Hi Nan and Recovery

Like you, Recovery, my problem is time. I have another crisis which is outside the scope of this forum, so I won't go into details. Hopefully if/when that is sorted out, I would like to put a lot of time and effort into the things we have discussed. I agree with you that Nan seems like the right kind of person for this - how do you feel, Nan?

My own feeling is that we should start by setting some objectives; once that's done I can create a prototype website on one of the 'freebie' hosts and perhaps any of us who are interested can work on building it up into something?

My own objectives (at the moment) would be:
1. Lobby for more protection for children affected by psychopaths
2. Raise public awareness of the psychopath problem
3. Lobby for more money to be spent on psychopath research, in the hope that one day this may not be incurable - or at least methods of preventing them from being a menace to society can be improved

What do you all think? Di, I guess you know more about P's than any of us - does all of this sound like a good idea to you?

Hi Ali, whatever gives all of you the power to take back you lives is a great idea. I have started a section for you all to discuss your ideas.

Di

Hi Dianne and Ali,

Re: Children's Rights and legal precedent.

I've found some great sites. Using Goggle I wrote, "Children's Rights" and found this.

Childen's Rights - click here

It's called the Legal Information Institute (LII).

All the items below are clickable.

Will you work your click magic on those, Dianne.

Federal Statutes

· 25 U.S.C., ch. 21 - Indian Child Welfare Act
· 42 U.S.C. § 1983 - Civil Rights of Children
· 42 U.S.C., ch. 67 - Child Abuse Prevention and

Adoption Reform Act

· 42 U.S.C., ch. 7 - Social Security Act
· 42 U.S.C., ch. 6 - The Children's Bureau

Federal Judicial Decisions

· U.S. Supreme Court:
o Recent Decisions Involving Children
o Historic Decisions Involving Children
· U.S. Circuit Courts of Appeals: Recent Decisions Involving Children

I haven't read any of it yet. But I will (smile).

Nan

Hi Nan

That's a great site - have bookmarked it and started looking at some articles.

Since Recovery's problems began in the UK, I followed your example and searched for "children's rights" UK and came up with this one: <a target=blank href=http://www.crights.org.uk/>www.crights.org.uk</a>

Recovery, there is apparently a Children's Rights commissioner in England, also in Scotland, Wales and N Ireland, whose job it is to independently investigate cases where normal channels have failed to produce results. Have you tried this route?<br>

Nan, I'm going to discuss this more in the new forum that Di has opened for us.

All the best

Hi Dusty,
This is an old post and I sure did not read it all as it is long. My answer is absolutely yes but it is not love as love is in its true form. It is the best the P can do and it is destructive and hurtful no matter how hard they try and a force to flee from.

Here's an excerpt from an article I came across "The Hidden Suffering of the Psychopath"
by Willem H.J. Martens, M.D., Ph.D.:

Psychopaths can suffer emotional pain for a variety of reasons. Like anyone else, psychopaths have a deep wish to be loved and cared for. This desire remains frequently unfulfilled, however, as it is obviously not easy for another person to get close to someone with such repellent personality characteristics. Psychopaths are at least periodically aware of the effects of their behavior on others and can be genuinely saddened by their inability to control it. The lives of most psychopaths are devoid of a stable social network or warm, close bonds.

I found it interesting because (as I mentioned before) that's what I observed with P-ex. He did seem to be tormented at times after we had arguments. I recall he used to say he hated it when I was upset with him and it definitely seemed genuine. I think that's perhaps why many women find it confusing and feel that perhaps there's a chance of turning things around. That kind of thing gives them false hope. I did feel sorry for him at those times. Seems like a cursed way to be, endlessly struggling with demons that you can't overcome. Not sorry enough that I stayed though...

Sylvie

P.S. On on the one hand I was reticent to post that but hopefully people will see that even though they can emote to some extent, they are still Ps. Also, the article is considered controversial as it would be.

Dear Sylvia,

The problem is not what the P feels, it is how he thinks. He thinks he is entitled to be taken care of, to be catered to, to have the right to control and manipulate you and lie to you. P's can even be embarassed by their behavior, but it is never enough for them to change because their attitudes are so very concretely set in this center-of-the-universe entitlement, AND they are so very good at scape-goating others to lessen their feelings of discomfort, AND they are very good at enlisting the aid of others to support their entitlements.

Everyone under their sphere of influence is seen by them as their "property" and they believe they have the right to do with their property as they see fit. That is why they are often surprised when they are forced by laws to pay for wrongs they have committed. Why should they have to pay for something they have done to something that "belongs" to them?

Diane1969

In reply to:

---

"Psychopaths can suffer emotional pain for a variety of reasons. Like anyone else, psychopaths have a deep wish to be loved and cared for."

" Psychopaths are at least periodically aware of the effects of their behavior on others and can be genuinely saddened by their inability to control it."

---

I came across this quote a while ago and came to the conclusion that Willem H.J. Martens, M.D., Ph. doesnt have a clue what he is talking about. Either he's been conned by psychopaths, who have convinced him of their 'emotional pain' in the way they always try to, or the individuals he is describing might have some 'psychopathic tendencies'or traits but would not qualify for diagnosis as psychopaths under PCL-R.

"suffer emotional pain" "Deep wish to be loved and cared for" and "genuinely saddened" are all directly contradictory to the essence of psychopathy - flattened emotional response, an inability to empathise and no conscience.

Psychopaths just don't care. Rather than being 'genuinely saddened' a genuine psychopath will always lay the blame for any effect their behaviour may have had on others at somebody elses feet. Often the victims!

if you think a P is emoting, its because that's what he wants you to think. A mimickry of emotional affect does not mean that there is anything going on under the surface. The purpose of the smile on the face of the tiger or crocodile tears is to gull you into a state where you can be... consumed.

I do think Martens has got it completely wrong. His description is totally contradictory to descriptions in the books by CLeckley, Hare and Martha Stout that I have read and many other articles on the web.

Restating Martens:

"Psychopaths suffer no emotional pain themselves but enjoy witnessing it in others, especially when they have caused it. The ability to evoke emotional affect in others as part of controlling others behaviour is what gratifies the psychopath. Psychopaths are often curious about emotions in others that they do not feel themselves."

" Psychopaths have no desire to be loved, but often create and exploit the bond of love in order to get another person to care for them - because they are lazy . Why go to the effort of looking after yourself whn you can get somebody else to do it?"

In reply to:

---

Three decades of these studies, by Hare and others, has confirmed that psychopaths' brains work differently from ours, especially when processing emotion and language. Hare once illustrated this for Nicole Kidman, who had invited him to Hollywood to help her prepare for a role as a psychopath in Malice. How, she wondered, could she show the audience there was something fundamentally wrong with her character?

"I said, 'Here's a scene that you can use,' " Hare says. " 'You're walking down a street and there's an accident. A car has hit a child in the crosswalk. A crowd of people gather round. You walk up, the child's lying on the ground and there's blood running all over the place. You get a little blood on your shoes and you look down and say, "Oh [censored]." You look over at the child, kind of interested, but you're not repelled or horrified. You're just interested. Then you look at the mother, and you're really fascinated by the mother, who's emoting, crying out, doing all these different things. After a few minutes you turn away and go back to your house. You go into the bathroom and practice mimicking the facial expressions of the mother.' " He then pauses and says, "That's the psychopath: somebody who doesn't understand what's going on emotionally, but understands that something important has happened."

---

Source

I agree, JAM that Martens guy is way off base. I have also run across him and never bothered to post his "theory" since I am a strong believer in Dr. Hare and that guy makes no sense to me.

There is also someone, I forget their name, who suggests the concept of a "Partial Psychopath" that I have run across over the years and never bothered to post it. This is only my opinion but I think you are either a Psychopath as defined by Hare et.al or you aren't. Kind of a black and white issue, not any room for gray.

Well, I've been fascinated by psychopathy for a long time, mainly because it runs in our family and because of a pretty hurtful relationship I've been in for two years. I think I'm mostly over with it, but, you know, "know thine enemy". So I'll give my two cents, and hope you can get something useful out of it.

One thing anyone shouldn't forget, when dabbling in psychology as an amateur, is, that it isn't a science in the normal sense of the word. Scientific methodology applies to psychologic study, but experiments and tests are not in every or even in most cases repeatable or fully accurate. There are no set laws like in physics. Nothing psychology has determined so far is more than an observation of tendencies, and oftentimes is highly dependent on the reports of the afflicted themselves. Psychologists and psychiatrists still cannot truly "heal" anyone, they can only treat people for symptoms, and that's what makes it so hard to say that anything is truly "black" or "white" as far as this kind of problem is concerned.

Hare studied mostly criminal white males between 25 and 40, if I remember correctly, sentenced to between 6 months and life and usually reoffenders. They also were tendencially suffering from antisocial personality disorder most of the time (yes, there IS really some discussion whether "psychopathy" is synonymous with ASPD or is something quite diffent, I personally believe the latter to be true). So this doesn't really say much about the emotional setup of non-criminal psychopaths either younger or older and not afflicted by ASPD. Psychopathy is a bit like HIV - running wild among humanity, but only barely understood even by experts.

Sylvie seems to believe a psychopath may feel a desire to be loved (if I'm wrong, sorry, for the misunderstanding). That's in itself a valid opinion, but it depends mostly on what you assume his understanding of "love" to be. Psychopathy is considered to be defined by a vast inability of the psychopath to comprehend the normal scope of human emotion. While a psychopath may BELIEVE he wants to be loved, it may also be that his understanding of "love" merely consists of "people who deem me important to them and want me around." It may be that this understanding says "people who find my character intensely likeable". That is, in it's roots, a description of love. Yet, anyone who has ever FELT love understands the existing difference in sheer depth that he cannot properly put into words. That's what is lost on a psychopath.

DOES a psychopath want to be "loved"? Humans are fundamentally social creatures, so yes, as far has he understands human emotion, he likely craves interaction to a certain degree. He may desire this pleasant feeling of "closeness" other people tell him about. He may feel a need for conversation. He may even feel "disappointment" and "loneliness" if deprived of what he, because of the fundamental egotism saturating his perspective, considers his right (and the instinctual reaction to this failure to live up to his expectations is usually indignated anger). But he cannot feel true emotional closeness to the people he "loves", neither does he understand the reason for their feelings. He does not "love" them as persons, like true love should be, but rather for something about them that he enjoys. And this is why any psychopath eventually fails, as going through the motions does not equal true responding.

So, what is MY personal opinion to this? I say it's wrong to say a psychopath doesn't care about anything. One must never forget that psychopaths are still human, and people differ wildly enough even without any kind of mental illness afflicting them. To feel any need to interact with humans he must have a motivation, a "care" that drives him on to try again and again. So a typical psychopath may be out for the pleasure and tranquility being loved is supposed to give. Another may crave the gratification of being successful. Or maybe to escape the boredom that plagues him, since to him not much is worth reaching. He may even feel a genuine intellectual need to understand himself and what he is. Or maybe something entirely different. How can we know? He likely doesn't even know himself most of the time. But he DOES care, it's just about all the wrong things.


Gee, now THAT'S some rant, huh? I hope you enjoyed the read, I put that together from a variety of internet sources and books I've read, as well as personal experience. I'd enjoy any criticism you care to give.