: A Novel 
http://www.amazon.com/Seducer-Novel-Claudia-Moscovici/dp/0761858075/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1326297451&sr=1-1

Playing With Fire: Narcissists and Psychopaths as Players

Many of you have dated them: cocky men who seem to attract women like flies and change partners as frequently as normal people change underwear. They can be smooth, sexy, exciting and fun. Initially, they may seem harmless enough: just normal men looking for a good time. If you’re not seeking a serious relationship, you may even see them as a welcome escape when normal life presents so many challenges and entails so many responsibilities. But players are often not as harmless as they seem. They may be suffering from a serious and incurable personality disorder, of which their sexual addiction is only a symptom, or the tip of the iceberg.

Compulsive seducers tend to be extremely narcissistic. They use their conquests as mirrors to reflect back to them an aggrandized image of their own desirability. Steve Becker, a therapist specializing in psychopathy and narcissism and consultant for lovefraud.com, distinguishes, however, between the motives of narcissists and psychopaths. Of the two, he suggests that psychopaths present a greater danger to others. He explains that all psychopaths are highly narcissistic. But the converse isn’t true. Not all narcissists are psychopathic, in the sense of living for the thrill of duping and harming others.

In his essay, “Sociopath versus Narcissist,” Becker argues that both narcissistic and psychopathic seducers share a tendency to treat others as objects. He states, “Welcome to the world of the narcissist and psychopath. Theirs is a mindset of immediate, demanded gratification, with a view of others as expected—indeed existing—to serve their agendas. Frustrate their agendas, and you can expect repercussions, ranging from the disruptive to ruinous.” (powercommunicating.com)

Psychopaths and narcissists, however, have different motivations for why they seduce. Narcissists need an endless supply of validation. The more women they seduce, the more they feel reassured in their sex appeal. By way of contrast, a psychopath does it primarily for the pleasure of playing a game. The women he seduces, whether he’s involved with them for one evening or several years, represent nothing more than pawns, to be used for his personal pleasure and amusement. Becker elaborates:

“The psychopath is less obsessed than the narcissist with validation. Indeed, his inner world seems to lack much of anything to validate: it is barren, with nothing in it that would even be responsive to validation. An emotional cipher, the psychopath’s exploitation of others is more predatory than the narcissist’s. For the psychopath, who may be paranoid, the world is something like a gigantic hunt, populated by personified-objects to be mined to his advantage.” (powercommunicating.com)

Just as they eventually tire of each game piece—be it a long-term girlfriend, casual lover or spouse—psychopaths also tire of each kind of game. Even promiscuous sex gets boring for them. Which is why they often feel the need to engage in acts of physical violence for additional thrills. However, their boredom is only temporarily relieved by each new addiction, transgression and act of depravity. For this reason, psychopaths sometimes move from promiscuity to rape (or worse).

The quest for validation leads a narcissist in an insatiable search for his narcissistic supply: new conquests, be they merely sexual or romantic, mean new sources of praise and validation for him. More dangerously, the quest for entertainment and domination–or pleasure through victimization–leads a psychopath to explore new and increasingly sadistic ways of hurting others. No matter how flattering and romantic such men may seem initially, playing with compulsive seducers–be they narcissists or psychopaths–is playing with fire. You will get burned. The only question is: how bad and for how long.

Claudia Moscovici, psychopathyawareness

Dangerous Liaisons: How to Identify and Escape from Psychopathic Seduction

http://www.amazon.com/Dangerous-Liasons-Recognize-Psychopathic-Seduction/dp/0761855696/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1318095970&sr=1-1

The Seducer: A Novel 
http://www.amazon.com/Seducer-Novel-Claudia-Moscovici/dp/0761858075/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1326297451&sr=1-1

The Psychopath’s Absolute Narcissism

Psychopaths suffer from the most extreme form of narcissism. Narcissists put others down, or dominate them, in order to get validation as superior to them. Usually such individuals seem to be exactly as they are: smug, snobby, self-absorbed to the point of being ridiculous. Since psychopaths wear a mask of sanity, however, their narcissism is better camouflaged, at least initially. It’s also far more acute and dangerous. Psychopaths put others down in order to crush them. No matter how charming and modest they may seem in superficial contact, their ego feeds upon the victimization of others, including–or rather, especially–their family members, spouses, lovers and children. They aren’t satisfied with simply proving their superiority. They need to also humiliate and harm those around them in order to feel empowered and superior to them.

Clinically speaking, narcissism constitutes what Hervey Cleckley calls in The Mask of Sanity a “pathological egocentricity and incapacity for love.” Narcissists are so self-absorbed that they can’t envision the needs and reactions of others. They regard others as mirrors whose main role is to reflect–and magnify–the image of their own greatness. Although psychopaths are narcissistic to an extreme, they’re also far worse than most narcissists. At least most narcissists—excluding perhaps “malignant narcissists”–can experience self-doubt. They also need love and validation from other individuals.

Psychopaths embody narcissism with a grotesque twist. They lack the depth to experience or need a personal, individuated kind of love. As Cleckley observes, “The psychopath is always distinguished by egocentricity. This is usually of a degree not seen in ordinary people and often is little short of astonishing.” (The Mask of Sanity, 347) Furthermore, unlike narcissists, who, as mentioned, often show themselves to be vain to the point of self-caricature, psychopaths don’t usually appear to be arrogant, self-absorbed or boastful. They can mask much better their grossly inflated egos, as they camouflage everything else that’s deviant and dangerous in their personalities.  They compellingly present themselves as loving, affectionate and other-regarding individuals.

However, as Cleckley notes,  “Deeper probing will always reveal a self-centeredness that is apparently unmodifiable and all but complete. This can perhaps be best expressed by stating that it is an incapacity for object love and that this incapacity (in my experience with well-marked psychopaths) appears to be absolute.” (347) Cleckley correlates object-love, or caring about another person, with the capacity to feel empathy. Without empathy, you can’t understand what others feel. You therefore don’t have a disincentive to cause them harm or pain. Conversely, you lack the incentive to make them happier. Love, or even kindness, don’t exist without empathy.

That’s not to say that psychopaths can’t experience any sort of fondness whatsoever. But their affection tends to be self-serving, fleeting and superficial. In some cases, it manifests itself as an intense, obsessive drive to possess another person. Cleckley grants that, “[The psychopath] is plainly capable of casual fondness, of likes and dislikes, and of reactions that, one might say, cause others to matter to him.” (348) He qualifies, “These affective reactions are, however, always strictly limited in degree. In durability they also vary greatly from what is normal in mankind. The term absolute is, I believe, appropriate if we apply it to any affective attitude strong and meaningful enough to be called love, that is, anything that prevails in sufficient degree and over sufficient periods to exert a major influence on behavior.” (347) Whenever they seem to be passionately in love or to experience genuine parental or filial devotion, psychopaths are faking it.

Let’s return again to the case of Neil Entwistle. Opening the door for his wife, giving her romantic gifts, posting the pictures of her and their newborn baby on a joint website, doesn’t mean anything if he’s prepared to literally sacrifice his family to his whims. To this effect, Cleckley observes, “The psychopath seldom shows anything that, if the chief facts were known, would pass even in the eyes of lay observers as object love. His absolute indifference to the financial, social, emotional, physical, and other hardships that he brings upon those for whom he professes love confirms the appraisal during psychiatric studies of his true attitude. We must, let it never be forgotten, judge a man by his actions rather than by his words.” (348) Because they can’t love others, psychopaths also lack the motivation to improve their character and behavior. Cleckley concludes, “This lack in the psychopath makes it all but impossible for an adequate emotional rapport to arise in his treatment and may be an important factor in the therapeutic failure that, in my experience, has been universal.” (348)

Claudia Moscovici, psychopathyawareness

Dangerous Liaisons: How to Identify and Escape from Psychopathic Seduction

http://www.amazon.com/Dangerous-Liasons-Recognize-Psychopathic-Seduction/dp/0761855696/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1318095970&sr=1-1

The Seducer: A Novel 
http://www.amazon.com/Seducer-Novel-Claudia-Moscovici/dp/0761858075/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1326297451&sr=1-1

How And Why A Psychopath Pushes Your Buttons

In an earlier post, entitled Relationship Boomerang, I explained that it’s very difficult to get rid of a psychopath even after you break up with him because such an individual rarely lets go of his dominance bonds. He’s usually in the beginning, middle and end phases of numerous relationships simultaneously. He recycles former relationships, to reclaim possession of previous partners. At the root of psychopathy is the most extreme and malignant form of narcissism. In The Mask of Sanity, Cleckley calls the psychopath’s egocentricity and incapacity to love “complete” and “absolute.” A narcissist often dominates others because he wants validation from them. A psychopath, however, carries this personality disorder to an extreme: he dominates others, and puts them down, in order to destroy them. For a psychopath, the ultimate ego trip is shattering the lives of others, not simply proving himself superior to them. He cannot derive pleasure from recognition by others unless it also causes them harm or humiliates them. This is why psychologists state that psychopaths suffer from the most dangerous, predatory and malignant form of narcissism that exists.

Today I’d like to go over how and why a psychopath pushes your buttons, to provoke some type of reaction from you long after your relationship is over. The why is easy: a psychopath regards his partners as his personal property, to use and dispose of as he pleases. Since eventually he gets bored with all relationships, he periodically revisits some of the previous ones, to harass former parters or to sink his claws into them once again.

He does so by testing out different strategies and seeing which ones get the desired reaction. Often, he alternates between nice and complicit interactions (or overtures) and insults, which correspond to the idealized or devalued mirror effects I went over in my previous post, The Psychopath’s Mirroring Effects. One message (or spam) he may praise you, the next one he’ll put you down. This is partly because a psychopath’s moods and attitudes arbitrarily oscillate between idealizations and devaluations of the same person. I call these fluctuations “arbitrary” because sometimes they may be motivated by your actions, sometimes not. For instance, a psychopath may idealize you when you comply with his wishes and regard him as an ideal partner (before you open your eyes, that is, and see him for what he is).

But even during the honeymoon phase, when you’re infatuated with him, he may at the same time devalue you: see you as a gullible individual whom he can use and dupe. This is why even during the honeymoon period, when a psychopath desires and pursues you, there are frequent moments of devaluation, at least in his own mind. Usually, however, during the seduction phase the psychopath hides those negative thoughts far better than when he’s grown tired of you and is ready to move on. As the psychopathic bond unfolds, the moments of devaluation necessarily become more frequent until they eventually set the tone for the entire relationship. At that point, the psychopath puts much less effort in maintaining the “mask of sanity” and shows himself more and more for the evil person he is.

Once the relationship is over, the psychopath will continue to periodically harass you and test the waters, to see if he can reestablish the dominance bond over you, or simply to annoy you. If his oscillations between nice and mean overtures leave you confused, just remember this: both are equally meaningless. They’re just the psychopath’s way of pushing your buttons. This process is not innocuous. Couple his lack of conscience, vengefulness and boredom and what you get is high risk of getting seriously harmed if you go back to the psychopath. Some women were lured to their deaths by giving their vengeful psychopathic ex-partners a second chance, even when those men claimed to still love them. Whether a psychopath is saying negative or positive things to you or about you to others, these claims are  both empty of genuine content.

For a psychopath language is purely instrumental, not a way of communicating his real and deep emotions. The psychopath lacks the capacity to feel such emotions. So whether he’s saying I love you or I hate you; you’re beautiful or you’re ugly; you’re smart or you’re dumb, it’s really all just various ways in which he tests the waters to see if he can get a reaction from you and relieve the boredom that plagues his daily life. Once again, the psychopath’s need to push people’s buttons by making contradictory statements  is related to the shallowness of his emotions and his purely instrumental use of language–completely disassociated from any meaningful understanding of truth and falsehood or concept of right and wrong–to get what  (and whom) he wants in life.

Since the early 1940’s, when Hervey Cleckley conducted his study of psychopathy, psychologists have tried to understand the physiological basis for this dangerous personality disorder. During the nineteenth century, psychopathy used to be called “moral insanity.” It could also be called “the malady of lovelessness,” since it’s caused by shallow emotions. Robert Hare shows that the root of the problem lies in the fact that for psychopaths neither side of the brain processes emotion properly.

To psychopaths, emotionally charged statements such as “I love you,” “I’m sorry that I hurt you,” “I’ll never do it again,” mean absolutely nothing. They’re just words they use to deceive and manipulate others. Of course, they’re not random words. Psychopaths see that other people attach a special meaning to them. They notice that when they say “I love you,” “I’ll always be faithful to you” or “You’re the woman of my life,” they get a positive reaction. These hollow phrases help them seduce others, establish their trust and use them for their own selfish purposes. Psychopaths lack the capacity, however, to experience, and thus to fully grasp, the meaning behind emotionally charged words. Hare observes:

“Like the color-blind person, the psychopath lacks an important element of experience—in this case, emotional experience—but may have learned the words that others use to describe or mimic experiences that he cannot really understand.” (Without Conscience, 129)

To verify these findings, Hare and his research team conducted experiments on psychopaths versus non-psychopaths. They connected their subjects to an EEG machine, which records the electrical activity of the brain. Then they flashed on a screen strings of letters. Some of them formed real words while others formed only gibberish. They asked their subjects to press a button as soon as they identified a true word. A computer measured the time it took them to make the decision. It also analyzed their brain activity during the performance of this task. They found that non-psychopathic subjects responded quicker to emotionally charged words–such as “death” or “love”–than to non-emotional ones, such as “tree.” By way of contrast, emotionally charged words had no effect whatsoever on psychopaths. Hare elaborates,

“For most of us, language has the capacity to elicit powerful emotional feelings. For example, the word ‘cancer’ evokes not only a clinical description of a disease and its symptoms but a sense of fear, apprehension, or concern, and perhaps disturbing mental images of what it might be like to have it. But to the psychopath, it’s just a word.” (Without Conscience, 133)

According to both psychological and physiological research, psychopaths function far below the emotional poverty line. They’re much shallower than what we generally call “superficial” people. This has a lot to do with the faulty wiring in their brains. Hare explains that in most people the right side of the brain plays a central role in processing emotion. By way of contrast,

“Recent laboratory evidence indicates that in psychopaths neither side of the brain is proficient in the processes of emotion. Why this is so is still a mystery. But an intriguing implication is that the brain processes that control the psychopath’s emotions are divided and unfocused, resulting in a shallow and colorless emotional life.” (Without Conscience, 134)

The shallowness of their emotions explains why psychopaths are so callous as to use and abuse even those closest to them: their partners, their children, their parents, their lovers and their so-called friends. It also clarifies why they can’t see anything wrong with their mistreatment of others. Even when they rape and murder, psychopaths feel no remorse. Their theatrical apologies and promises to reform are as empty as their vows of love. When they cry in court after having been sentenced to prison for their crimes, they either feign emotion to gain sympathy or cry about the fact they got caught.

While research shows that psychopaths are incapable of real emotional bonding with others, this doesn’t imply that they’re out of touch with reality. When they harm others, even when it’s opportunistically and in the heat of the moment, they’re cold-blooded and deliberate about their actions. They’re also aware of the fact that their misdeeds are considered morally wrong by society. But, fundamentally, they don’t care. In fact, breaking the rules (without suffering any consequences) is the name of their game. As Hare clarifies:

“As I mentioned earlier, psychopaths do meet current legal and psychiatric standards for sanity. They understand the rules of society and the conventional meanings of right and wrong. They are capable of controlling their behavior and realize the potential consequences of their acts. The problem is that this knowledge frequently fails to deter them from antisocial behavior.” (Without Conscience, 143)

Whenever any discussion of criminal or deviant behavior takes place, the age-old debate between nature versus nurture tends to come up. The question thus arises: are psychopaths bad because of their social environment or are they born that way? The simple answer to this question is: they’re born that way and they can be made worse by a bad environment. Unfortunately, they can’t be made significantly better by anything at all.

Psychological and sociological research shows that, in fact, psychopaths are much less influenced by their environment than non-psychopaths. This conforms with the general finding that psychopaths have rock solid egos, which are more or less immune to negative input. As we’ve seen, although they enjoy affirmation and praise, as all narcissists do, they don’t care when they’re criticized or punished. While a corrupt environment and abuse is unlikely to cause psychopathy, it can lead a psychopath to express his constitutive emotional callousness through violence. (Without Conscience, 175)

Martha Stout seconds Robert Hare’s conclusions that nature–or the physiological incapacity to experience and process emotion properly–has much more to do with psychopathy than nurture. Stout observes, “In fact, there’s evidence that sociopaths are influenced less by their early experience than are nonsociopaths.” (The Sociopath Next Door, 134). She elaborates,

“The sociopaths who have been studied reveal a significant aberration in their ability to process emotional information at the level of the cerebral cortex. And from examining heritability studies, we can speculate that the neurobiological underpinnings of the core personality features of sociopathy are as much as 50 percent heritable. The remaining causes, the other 50 percent, are much foggier. Neither childhood maltreatment nor attachment disorder seems to account for the environmental contribution to the loveless, manipulative, and guiltless existence that psychologists call psychopathy.” (The Sociopath Next Door, 134)

In other words, psychopathy constitutes a physiological deficiency that causes shallowness of emotions and all the negative implications which stem from it that we’ve explored so far. This deficiency is genetically inherited only half of the time. The other half of the time it may be caused by accidents, brain damage, drugs or other, unknown causes.

The saddest implication of the scientific research on psychopathy is the fact that there’s no cure for it. No medication or treatment has yet been discovered that can give a psychopath the neurological capacity to process emotion properly. Consequently, nothing can turn him into a functioning, caring human being. He will always remain an absolutely narcissistic and malicious human being.

It’s up to you to decide if you wish to sacrifice the rest of your life to a man who, at best, may become somewhat less impulsive and dangerous with medication, but who was, is and will always remain incapable of appreciating you and of reciprocating your love.

Claudia Moscovici, psychopathyawareness

Dangerous Liaisons: How to Identify and Escape from Psychopathic Seduction

http://www.amazon.com/Dangerous-Liasons-Recognize-Psychopathic-Seduction/dp/0761855696/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1318095970&sr=1-1

The Seducer: A Novel 
http://www.amazon.com/Seducer-Novel-Claudia-Moscovici/dp/0761858075/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1326297451&sr=1-1

What Kind of Person Stays with a Psychopath or Narcissist?

So far I’ve tried to explain that just about any person can be initially fooled by a psychopath’s mask of sanity and become involved with such a disordered individual. However, while any of us can become ensnared by a psychopath during the initial, luring phase when he does his best to appear better than normal individuals, fewer people actually STAY with a psychopath or narcissist once his mask of sanity slips and they come to see his real, malicious, disordered and abusive self.

Today I’m pasting below an article by Sam Vaknin, an expert on narcissism and psychopathy, from his website and book “Malignant Self-Love”.  This article sketches the psychological profile of the kind of person who stays with a psychopath or narcissist long after the luring and honeymoon phases are gone and Dr. Jekyll has morphed into the real Mr. Hyde. If you recognize yourself in the victim profile, perhaps this New Year’s resolution could be to find the inner strength–and seek the external support–to ditch the psychopath or narcissist in your life. Don’t allow an evil individual to abuse and control you for the rest of your life. You deserve better than that.  At any rate, I hope that this information will help.

On the face of it, there is no (emotional) partner or mate, who typically “binds” with a sociopathic narcissist. They come in all shapes and sizes. The initial phases of attraction, infatuation and falling in love are pretty normal. The sociopathic narcissist puts on his best face – the other party is blinded by budding love. A natural selection process occurs only much later, as the relationship develops, the sociopath shows his true colors and the relationship is put to the test.

Living with a sociopathic narcissist can be exhilarating, is always onerous, often harrowing. Surviving a relationship with a sociopathic narcissist indicates, therefore, the parameters of the personality of the survivor. She (or, more rarely, he) is molded by the relationship into The Typical Sociopathic narcissistic Mate/Partner/Spouse.

First and foremost, the sociopathic narcissist’s partner must have a deficient grasp of her self and of reality. Otherwise, she (or he) is bound to abandon the sociopathic narcissist’s ship after the honeymoon phase is over. The cognitive distortion is likely to consist of belittling and demeaning herself – while aggrandising and adoring the sociopathic narcissist. The partner is, thus, placing himself in the position of the eternal victim: undeserving, punishable, a scapegoat. Sometimes, it is very important to the partner to appear moral, sacrificial and victimised. At other times, she is not even aware of this predicament. The sociopathic narcissist is perceived by the partner to be a person in the position to demand these sacrifices from his partner, being superior to her in many ways (intellectually, emotionally, morally, financially).

The status of professional victim sits well with the partner’s tendency to punish herself, namely: with her masochistic streak. The tormented life with the sociopathic narcissist is, as far as the partner is aware, a just punitive measure.

In this respect, the partner is the mirror image of the sociopathic narcissist. By maintaining a symbiotic relationship with him, by being totally dependent upon the source of masochistic supply (which the sociopathic narcissist most reliably constitutes and most amply provides) – the partner enhances certain traits and encourages certain behaviours, which are at the very core of narcissism.

The sociopathic narcissist is never whole without an adoring, submissive, available, self-denigrating partner. His very sense of superiority, indeed his False Self, depends on it. His sadistic Superego switches its attentions from the sociopathic narcissist (in whom it often provokes suicidal ideation) to the partner, thus finally obtaining an alternative source of sadistic satisfaction.

It is through self-denial that the partner survives. She denies her wishes, hopes, dreams, aspirations, sexual, psychological and material needs, and much else besides. She perceives her needs as threatening because they might engender the wrath of the sociopathic narcissist’s God-like supreme figure. The sociopathic narcissist is rendered in her eyes even more superior through and because of this self-denial. Self-denial undertaken to facilitate and ease the life of a “great man” is more palatable. The “greater” the man (=the sociopathic narcissist), the easier it is for the partner to ignore her own self, to dwindle, to degenerate, to turn into an appendix of the sociopathic narcissist and, finally, to become nothing but an extension, to merge with the sociopathic narcissist to the point of oblivion and of dim memories of one’s self.

The two collaborate in this macabre dance. The sociopathic narcissist is formed by his partner inasmuch as he forms her. Submission breeds superiority and masochism breeds sadism. The relationships are characterised by rampant emergentism: roles are allocated almost from the start and any deviation meets with an aggressive, even violent reaction.

The predominant state of the partner’s mind is utter confusion. Even the most basic relationships – with husband, children, or parents – remain bafflingly obscured by the giant shadow cast by the intensive interaction with the sociopathic narcissist. A suspension of judgement is part and parcel of a suspension of individuality, which is both a prerequisite to and the result of living with a sociopathic narcissist. The partner no longer knows what is true and right and what is wrong and forbidden.

The sociopathic narcissist recreates for the partner the sort of emotional ambience that led to his own formation in the first place: capriciousness, fickleness, arbitrariness, emotional (and physical or sexual) abandonment. The world becomes uncertain and frightening and the partner has only one thing to cling to: the sociopathic narcissist.

And cling she does. If there is anything which can safely be said about those who emotionally team up with sociopathic narcissists, it is that they are overtly and overly dependent.

The partner doesn’t know what to do – and this is only too natural in the mayhem that is the relationship with the sociopathic narcissist. But the typical partner also does not know what she wants and, to a large extent, who she is and what she wants to become.

These unanswered questions hamper the partner’s ability to gauge reality, evaluate and appraise it for what it is. Her primordial sin is that she fell in love with an image, not with a real person. It is the voiding of the image that is mourned when the relationship ends.

The break-up of a relationship with a sociopathic narcissist is, therefore, very emotionally charged. It is the culmination of a long chain of humiliations and of subjugation. It is the rebellion of the functioning and healthy parts of the partner’s personality against the tyranny of the sociopathic narcissist.

The partner is liable to have totally misread and misinterpreted the whole interaction (I hesitate to call it a relationship). This lack of proper interface with reality might be (erroneously) labelled “pathological”.

Why is it that the partner seeks to prolong her pain? What is the source and purpose of this masochistic streak? Upon the break-up of the relationship, the partner (and the sociopathic narcissist) engage in a tortuous and drawn out post mortem. But the question who really did what to whom (and even why) is irrelevant. What is relevant is to stop mourning oneself (this is what the parties are really mourning), start smiling again and love in a less subservient, hopeless, and pain-inflicting manner.

Claudia Moscovici, psychopathyawareness

Dangerous Liaisons: How to Identify and Escape from Psychopathic Seduction

http://www.amazon.com/Dangerous-Liasons-Recognize-Psychopathic-Seduction/dp/0761855696/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1318095970&sr=1-1

The Seducer: A Novel 
http://www.amazon.com/Seducer-Novel-Claudia-Moscovici/dp/0761858075/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1326297451&sr=1-1

Avoid These Men! The Three Most Dangerous Personality Disorders

Please find below a very helpful article about dangerous men by Liane Leedom, co-author along with Sandra Brown of the book “Women Who Love Psychopaths” (Health and Well-Being Publications, 2008) and lovefraud.com psychopathy expert. The article is called “The Dark Triad” and was published on lovefraud.com on December 1, 2007.

Choosing a life partner is the most difficult task we face. Furthermore, due to mistakes in choices, older adults also find themselves single and choosing again. The desire to have a life partner comes from our needs for sex and companionship; but, given how difficult it is to compete in society, the desire for a mate also may be influenced by more practical matters. In choosing a mate, sexual attractiveness, compatibility and social status all factor in to the equation. To avoid a mistake, then, it is necessary to be aware how sexual attractiveness, compatibility and social status influence our choices, and to couple this awareness with an understanding of the qualities that make a good life partner.

The problem with sexual attractiveness is that “beauty is only skin deep,” and many people, especially men, place too much of an emphasis on sexual attractiveness when choosing a mate. A choice based on sexual attractiveness has a high likelihood of being an incorrect one. Erotic passion clouds judgment and prevents us from considering compatibility and practical matters in our choices. The good news is that we do not have to allow ourselves to be seduced by beauty, and if we are, we have only ourselves to blame.

Once we get beyond sexual attractiveness, compatibility and status concerns weigh into our decisions. This is where the Dark Triad comes in. The Dark Triad of personality represents those who make their partners MISERABLE. The Dark Triad is Psychopathy, Narcissism and Machiavellianism. To varying degrees, all three personality types entail a dark, interpersonally destructive character with tendencies toward grandiosity, emotional callousness, manipulation and dominance. Psychopaths and Machiavellians have high self- esteem, and are charming and fun but psychopaths are also impulsive and cunning. Narcissists are grandiose and have high self esteem, and may also be intellectually gifted. Research has shown that these three personality types are all a bit different and yet also highly overlap.

A common theme underlies The Dark Triad; that theme is a preoccupation with DOMINANCE and POWER. Personality tests of Machiavellianism come the closest to identifying non-criminal psychopaths. There are high correlations between these three personality tests in college students who take all three tests. The numbers indicate that these three concepts are different but have some common underlying theme. That theme is PLEASURE IN POWER.

Why is it so hard to have it all? Why is it rare that a person is both loving/empathetic and effectively dominant/competitive? The reason is that affection and dominance motives are not compatible. We can be motivated by a combination of sex and love or a combination of sex and power, but we cannot simultaneously experience love and power motives.

Furthermore, dwelling in the power realm suppresses the development of empathy. Empathy is a skill that must be nurtured and practiced. Empathy, if not practiced, diminishes. We are designed this way because assertion of dominance often necessitates overt or covert aggression. How can we be aggressive toward someone we have empathy for? We can’t, thus the most loving people are the least aggressive and the least domineering.

If you are in a relationship and are considering a deeper commitment, or are attracted to someone and considering a relationship, please take stock of what I have said. Consider the person’s Inner Triangle, don’t go after The Dark Triad.

The Inner Triangle is our Ability to Love, Impulse Control and Moral Reasoning. Seek to surround yourself with loving people who have morals and impulse control. Avoid, at all costs, connecting with a member of The Dark Triad.

You can’t be a bully if you don’t have a victim.

You can’t feel “superior” if there isn’t an “inferior”

You can’t be a “winner” if there isn’t a “loser”

You can’t be “right” unless someone else is “wrong”

It IS all about the POWER.

Claudia Moscovici, psychopathyawareness

Dangerous Liaisons: How to Identify and Escape from Psychopathic Seduction

http://www.amazon.com/Dangerous-Liasons-Recognize-Psychopathic-Seduction/dp/0761855696/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1318095970&sr=1-1

The Seducer: A Novel 
http://www.amazon.com/Seducer-Novel-Claudia-Moscovici/dp/0761858075/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1326297451&sr=1-1

Smooth Player or Sex Addict? Jersey Shore’s “The Situation”

Mike, a.k.a “The Situation” is one of the most popular cast members of the spectacularly popular MTV reality show, Jersey Shore. But he’s also known for having a Jekyll/Hyde personality: he comes across as a player with a soft side. The Jekyll side usually dominates. For example, Mike takes care of his buddies when they go out clubbing and cooks Sunday night dinners for the whole Jersey Shore gang.  But the Hyde side of Mike rears its ugly head whenever things don’t go his way. It’s especially obvious when the women he tries to hook up with are not “DTF”. That’s when The Situation’s claws come out. He gazes at women with a predatory stare and “pulls a robbery” on Vinny’s girlfriend, Ramona. Even the affable Snooki bore the brunt of Mike’s controlling nature one night, when he attempted to literally haul her and her best friend out of a club because he couldn’t find any willing partners there.

Perhaps even more disturbing than Mike’s lack of loyalty towards his buddy Vinny and sometimes aggressive behavior are his manipulation skills. Angelina may be known as the official trouble-maker of Jersey Shore, but it’s Mike who, behind the scenes, instigates most disputes. He sets his friends against one another to  watch them flip out “like pancakes,” as he once put it. Finally, Mike is not your average player. His impulse to seduce women every night–sometimes several women a night–appears to be the symptom of a rather severe sexual addiction.

Compulsive seducers tend to be extremely narcissistic. They use their conquests as mirrors to reflect back to them an aggrandized image of their own desirability. Just as rape is about violence and power, so compulsive seduction is about conquest and control. Dr. Steve Becker distinguishes, however, between the motives of narcissists and psychopaths. Of the two, he suggests that psychopaths present a greater danger to others. He explains that all psychopaths are narcissistic. But the converse isn’t true. Not all narcissists are psychopathic, in the sense of living for the thrill of duping and harming others. In his essay, “Sociopath versus Narcissist,” Becker argues that both narcissistic and psychopathic seducers share a tendency to treat others as objects. He states, “Welcome to the world of the narcissist and psychopath. Theirs is a mindset of immediate, demanded gratification, with a view of others as expected—indeed existing—to serve their agendas. Frustrate their agendas, and you can expect repercussions, ranging from the disruptive to ruinous.” (powercommunicating.com)

Psychopaths and narcissists have different motivations for why they seduce. Narcissists need an endless supply of validation. The more women they seduce, the more they feel reassured in their sex appeal. By way of contrast, a psychopath does it strictly for the perverse pleasure of playing a game. The women he seduces, whether he’s involved with them for one evening or for several years, represent nothing more than pawns, to be used for his personal pleasure and amusement. Becker elaborates:

“The psychopath is less obsessed than the narcissist with validation. Indeed, his inner world seems to lack much of anything to validate: it is barren, with nothing in it that would even be responsive to validation. An emotional cipher, the psychopath’s exploitation of others is more predatory than the narcissist’s. For the psychopath, who may be paranoid, the world is something like a gigantic hunt, populated by personified-objects to be mined to his advantage.” (powercommunicating.com)

Just as they eventually tire of each game piece—be it a long-term girlfriend, a casual lover or a spouse—psychopaths also tire of each kind of game. Even promiscuous sex gets boring for them. Perhaps this explains why Mike needs to make a play for other men’s girlfriends or to instigate  fights among his Jersey Shore friends. No doubt, Jersey Shore Season 3 will continue to reveal the two sides of Mike, smooth player or sociopathic sex addict, depending upon how you want to look at “The Situation”.

Claudia Moscovici, psychopathyawareness

http://www.amazon.com/Dangerous-Liasons-Recognize-Psychopathic-Seduction/dp/0761855696/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1318095970&sr=1-1