P.S. to Dianne -- I see my attachment didn't take. Maybe there is a setting for attachments you could check out? It went to www.domain.com, maybe it has to be pointed to www.psychopath-research.com ; just an idea.

Hi Molly,

I'm responding to your recent 11/30/02 post under "General Discussion" but thought I'd start a new thread. You say "But, what bothers me the most now is that I ultimately cannot understand it. I cannot understand why someone needs so much control that they need to virtually destroy the other person.", and "Try as I might, I cannot empathize with the abuser, feel what he feels, see the world through his eyes.". I too have a real problem with this, as much as I've tried to look at life through the eyes of the P, I still don't understand.

We try to look through the eyes of the P to try to help him. We put ourselves in his position to try to better understand. The fact they have no interest in changing for the better adds to our frustration. And the fact that the P himself seems utterly incapable seeing things as we see them makes the whole exercise a very lonely one. But forget about the P for a minute. I want to talk instead about our psychology, my psychology, and perhaps try to get some help, if possible. Much of this is my personal story but I hope you will indulge me.

Molly, back in April on the old message board you wrote a post (since deleted) "Wilson" about a soccer ball in the Tom Hanks movie "Cast Away". Soon afterwards your post inspired me to rent and watch "Cast Away". As you say in your post, "In the movie, he is shipwrecked for years on an unpopulated island. Among the many artifacts that wash ashore is a [soccer ball], which he paints with his own blood, giving it eyes, a nose, and mouth. He names it Wilson.".

Tom Hanks develops a close relationship with Wilson by looking at himself through Wilson's eyes. In her 1/22/02 post "words and meanings" on the old message board, Cherie defined empathy this way: "EMPATHY, (Greek root) 1. the projection of one's personality into the personality of another in order to understand him better; intellectual identification of oneself with another". This is what Tom Hanks is doing with Wilson. He's looking at himself through Wilson's eyes and asking, what does Wilson see, what does he think, what does he feel, even, what does he want from me! And what does he desire.

This agency of empathy, of being able to see things through the eyes of others, is I think key in the typical sequence of shame. To me the prototypical example of shame is a woman who's undressing for bed and suddenly realizes she's forgotten to close the drapes and a man is watching her from outside. She freezes, maybe blushes, and quickly covers herself up in shame. She isn't ashamed due to the man shooting "shame rays" out of his eyes at her. No, the shame is from her ability to see herself through others' eyes. It comes from within herself.

Molly, in your Wilson post, you wrote "All the love in our lives, comes from ourselves. We are the source of it, no matter who or what is the recipient. And with love, comes pain. We don't necessarily have any control over who or what the object of our love is. We can't control the resulting pain. Then maybe, we should just celebrate the fact that we can love." This is a profound comment on what comes from inside of us and what comes from the outside.

Many years ago I set some time aside to try to understand things, and think, and read books, especially about shame. I was really attracted to one book, called "Object Love and Reality" by Modell, which discussed the boundary between oneself and others. To put it another way, it tried to distinguish between what is inside oneself and what's in the external world. It had a single illustration in it at the front of the book, an early cave painting (which I've attached to this post). I recall an ancient belief that if you had the image of something, then you controlled it in a magical way. If you've seen Cast Away, Tom Hanks draws pictures of his wife on his cave so he can think of her even though she's away.

In that time I thought about things, I realized I had a very self-defeating tendency which is a bit hard to describe, but I'll just call it a tendency to always be looking at myself through the eyes of others. If I had some genuine thought or emotion of my own, after just a few seconds I'd jump out of myself and look at it as another would, as an outside observer, to consider it, critique it, and judge if it was sensible. This has the effect of shutting down the natural growth of my own thoughts and feelings, which are instead nipped in the bud.

When I once mentioned this to a friend years ago, he said, "Oh, like Hank Kimble!". If you're as old as I am, you'll remember Hank Kimble as a character from the 1960s TV show Green Acres. He'd say "I'm Kimble. Hank Kimble". Then he'd stop for a second and consider how what he said came across to others, and corrected it with, "not Kimble, Hank Kimble. Just Hank Kimble". Or in the same way he'd greet someone with "Nice day, isn't it?" then think better of it, and say "well it's not really THAT nice". Then he'd think a bit more and say "Not to say it's a BAD day...".

It's kind of pathetic to watch! A bit like the story of the centipede going merrily along until someone asked him how he kept track of all his feet, whereupon he looks down at his feet, gets confused, and collapses in a heap. You could say I'm just self-conscious but I think there's a lot more to it. For me, it affects the way I think and feel and the choices I make. It's something I haven't been able to get over yet, but one day I hope I can.

I recently bought the book "In Others' Eyes: An Analysis of Shame" which I find very dense to read and wouldn't recommend. But he talks about shame between people or within what he calls the "vis a vis" in what he calls "alterity theory". He proposes 3 developmental levels, in sequence they are:
1)Narcissus - absence of any reciprocal relation with the Other
2)Tiresias - a capacity for taking up the position of the vis-a-vis (with the Other) temporarily and looking critically at one's own self from that perspective, yet lacking the faculty of self-objectification without the help of the vis-a-vis.
3)Oedipus - "normal"

I admit I don't understand his concepts very well, but it sounds like the Tiresias level is describing my experience of always seeing myself through others' eyes. That I'm missing something vital required for me to see things on my own and think on my own, "lacking the faculty of self-objectification without the help of the vis-a-vis". Above I wrote that my own thoughts and feelings are short-circuited when I jump out of myself to try to look at them as others would. For me, when my thoughts are short-circuited in this way it's really quite weird. It's strange to talk about but I'll give it a try.

Let me preface this by saying if the average person really looked closely at their own thought processes that they might find some really weird stuff there too. Often, when I have some new idea to do something, some impulse, some creative feeling, then a voice in my head will say what it is, as if it was another person commenting. Like if I had a whim to go relax in the park I might hear a voice that said "He's going to the park to relax". Obviously, I know it's my own thoughts, but it seems to come out of the blue, like I have no control over it, and when it happens it really bugs me. This "voice" I think is just one small manifestation of my general tendency to look at things from the outside, from the point of view of others, rather than from the inside, from my own point of view (if I have one, which I wonder sometimes!).

I used to call this general tendency "the tendency of my thoughts to be all for the Other", and for me, it is really the hurdle I must overcome to grow spiritually. One of my favorite spiritual tracts is by Shankara, a 7th century Indian saint. In it, in response to "What is hell?" he answered "To live in slavery to others". I think we all have our various dependencies and slavery to try to work through. For me to become independant, each time I jump out of myself and look at things from the outside, I just have to pull myself back in and try to see things from the inside, from my own point of view. My main problem with this is that I'll forget for weeks or months at a time that this is the work I have to do, and that it's me who has to do it, and if I don't do it, it won't get done.

I bring this up because I do think it relates to the P as he has no empathy and really is unable to ever look at himself through other's eyes. And I think it may relate to others here too who may be immersed in seeing things as others see them to the detriment of seeing them through their own eyes, and having their own thoughts and voice. Long ago I identified it as the thing I had to work through, but unfortunately, I'm still working on it and don't think I've made much progress yet. This is the first time I've mentioned it to anyone, so maybe that will help. I don't know if anyone else can relate. If not, that's fine.

Sincerely, Boo

Hi Boo,

I’d like to answer your post, and address one of your concerns you mentioned. I want to thank you Boo for bringing it up because I’ve been meaning to talk about for some time here. This involves the forum itself and the many posts here.

It is not an easy task to manage a forum. There are many behind the scenes decisions and repercussions that must be considered. The very nature of the subject matter is a sensitive, difficult one. We are dealing with victims who are hurting and many of them may also have safety issues. Sometimes our decisions may not seem fair. Sometimes those managing this forum do not agree, but yet must always consider the good of the forum. It is not an easy task.

This is a forum that is fully moderated. That means it is not like the other forums on the same subject matter that are available elsewhere. Those forums offer wonderful information and great support, as does this one. The difference is here that we fully “moderate”, albeit imperfectly, the discussion and threads. One of the many responsibilities we have is to move threads that are off topic, or that would be better used elsewhere. We condense threads often to make them more readable. I encourage those here to go back and read the old archived Psychopath Forums at Crime News 2000. These threads are a wonderful source of information and support to me still. I go back there often for specific information and support. They are readable threads and they are that way because we have deleted some posts, moved others, and tried to make the best possible thread with relevant information. It is sometimes a judgment call, and requires many hours and sometimes much discussion.

These old threads, as well as those existing here on Psychopath Research, will eventually be combined here at this site. It is also important to note that some threads and specific posts may have been unavoidably lost in the move here in “cyberspace”. We are doing our best to retrieve all relevant threads for all of your and for future members and readers here.

Thank you Boo for bringing up a concern that may be shared by other members as well.

Neverthesame

Hi neverthesame. When I said that Molly's "Wilson" post at the old crimenews forum had been deleted, I ONLY mentioned it so that others wouldn't go there and waste their time searching for it in vain, as I had done. Not a criticism or meant as a snide comment about anyone's forum management. The past is past. Sincerely, Boo
P.S. I'm going to try to attach my file of the caving painting again and see if it takes.

"century Indian saint. In it, in response to "What is hell?" he answered "To live in slavery to others". I think we all have our various dependencies and slavery to try to work through. For me to become independant, each time I jump out of myself and look at things from the outside, I just have to pull myself back in and try to see things from the inside, from my own point of view. My main problem with this is that I'll forget for weeks or months at a time that this is the work I have to do, and that it's me who has to do it, and if I don't do it, it won't get done"

very interesting reading
i have to try this jump out of myself
i would like to understand the mechanism
of my involontary falling for the wrong person

freedom

Just ran across this post of yours, boo. If I am understanding you correctly, you are saying that you, yourself, have this tendency to look at your own thoughts and behavior as an objective observer outside of yourself might do. You say that the p does not do this, and does not look at himself through other's eyes, as the p has no empathy. You mention that a task for yourself and others is to '[see things] through their own eyes, and having their own thoughts and voice. ' You mention all of this in the context of a study on shame.

It's interesting stuff, boo. I guess if I were to try to think of a way that this should progress in a normal, socialized individual, it would start with the narcissism of the young child and progress to the 'other orientation' of the adolescent, two extremes of the same process, ending with the mature ability to see and integrate both self and other within any relational context. Well, that would be the ideal, and maybe something that none of us ever fully achieves. I do think that as we mature in a healthy sense, we do become more and more grounded in our own voice and beliefs, but not at the expense of the wonderful world of 'other.' What it boils down to is a willingness and a desire to maintain a relationship with both self and other, something that can become an impossible tightrope to walk in an abusive relationship. The abusive relationship forces us to always choose, it seems.

I think the difference with the p is that there is never a desire for an equal relationship with the 'other.' I think that the p has an intellectual empathy. He knows how to read others very well and how to do all the right things to manipulate the particular individual that he is interacting with at any given time. But, for the p, it is all a mental construct, and the goal is not to touch, to share, to love, but to control. It is a mental process for him, not a matter of the heart. The p does seem to truly care what others think of him, since he puts so much energy into controlling their perception. It is their perception of him, after all, that draws the shape of his mask. His mask is totally other-oriented. He exists solely in the eyes of others. His bid for a voice, for a self, for an experience of self, seems to me to be limited to the 'joy' he receives (if you can call it that) from the small, daily victories he experiences over his victims. He feels something, finally, when he can relish the experience of 'gotcha.' What does he feel? Powerful? Invincable? Godlike? I don't know. I think this is what convinces him that he exists at all. Without it, there is nothing there.

I think that shame develops in a healthy way only when we can emotionally connect with another to the extent that we emotionally care what they think of us. This is what the p cannot do. The emotional component of all interactions is truncated for him, I think. The young child loves his parents and wants to please them. The parent is thus given a great power to shame the child by showing displeasure. This happens within the context of the child perceiving the parent's emotional response to him, and emotionally responding to it himself, through empathy. He emotionally sees himself through the parent's eyes. If the p was ever able to do this, it seems to be a skill that he has lost. His response is always mental, thus he can never be shamed. Shame requires an emotional connection. This, to me, is the heart of a healthy empathy. Since the p does not have this ability to connect, he is shameless. Maybe it is a type of emotional autism.

I also think that those of us who are very other oriented can fall into the other trap of caring too much what others think, of being too other-oriented. Maybe this is what you are perceiving in yourself? Where the p always looks into the other's eyes to see his mask, the other-oriented person is always seeing himself through the eyes of others. There is a small but important distinction. The origination of the intent is different. The other-oriented person wants to please, to connect, even at the expense of himself. I think the other-oriented person can lose sight of his own center by looking 'out there' too much. I think it is necessary for us to spend time alone with ourselves, reading, playing music, running, whatever, to give ourselves time to really feel what is inside. There is not much in our current society that encourages us to do this. In fact, our society encourages just the opposite, telling us what to think and feel through media forces, fostering a sense of competition in the guise of promoting 'individuality.' We cannot really be 'individuals' in relationship to others who are defining where we are winning or losing some societal construct of success or happiness. True success or happiness is something internal, not external.

So, if I understand you correctly, I guess I can relate to what you are talking about. You know that old co-dependent joke, "I have never had an in-body experience." Another one is "When the co-dependent dies, somebody else's life flashes before his eyes." I do think that those of us who are so sensitive to others, and fully capable of deep emotional attachments, can find ourselves on a road where we lose touch with ourselves altogether. Looking out there too much can lead us to objectify ourselves. We need to grow into a balance and maybe that requires being a little too narcissistic, or self-centered, ourselves, for a period of time. Mostly, though, I think it is a process which evolves naturally through the experience of living with ourselves and feeling our feelings and thinking our thoughts over time.

Thanks for noticing my Wilson post. I enjoyed that movie and I enjoyed writing that post.

Hope you (and others) can see this one and give me your thoughts.

JMO, Molly

Hi Molly,

Long time no see! This takes me back to the early days, even back to the crimenews2000 site and our weekly chats on IRC with Di and you and me and kris and Orphan and cherie and several others.

Yes I do think you're "understanding [me] correctly" though I'm quite uncertain about all this myself. It's always problematic to try to communicate a subjective experience to another person. There is use of metaphor like "inside" and "outside", and hard to define terms like shame and empathy, and then there's the concept of "seeing yourself through other people's eyes", which is what Tom Hanks' character did in Castaway, looking at himself through Wilson's eyes, which was the whole focus of my post, to try to talk about that and understand it because that's how I live my life and wish I didn't. And all these concepts, I don't think they can be nailed down and finally understood. But somehow you do seem to have gotten the gist of what I was trying to convey so I'll try to comment on some parts of your post.

Molly writes:

"I guess if I were to try to think of a way that this should progress in a normal, socialized individual, it would start with the narcissism of the young child and progress to the 'other orientation' of the adolescent, two extremes of the same process, ending with the mature ability to see and integrate both self and other within any relational context. " and

"I think that shame develops in a healthy way only when we can emotionally connect with another to the extent that we emotionally care what they think of us." and

"The young child loves his parents and wants to please them. The parent is thus given a great power to shame the child by showing displeasure. This happens within the context of the child perceiving the parent's emotional response to him, and emotionally responding to it himself, through empathy. He emotionally sees himself through the parent's eyes."

About a week ago I checked a book out of the library, it's "SHAME: Interpersonal Behavior, Psychopathology, and Culture" (1998). The main reason I got it was to read Chapter 3 "Early Shame Experiences and Infant Brain Development" written by Allan Schore, which I read as soon as I got the book, before I read your post, and he talks about what you mention above.

On pages 64-65 under the section "Socialization Experiences and the Emergence of the Attachment Emotion of Shame" he writes in part

"... To socialize the child, the mother must now engage in affect regulation to reduce the heightened levels of positive affect associated with the pleasure of these activities. How does she inhibit and restrict the behaviors that the child finds pleasurable? In fact, there is one very specific inhibitor of accelerating pleasurable emotional states. Shame..." and

"In the second year, the ambulatory infant, now able to physically separate him- or herself from the mother for longer periods of time, is able to explore realms of the physical and social environment that are beyond her watchful eye. Upon return from these forays, the toddler brings the things he or she is exploring and attempting to master to the mother, but now, more than any time previously, these reunions can engender interactive [stressful shame experiences]."

He goes on to say it's the mother's facial expression such as of disgust which signals her disapproval to the child, and further that this engenders the changes in the child's brain which form the basis for healthy shame.

Just a thought I had while reading your post and Schore's comments on shame -- I often hear of the "doting mother" of Ps. For example, just last week there was a TV docudrama on the life of Hitler (surely himself a P); somewhere, either in the TV movie or elsewhere, Hitler's mother was described as a "doting mother". For contemporary examples I often turn to OJ Simpson and Bill Clinton. Though their narcissism may not rise to the level of the severe narcissism of a full blown P I think they do have a lot of those traits. And one thing they have in common is very "doting" mothers. Taking Ted Bundy as an example ... hard to say, really, because his real mother pretended to be his sister, and his grandmother pretended to be his mother. But I have heard the "doting mother" theory a lot as a cause of narcissism and Ps too (severe narcissism), and I was wondering, is it possible that the kind of unconditional positive mirroring (on some unhealthy level) by the mother in the second year of life of the P failed to include those disapproving looks that Schore says are required to lay down the biological basis for a mature sense of shame in the brain? I don't mean to give a pat and easy solution to how the P becomes a P. I mean, some Ps DON'T have doting mothers. Some people with doting mothers turn out fine! It's really just my thoughts.

When you say

"But, for the p, it is all a mental construct, and the goal is not to touch, to share, to love, but to control. It is a mental process for him, not a matter of the heart."

I haven't thought of this much but it certainly seems true that the P's heart (as any kind of manifestation of concern for others) never seems to get in the way of his plans. Intellectually, he uses all the information at his disposal in a cold, calculating, ruthless way. Intellectually, he must know his actions cause others a great deal of hurt. Intellectually, Scott Peterson must know it wasn't helpful to his wife Laci to kill her and dismember and hide her body in the San Fransisco bay, and that it would hurt her family greatly, yet emotionally it doesn't seem to have given him pause. I would contrast the attitude of the P with the attitude of his victim, it's almost a reversed situation. While the P acts on his intellectual understanding and ignores his emotional understanding, the victim does the opposite -- ignores her intellectual understanding and relies on her emotional understanding, like "I'm in love" or "He's really a great guy" in face of massive contradictory evidence. Intellectually, she may understand he's a louse, but emotionally, she remains in love. I think the victim is as close to being psychotic as you can be without actually being there, as she denies reality and her intellectual understanding to such a great degree. And having been there myself, I say that with all due respect.

I think you are right on about the only joy in a P's life, to take from others, take not just things, but also their self-respect, their dreams and values. To get the victims to do things they wouldn't ordinarily do, to do things that betray their own values. So from different victims the P will want to take different things -- they take whatever is most precious to that victim, and then, they win. It's all pretty sick stuff.

The distinction you make between the P seeing his mask reflected in the eyes of others, and me seeing myself through the eyes of others, is vital. It's so easy for me to get confused talking about these concepts, I'm glad you made that distinction and cleared up that difference. You express the experience, my experience, of being other-oriented, and how it's different from the experience of a P, very well.

When you say

"I also think that those of us who are very other oriented can fall into the other trap of caring too much what others think, of being too other-oriented. Maybe this is what you are perceiving in yourself?"

I have to say, yes, that's true, but my experience of looking at myself through the eyes of others is more like the Tom Hanks character. There were no others on the island with him. When Tom Hanks looked at Wilson, the soccer ball, looking at him, it was all internal. There were no other people to please. It wasn't about what any particular others thought. It was about seeing himself as others saw him, even an "Other" who was a soccer ball. Wilson had no thoughts of his own. Tom Hanks could not please Wilson, he could only do what he thought would please Wilson.

Finally, when you talk about the experience of the other-oriented person, so many images come to mind, such as when you say

"The other-oriented person wants to please, to connect, even at the expense of himself. I think the other-oriented person can lose sight of his own center by looking 'out there' too much. I think it is necessary for us to spend time alone with ourselves, reading, playing music, running, whatever, to give ourselves time to really feel what is inside."

At age 46, recently I bought a Yamaha keyboard, since I always wanted to learn to play the piano. I've been practicing 30 minutes a day for 6 months now, and can play 5 songs by heart. It's about the most rewarding thing I've ever done. To have done something for myself. I think of it as "having something inside before I start". Before I start living, maybe. And I take long walks, and meditate, and do yoga, but not very often at all. But when I do I am always compelled to thank myself afterwards.

Almost all the time I feel like I am outside myself but I can recall a couple times I felt inside myself. A couple years ago I had the stomach flu, I thought I was going to die. Laying in bed, it was a new sensation, of feeling my whole body, head to toe, intestines too and it was a real different consciousness for me. It was a new experience. In another example, I was arrested once about 20 years ago, and taken in handcuffs, and put in the holding pen with all the other criminals. And for a period of some 30 minutes, I was completely inside myself. It was so interesting and wonderful.

No, I don't know that co-dependant joke, "I have never had an in-body experience.", but it really applies to me! Or, "When the co-dependent dies, somebody else's life flashes before his eyes." LOL!! Brings a couple things to mind. Like if you ask a kid what kind of ice cream he likes, and he responds that his older brother (who he adores) likes chocolate. I completely adored my older brother, by the way. I remember around the year 1965 Mom offering me the choice between an orange or cherry popsicle, and all I could think of was what would my older brother prefer. Another; I had a friend who I'll call Bill who was 25 years old at the time, at a party. It was a kind of game, and everyone was asked their birthplace ... Chicago, Fargo, Washington DC and so on. And when my friend Bill was asked, he responded "Bob was born in Baltimore". Bob was our kind of leader of the pack, and someone who Bill followed to the greatest degree, lived through him you might say. And instead of saying where he was born, he says "Bob was born in Baltimore". It was so weird. Totally other-oriented.

You say one needs to be a bit overly narcissistic themselves to get over being other-oriented. I think of narcissism as a kind of little selfish devil inside. I call it the "psychopathic core". In some people the psychopathic core is weak, in others it's stronger. A good tonic for my life would be one that makes my psychopathic core stronger. More healthy narcissism.

Molly I have to say I didn't understand all the concepts in your post, but there was a lot of good stuff in there I did understand. I think much of your post is quite profound with a depth of meaning that is a bit beyond me. Not to give you a big head ... I bet you got some things wrong too! I really do appreciate you caring enough to take the time to respond and you definitely broadened my understanding and gave me some more stuff to think about. It's pretty obvious it meant a lot to me personally. I find analyzing these issues can be exhausting and I hope I'm not exhausting you too. I wanted to explain more about what I mean about seeing myself through the eyes of others but my brain is just too tired to do that. It's pretty weird you and Schore are saying the same thing about the origin of shame in infants! Sorry for the voluminous post. It's a veritable tome. :-| I hope you are well.

Sincerely, Boo