Right on point as usual. Enjoy reading long writings from you. Was a “Quorum”. Became bored and at times annoyed by young adults asking me “Am I a psychopath?”
Responding with “No, if you were that idea would never cross your mind”. Bright side is reading real content from you that is far more accurate and more in depth. I read your other 2 writings as well on this site. When you said you enjoyed writing that’s an understatement. The difference with you is raw, bare bones and extremely interesting to me. Look forward to reading more.
Thanks for the thought provoking content, as always. Through all of my research, I began to wonder about the purpose for the existence of psychopathy, or even ASPD as a whole, within the human population. We know that psychopathic behaviors have been described in society since the dawn of civilization, and people, obviously, continue to express these behaviors and physiological abnormalities to this day. While ASPD is genetically no different from other neurological and psychiatric disorders, I believe that certain aspects of psychopathy are beneficial to an advancing intelligent society, and therefore, perhaps there is a reason for its existence. I propose that psychopaths exist as a survivability mechanism against humans ourselves.
This proposal, however, operates under a few assumptions. First, since psychopathy in particular is associated with physiological brain differences, let's say psychopaths are a human "subtype" or a variant to neurotypicals. Secondly, we know that mutations throughout evolution are made for a reason, typically to increase survivability and "win" natural selection. Usually this is seen between two different species like a hawk and a mouse, where the prey and predator have an evolutionary mutation relationship. Humans are unique in that we are "predators" to ourselves in addition to other species. For this reason, humans had to "evolve" to combat this threat. Since humans manipulate each other through emotion, I believe it would make sense for the mutation of choice to be one that protects against emotional manipulation.
There are several limitations with this thinking, the biggest being the categorization of psychopaths as human subtypes due to brain structure differences. This opens the door to potentially categorizing certain illnesses as human subtypes as well. For example, a person with cerebral palsy, of any level, stems from a genetic abnormality and they are also seen as different from society. For psychopaths to truly be a variant, I further operate on the assumption that emotions are the defining feature of the "human experience". Furthermore, I don't think it is far fetched for me to say that we live in an emotionally driven society (I live in America). Combing these two latter points on emotion with the genetic component completes the picture of psychopathy being a variant of neurotypicals, however it is extremely difficulty, if not impossible, to determine if psychopathy developed in response to intraspecies emotional turmoil. I have came across a few articles describing the existence of psychopaths in primates which has led people to believe that psychopathy existed before humans were specifically Homo sapiens. This uncertainty is another limitation with my first assumption.
Lastly, it would be difficult to prove that any intraspecies emotional manipulation and trauma is significant enough to trigger a genetic variation that transcends time. Furthermore, at what point did humans begin to systematically oppress each other and is there a correlation between the first observations of psychopathic behaviors?
Perhaps the brain differences in psychopathy are not different from neurodegenerative diseases in that they are simply random genetic errors made in replication and there is no real evolutionary reason for the existence of psychopaths. I would love to hear your thoughts about this idea in addition to your own thoughts regarding the existence of psychopathy in the human population.
The person that goes to check it out, that is the person that ensures the groups advancement.
The person that is reluctant and encourages them to turn around ensures the group’s safety.
You cannot have one without the other. They complement one another, and this advanced the human race. Adaptations evolve because circumstances call for them.
I don't consider psychopaths "subtypes", but rather complementary to that of neurotypicals.
Agreed as long as they adhere to a strong moral cognitive code of right and wrong and somewhere in between those lines. For neurotypicals a mutual respect must exist along with accountability.
I believe all mammals, certainly birds, and possibly some reptiles "need" emotions because survival of the species depends on having a strong bond between parent (usually mom) and offspring. Otherwise, the offspring would tend to die off due to (a) neglect and/or (b) aggression born of annoyance/frustration. That bond is emotional in nature. (Think the oxytocin "surge" during childbirth in mammals.)
And I believe Athena has suggested that psychopaths continue evolutionarily because societies need warriors -- as you say to defend a territory -- and being fearless is a definite advantage for being a warrior.
I don't think we live in emotion-drive societies; we live in societies in which emotion and logic have become so polarized as to appear different realities, when in fact they're two sides of the same coin.
Affects are at the core at human experience, but logic delineates its ever-increasing boundaries. If the latter is a car, the former is the fuel. Both play a role just as vital.
I think many clarifications will arise from epigenetics, especially in utero epigenetics. I just posted a comment elaborating on this, if you care to chime in.
I generally agree with your position, but I think you could be over-focusing the logical side.
When I say we live in emotionally driven societies, I refer to social norms. It's "normal" to be happy all of the time; its "normal" to celebrate good news, etc. Ads and commercials appear to our emotions to attract customers and the media controls the public through emotional impact and misleading headlines. Police use fear tactics everyday to obtain information. Needless to say there are several other aspects of society where emotion is used.
I agree that logic defines emotional experience. In each of these examples there is a clear logical drive: its logical for companies to appeal to customer emotions because that is what has worked in the past to increase profits. It's logical for media to be masters of emotional manipulation because increasing viewers increases profits. In an ideal world where police aren't corrupt, it's logical for them to use fear tactics because they're actually protecting citizens from dangerous people. Regardless of the logical reasoning, the method of execution is emotional based.
In regards to epigenetics, I believe it is no secret that epigenetics will play a role in the development of psychopathy. Epigenetics plays a role in every developing creature. I am not sure what you mean by "in utero epigenetics" but based on what I read in your comment, obviously environmental factors can affect developing fetuses in utero. This is why doctors tell pregnant mother's not to do drugs. The more precise question would be what environmental factor in particular plays a role and whether it plays a larger role than a genetic predisposition in the development of psychopathy.
This was well done and very informative. I have question, though. Have you ever written about sociopaths as such. I'm asking because I like so may others used to conflate the two different categories and took them as one, and clearly, how you describe psychopathology has very little to do with my experience of people who struck me very much as sociopaths.
The post you are referring to only covers Athena's criticism of a book about sociopaths that she believes with apparent good reason was poorly researched and inaccurate. What I'm interested is in her own view of sociopaths, and that is nowhere to be found in the post.
I don't have a view on sociopathy as I don't know anyone with it. Even if I did, I would know a singular person which isn't a cohort to have an opinion on. Sociopathy is unfortunate, and appears to be largely caused by environment. Other than that, I haven't a great deal of insight into it beyond the linked post above. I leave that to sociopaths themselves to flesh out.
If something had ever happened to you in childhood (as below at 1.20 in the video) would you say your reaction would have been like the kid's (as in not even screaming in pain or crying)?
It definitely struck me that the film creators were trying to portray a psychopath or sociopath in Kevin but either way didn’t get things right. I still couldn’t help wondering if that scene where he gets his arm injured (and doesn’t seem to feel physical pain) was right regarding how a psychopath might react in response to an arm injury.
What made you think it was dreadful? If there’s anything you noticed critical thinking wise I didn’t I’ll bear it in mind!
The movie intends for the mother to be a sympathetic figure. I had no idea that this was the case until someone told me later. She was the cause of Kevin's issues. The movie plays out like the completely self-obsessed narrative told from the point of view of someone that is completely unable to see that they are the problem.
I don't know if the people responsible for the story, both the book and the movie, are trying to showcase a lesson in that, or if they really believe that she as a character was truly sympathetic and a good mother. If it was meant to be that the audience saw through her, they failed on that front as I have had many people totally not see her for what she is, and if she was meant to be sympathetic, she was anything but. The entire movie is about her, and how much she didn't want her kid.
Actually, writing this, it occurred to me exactly what the movie was like. It was like reading the old man's confession that I wrote about here:
People sympathized with that man, but the story that he actually told, which will be told putting him in the best possible light as people tend to do when speaking about something negative that they have done, is still a story of horrendous parenting. We Need to Talk About Kevin is very much the same. A dreadful parent that is placing all the blame on their child and denying that they were the cause of their child's problems.
Thanks for taking the time to share all that Athena. I have to say it really wasn't obvious to me as to why (at least after Eva had Kevin) why Eva was such an awful mother as all that. I could certainly tell that she was some way off from being perfect but (other than the incident when she breaks Kevin's arm which I thought was acting way out of line/was abusive) it struck me that she put a lot of time and effort into trying to be a decent mother. Still, I'll try watching again with a more critical eye. Also considering that there might be things described in the book, that weren't included in the film, that might shed some extra helpful light on things.
Psychopaths are not emotionally affected by negative events, though negative events can instill antisocial behaviors. However, this is true of all humans. A person that is abused is likely to learn negative behaviors from abuse. The difference in psychopathy is the lack of impact on the individual mentally or emotionally.
Psychopaths also do not code memories with emotions. It would simply be an event that happened, but while this sort of thing would have deep emotional scars due to the emotional coding of memories that most people do, a psychopath would have none of that.
All I know is I am exhausted. I have begged my Church to heal her, they won’t until she surrenders, but she never will. She is destroying our beautiful family with her selfishness and lies. Tragic. 2nd family her illness has destroyed.
I mean in the time that you have known her, has she had anxiety, fear, depression, strong emotions, fall in love, experience jealousy, things like that.
Jealousy! OMG! Every other day accusing me of this or that. I am a home body lol, only go out with her. Narcs usually project what they are doing or would do on others.
As an autistic man who experienced continuous and extreme amounts of childhood abuse, including a large group of perpetrators and trafficking, despite my being what most people have described as an "easy child" in most ways, I can definitely say it changes you a lot. I had to work extremely hard to overcome violent impulses as a teenager and young adult. I live with several mental illnesses, some of which require medication to manage. I have done thousands of hours of difficult therapy and have managed to become a generally well functioning person. However, I still bear the scars of my upbringing. I have a diagnosis of C-PTSD, which despite being well managed, still rears its head in unexpected ways at times. I have OCD and Bipolar 2, which I manage with therapy and daily medication. I am a recovered addict and have recovered from an eating disorder, both of which mean making a choice every day to be healthy. I live having to manage high levels of anxiety. I have Dissociative Identity Disorder, which has reached a point of stability and good functioning. I am currently the healthiest I have ever been in my life, but I still wonder sometimes, who would I have been if I didn't grow up with a mother who was in and out of the hospital for a serious medical condition and a father who delighted in torturing me and passing me off to others to do the same?
I was a naturally rule abiding child due to my particular place on the spectrum, I wanted to please my parents, I cared deeply for others even if I wasn't always able to express it typically, I wanted friends and was very loving towards them when I made them, I had naturally low cognitive empathy ( and high emotional empathy), but I learned by constantly watching, partly to survive at home where anticipating my father's mood was a necessity and reading facial cues was impossible for me. I shudder to think how I would have turned out had I been born with a psychopathic brain structure instead of an autistic one. Given the huge struggle with violent impulses I had, I doubt it would have been pretty.
Yes, had you been wired like me I can imagine that you would have turned out differently. I have known a lot of people who have been through horror, and its impact on their lives is enormous.
Congrats on the work you have done for yourself, and the progress that you have made.
"New scientific research shows that environmental influences can actually affect whether and how genes are expressed. In fact, scientists have discovered that early experiences can determine how genes are turned on and off and even whether some are expressed at all. Thus, the old ideas that genes are “set in stone” or that they alone determine development have been disproven. Nature vs. Nurture is no longer a debate—it’s nearly always both!"
Most superficially, it's worth to keep in mind that its influence may begin in utero:
"The modification of chromatin and DNA contributes to a larger well-documented process known as “programming” whereby stressors in the womb give rise to adult onset diseases, including cancer."
"This research provides important new evidence that fixed changes in a baby's genes have only a modest influence on its epigenetic profile at birth and that most of the variation between babies arises from interactions between the environment experienced in the womb and the genetic information inherited from the parents."
-----------------------------------------------
I personally subscribe to the Intrauterine Cortisol hypothesis as the likely etiology of both Psychopathy and (rather surprisingly) autism.
This would suggest that while both conditions are indeed genetic based, both conditions are triggered epigenetically in utero.
In one case the baby develops along hyper-subjective lines, in the other, along hyper-objective lines.
In recent debate in Psychology-focused groups an interesting hypothesis arose:
The human experience itself could be on a spectrum, with neurotypicals at the middle of the bell curve, and autism and psychopathy could represent the diametrically opposed long tails of neurodiversity.
As I said in my reply in my comment thread, epigenetics plays a role in development of any creature and obviously environmental factors can influence fetuses in utero.
While I have never heard of the intrauterine cortisol hypothesis before, based on it's name, I am not sure how this can cause ASPD or ASD. Do you have any sources for this, as I was having trouble finding anything.
ASD and psychopathy being opposite sides of a spectrum is interesting however I wouldn't characterize psychopaths and autistic people as opposites. Furthermore, the symptomology isn't diametric. On one hand you have the incapacity of emotion and on the other hand you have the inability to communicate emotion.
Excellent article! Its also important to note that there are 2 different types of abuse, which are just as bad and can cause trauma in normal children and cause the budding psychopath to act out:
1. Classical abuse as described in this article (physical abuse, sexual abuse, etc.)
2. "Ambient" abuse (e.g. spoiling the child, putting the child on a pedestal, engulfing the child, instrumentalizing the child, parentifying the child, etc.)
In both cases, the child is treated as an object, an extension of the parent and is not allowed to separate from the caregivers and have any freedom. In normal children, the 2nd type of abuse are just as good in creating things like personality disorder as the 1st type of abuse. In psychopathic children, the second type of abuse could cause the psychopathic child to act out against his parents, sorta like a "rebellion"/reactance thing. It also goes will with the fact that psychopaths don't bond with their parents and that psychopathic children tend to make less eye contact and have less interest in interacting with their parents as toddlers and also since psychopaths tend to be more independent-minded and like to have their own freedom to do what they want, if they are held back and suppressed by their parents, they can act out. It is not uncommon when the psychopathic child is subjected to either of the 2 types of abuse to violently push back and Dr. Kent Kiehl said that there is no shortage of psychopathic children who go as far as to kill their parents in such cases. This is why its very important that parents can recognize early signs of a budding psychopath and properly intervene and change their parent so that the child can become a functional adult.
The second type wouldn't affect a psychopath save for the lack of cognitive skills the parent would fail to provide in that situation. The rest of it wouldn't even be noticed. It could make the life skills part more difficult, but the rest of it would just be irrelevant background noise.
Beyond saying that he works for the person that works with the survivors, I can't say too much more than that as it isn't my place to give more details.
> The first type of psychopathic is a low functioning one. This is the type you will find in all the psychopathy studies because they are only done in prisons, and low functioning psychopaths tend to be dwelling within them. They don’t tend to be particularly good at masking, don’t have great cognitive empathy, and they also cycle in and out of prison.
> The last group is the ‘A-Listers’, also known as ‘Above the Snowline’ psychopaths. These are the ones of legend. They are dangerous, they have no cognitive empathy, they have no regard for laws, and they are predators.
I am confused, what is the difference between low-functioning psychopaths and ‘A-listers’? Is it that the later are more violent or that they are like that because of childhood abuse?
A low functioning psychopath might think, "I need money." and see someone walking down the street and just go up to them and mug them. This might work for a little while, but it isn't exactly the most well planned crime. Sooner or later they will be arrested and put in jail.
Then, they get out, and think, "I need money", and start all over again. Sooner or later they end up in prison because they have multiple arrests for the same thing, and end up in prison.
An 'A-Lister" is smart and can get away with things that they do. They are hard to catch, and they tend to have no compunction doing what most people would find atrocious. Add to that, they don't feel badly about it, and also can be quite violent.
The "A-lister" thing made me remember about Dr. Kent Kiehl who talked about an antisocial psychopath in his book who was a true "A-lister", think he also scanned his brain though not 100% sure. I remember for sure that he scored the rare 40/40 PCL-R, rated by 2 independent forensic psychs even if PCL-R may not count for much. But what made him different was that unlike other 40/40 scorers who tend to have entire boxes full of papers that show their insanely large criminal record and are uncontrollable like animals, this guy was only arrested I think twice or something like that and somehow managed to convince the judges to let him go on parole both times.
He said that this guy was the most terrifying psychopath he ever met in his life and once he signed a non-disclosure thing and a forensic psych (some random woman who was working under Kiehl I think) and he started talking for the volunteer prison study, this guy admitted to doing such horrific things that Kiehl likely wasn't allowed to put them in his book bc the publishers wouldn't let it be published but somehow this guy wasn't caught for any of them. He commits crimes so frequently and consistently and still managed to stay out of prison.
But what happened was that this time, he was rejected by the parole board and he thought that the woman who was interviewing him snitched; once the woman heard that, she was so terrified that she left the country, quit her job and cut off all her contacts and changed her info because she knew that he would come and fck her up beyond help.
All I can say is that working with A-listers sounds scary.
Writing this out made wonder something. Athena, given that psychopathy past a certain threshold of minimum qualification tends to be sort of on a gradient, what would happen if a regular psychopath who meets the minimum qualification (e.g. 13% smaller amygdalae, relevant genetic structures etc.) messes with a psychopath who is so much more extreme (e.g. 45% smaller amygdalae, presence of specific violent genetic structures like the MAOA thing, etc.) like for example the regular psychopath were to con the more extreme psychopath or try to challenge him in some way. To quantify it in a different way what would happen if say, a 26/40 PCL-R and a 40/40 PCL-R were to go against each other (And I know that not even all 40/40s are equal, Kiehl wrote about it in his book that some 40/40 scorers have such extreme brain abnormalities that he would score them 50/40 if he could)? I don't know if you wrote about this before, but if so, please direct me to the article. Thank you!
I have done very little writing on true 'A-Listers', but the one you describe sounds just like what I have heard they are like. Extremely antisocial, and entirely without interest in being anything else. I have a post speaking about antisocial psychopaths and the numbers that there are which is fairly small, and 'A-Listers' would be in that group, but they are there own category within that group of antisocial psychopaths.
Yeah that makes sense. I think it is paradoxal why a person would engage in crime if they have good intelligence, impulse control and can predict consequences of their actions = can see that committing a crime has more negative consequences than positive and is just not worth it. It is more applicable to orderly societies though, I wonder if it would be different in societies/countries where it’s different, like the police barely works or it is in a war zone. High-functioning psychopaths will likely not commit dumb crimes like killing someone for not giving them something maybe, but crimes that aren’t caused by very low impulse control and poor choices will still be committed I think. Like there will be no reason not to commit them in those circumstances. That’s why I would separate antisocial from functioning.
Does this mean that using the rod is not effective parenting ? I am not talking about being abusive, but occasional beatings. Should those be avoided even with NT children?
Right on point as usual. Enjoy reading long writings from you. Was a “Quorum”. Became bored and at times annoyed by young adults asking me “Am I a psychopath?”
Responding with “No, if you were that idea would never cross your mind”. Bright side is reading real content from you that is far more accurate and more in depth. I read your other 2 writings as well on this site. When you said you enjoyed writing that’s an understatement. The difference with you is raw, bare bones and extremely interesting to me. Look forward to reading more.
It can be very annoying to be asked that same question again and again. I do understand.
Thanks for the thought provoking content, as always. Through all of my research, I began to wonder about the purpose for the existence of psychopathy, or even ASPD as a whole, within the human population. We know that psychopathic behaviors have been described in society since the dawn of civilization, and people, obviously, continue to express these behaviors and physiological abnormalities to this day. While ASPD is genetically no different from other neurological and psychiatric disorders, I believe that certain aspects of psychopathy are beneficial to an advancing intelligent society, and therefore, perhaps there is a reason for its existence. I propose that psychopaths exist as a survivability mechanism against humans ourselves.
This proposal, however, operates under a few assumptions. First, since psychopathy in particular is associated with physiological brain differences, let's say psychopaths are a human "subtype" or a variant to neurotypicals. Secondly, we know that mutations throughout evolution are made for a reason, typically to increase survivability and "win" natural selection. Usually this is seen between two different species like a hawk and a mouse, where the prey and predator have an evolutionary mutation relationship. Humans are unique in that we are "predators" to ourselves in addition to other species. For this reason, humans had to "evolve" to combat this threat. Since humans manipulate each other through emotion, I believe it would make sense for the mutation of choice to be one that protects against emotional manipulation.
There are several limitations with this thinking, the biggest being the categorization of psychopaths as human subtypes due to brain structure differences. This opens the door to potentially categorizing certain illnesses as human subtypes as well. For example, a person with cerebral palsy, of any level, stems from a genetic abnormality and they are also seen as different from society. For psychopaths to truly be a variant, I further operate on the assumption that emotions are the defining feature of the "human experience". Furthermore, I don't think it is far fetched for me to say that we live in an emotionally driven society (I live in America). Combing these two latter points on emotion with the genetic component completes the picture of psychopathy being a variant of neurotypicals, however it is extremely difficulty, if not impossible, to determine if psychopathy developed in response to intraspecies emotional turmoil. I have came across a few articles describing the existence of psychopaths in primates which has led people to believe that psychopathy existed before humans were specifically Homo sapiens. This uncertainty is another limitation with my first assumption.
Lastly, it would be difficult to prove that any intraspecies emotional manipulation and trauma is significant enough to trigger a genetic variation that transcends time. Furthermore, at what point did humans begin to systematically oppress each other and is there a correlation between the first observations of psychopathic behaviors?
Perhaps the brain differences in psychopathy are not different from neurodegenerative diseases in that they are simply random genetic errors made in replication and there is no real evolutionary reason for the existence of psychopaths. I would love to hear your thoughts about this idea in addition to your own thoughts regarding the existence of psychopathy in the human population.
A sound in the bushes can mean many things.
The person that goes to check it out, that is the person that ensures the groups advancement.
The person that is reluctant and encourages them to turn around ensures the group’s safety.
You cannot have one without the other. They complement one another, and this advanced the human race. Adaptations evolve because circumstances call for them.
I don't consider psychopaths "subtypes", but rather complementary to that of neurotypicals.
Agreed as long as they adhere to a strong moral cognitive code of right and wrong and somewhere in between those lines. For neurotypicals a mutual respect must exist along with accountability.
Interesting point. Thanks!
I believe all mammals, certainly birds, and possibly some reptiles "need" emotions because survival of the species depends on having a strong bond between parent (usually mom) and offspring. Otherwise, the offspring would tend to die off due to (a) neglect and/or (b) aggression born of annoyance/frustration. That bond is emotional in nature. (Think the oxytocin "surge" during childbirth in mammals.)
And I believe Athena has suggested that psychopaths continue evolutionarily because societies need warriors -- as you say to defend a territory -- and being fearless is a definite advantage for being a warrior.
Indeed true
I don't think we live in emotion-drive societies; we live in societies in which emotion and logic have become so polarized as to appear different realities, when in fact they're two sides of the same coin.
Affects are at the core at human experience, but logic delineates its ever-increasing boundaries. If the latter is a car, the former is the fuel. Both play a role just as vital.
I think many clarifications will arise from epigenetics, especially in utero epigenetics. I just posted a comment elaborating on this, if you care to chime in.
I generally agree with your position, but I think you could be over-focusing the logical side.
When I say we live in emotionally driven societies, I refer to social norms. It's "normal" to be happy all of the time; its "normal" to celebrate good news, etc. Ads and commercials appear to our emotions to attract customers and the media controls the public through emotional impact and misleading headlines. Police use fear tactics everyday to obtain information. Needless to say there are several other aspects of society where emotion is used.
I agree that logic defines emotional experience. In each of these examples there is a clear logical drive: its logical for companies to appeal to customer emotions because that is what has worked in the past to increase profits. It's logical for media to be masters of emotional manipulation because increasing viewers increases profits. In an ideal world where police aren't corrupt, it's logical for them to use fear tactics because they're actually protecting citizens from dangerous people. Regardless of the logical reasoning, the method of execution is emotional based.
In regards to epigenetics, I believe it is no secret that epigenetics will play a role in the development of psychopathy. Epigenetics plays a role in every developing creature. I am not sure what you mean by "in utero epigenetics" but based on what I read in your comment, obviously environmental factors can affect developing fetuses in utero. This is why doctors tell pregnant mother's not to do drugs. The more precise question would be what environmental factor in particular plays a role and whether it plays a larger role than a genetic predisposition in the development of psychopathy.
This was well done and very informative. I have question, though. Have you ever written about sociopaths as such. I'm asking because I like so may others used to conflate the two different categories and took them as one, and clearly, how you describe psychopathology has very little to do with my experience of people who struck me very much as sociopaths.
Athena's previous post on this site was on sociopaths, check it out.
The post you are referring to only covers Athena's criticism of a book about sociopaths that she believes with apparent good reason was poorly researched and inaccurate. What I'm interested is in her own view of sociopaths, and that is nowhere to be found in the post.
I don't have a view on sociopathy as I don't know anyone with it. Even if I did, I would know a singular person which isn't a cohort to have an opinion on. Sociopathy is unfortunate, and appears to be largely caused by environment. Other than that, I haven't a great deal of insight into it beyond the linked post above. I leave that to sociopaths themselves to flesh out.
OK, that's fair enough. We can await more personal material.
I do have a post about psychopathy and sociopathy, and how they are different. Here that is:
https://athenawalker.substack.com/p/psychopathy-and-sociopathy
Aside from that, it isn't something that I write about very often as it isn't what I have experience in.
If something had ever happened to you in childhood (as below at 1.20 in the video) would you say your reaction would have been like the kid's (as in not even screaming in pain or crying)?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M1vAgIJJXew&t=13s
No idea, but that movie is absolutely dreadful
It definitely struck me that the film creators were trying to portray a psychopath or sociopath in Kevin but either way didn’t get things right. I still couldn’t help wondering if that scene where he gets his arm injured (and doesn’t seem to feel physical pain) was right regarding how a psychopath might react in response to an arm injury.
What made you think it was dreadful? If there’s anything you noticed critical thinking wise I didn’t I’ll bear it in mind!
The movie intends for the mother to be a sympathetic figure. I had no idea that this was the case until someone told me later. She was the cause of Kevin's issues. The movie plays out like the completely self-obsessed narrative told from the point of view of someone that is completely unable to see that they are the problem.
I don't know if the people responsible for the story, both the book and the movie, are trying to showcase a lesson in that, or if they really believe that she as a character was truly sympathetic and a good mother. If it was meant to be that the audience saw through her, they failed on that front as I have had many people totally not see her for what she is, and if she was meant to be sympathetic, she was anything but. The entire movie is about her, and how much she didn't want her kid.
Actually, writing this, it occurred to me exactly what the movie was like. It was like reading the old man's confession that I wrote about here:
https://athenawalker.substack.com/p/examination-of-an-old-mans-confession
People sympathized with that man, but the story that he actually told, which will be told putting him in the best possible light as people tend to do when speaking about something negative that they have done, is still a story of horrendous parenting. We Need to Talk About Kevin is very much the same. A dreadful parent that is placing all the blame on their child and denying that they were the cause of their child's problems.
Thanks for taking the time to share all that Athena. I have to say it really wasn't obvious to me as to why (at least after Eva had Kevin) why Eva was such an awful mother as all that. I could certainly tell that she was some way off from being perfect but (other than the incident when she breaks Kevin's arm which I thought was acting way out of line/was abusive) it struck me that she put a lot of time and effort into trying to be a decent mother. Still, I'll try watching again with a more critical eye. Also considering that there might be things described in the book, that weren't included in the film, that might shed some extra helpful light on things.
How would rape affect a female psychopath if ut came from her father and uncle as a child?
Psychopaths are not emotionally affected by negative events, though negative events can instill antisocial behaviors. However, this is true of all humans. A person that is abused is likely to learn negative behaviors from abuse. The difference in psychopathy is the lack of impact on the individual mentally or emotionally.
Psychopaths also do not code memories with emotions. It would simply be an event that happened, but while this sort of thing would have deep emotional scars due to the emotional coding of memories that most people do, a psychopath would have none of that.
Interesting, maybe that’s why she still occassionally talks to her Dad. But still don’t know what she is.
In the list of things that you said she was diagnosed with, many of them have fear or anxiety as a large component. Did she experience these things?
All I know is I am exhausted. I have begged my Church to heal her, they won’t until she surrenders, but she never will. She is destroying our beautiful family with her selfishness and lies. Tragic. 2nd family her illness has destroyed.
I have no idea what's wrong with her, but she sounds toxic. That to me is enough to say, walk away.
Don’t know. Sure it would be “scary” to be sexually molested by your Dad, then later her Uncle.
I mean in the time that you have known her, has she had anxiety, fear, depression, strong emotions, fall in love, experience jealousy, things like that.
Jealousy! OMG! Every other day accusing me of this or that. I am a home body lol, only go out with her. Narcs usually project what they are doing or would do on others.
As an autistic man who experienced continuous and extreme amounts of childhood abuse, including a large group of perpetrators and trafficking, despite my being what most people have described as an "easy child" in most ways, I can definitely say it changes you a lot. I had to work extremely hard to overcome violent impulses as a teenager and young adult. I live with several mental illnesses, some of which require medication to manage. I have done thousands of hours of difficult therapy and have managed to become a generally well functioning person. However, I still bear the scars of my upbringing. I have a diagnosis of C-PTSD, which despite being well managed, still rears its head in unexpected ways at times. I have OCD and Bipolar 2, which I manage with therapy and daily medication. I am a recovered addict and have recovered from an eating disorder, both of which mean making a choice every day to be healthy. I live having to manage high levels of anxiety. I have Dissociative Identity Disorder, which has reached a point of stability and good functioning. I am currently the healthiest I have ever been in my life, but I still wonder sometimes, who would I have been if I didn't grow up with a mother who was in and out of the hospital for a serious medical condition and a father who delighted in torturing me and passing me off to others to do the same?
I was a naturally rule abiding child due to my particular place on the spectrum, I wanted to please my parents, I cared deeply for others even if I wasn't always able to express it typically, I wanted friends and was very loving towards them when I made them, I had naturally low cognitive empathy ( and high emotional empathy), but I learned by constantly watching, partly to survive at home where anticipating my father's mood was a necessity and reading facial cues was impossible for me. I shudder to think how I would have turned out had I been born with a psychopathic brain structure instead of an autistic one. Given the huge struggle with violent impulses I had, I doubt it would have been pretty.
Yes, had you been wired like me I can imagine that you would have turned out differently. I have known a lot of people who have been through horror, and its impact on their lives is enormous.
Congrats on the work you have done for yourself, and the progress that you have made.
Yeah, it's unfortunately a more common experience than many people realize. Hopefully it will become less so in the future. Thank you.
I agree, and yes, it is far more common than people want to even think about.
Very good read.
Thank you
Epigenetics is worth looking into more closely:
https://developingchild.harvard.edu/resources/what-is-epigenetics-and-how-does-it-relate-to-child-development/
"New scientific research shows that environmental influences can actually affect whether and how genes are expressed. In fact, scientists have discovered that early experiences can determine how genes are turned on and off and even whether some are expressed at all. Thus, the old ideas that genes are “set in stone” or that they alone determine development have been disproven. Nature vs. Nurture is no longer a debate—it’s nearly always both!"
Most superficially, it's worth to keep in mind that its influence may begin in utero:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3923648/
"The modification of chromatin and DNA contributes to a larger well-documented process known as “programming” whereby stressors in the womb give rise to adult onset diseases, including cancer."
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/04/140428074640.htm
"This research provides important new evidence that fixed changes in a baby's genes have only a modest influence on its epigenetic profile at birth and that most of the variation between babies arises from interactions between the environment experienced in the womb and the genetic information inherited from the parents."
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I personally subscribe to the Intrauterine Cortisol hypothesis as the likely etiology of both Psychopathy and (rather surprisingly) autism.
This would suggest that while both conditions are indeed genetic based, both conditions are triggered epigenetically in utero.
In one case the baby develops along hyper-subjective lines, in the other, along hyper-objective lines.
In recent debate in Psychology-focused groups an interesting hypothesis arose:
The human experience itself could be on a spectrum, with neurotypicals at the middle of the bell curve, and autism and psychopathy could represent the diametrically opposed long tails of neurodiversity.
Interesting
As I said in my reply in my comment thread, epigenetics plays a role in development of any creature and obviously environmental factors can influence fetuses in utero.
While I have never heard of the intrauterine cortisol hypothesis before, based on it's name, I am not sure how this can cause ASPD or ASD. Do you have any sources for this, as I was having trouble finding anything.
ASD and psychopathy being opposite sides of a spectrum is interesting however I wouldn't characterize psychopaths and autistic people as opposites. Furthermore, the symptomology isn't diametric. On one hand you have the incapacity of emotion and on the other hand you have the inability to communicate emotion.
Excellent article! Its also important to note that there are 2 different types of abuse, which are just as bad and can cause trauma in normal children and cause the budding psychopath to act out:
1. Classical abuse as described in this article (physical abuse, sexual abuse, etc.)
2. "Ambient" abuse (e.g. spoiling the child, putting the child on a pedestal, engulfing the child, instrumentalizing the child, parentifying the child, etc.)
In both cases, the child is treated as an object, an extension of the parent and is not allowed to separate from the caregivers and have any freedom. In normal children, the 2nd type of abuse are just as good in creating things like personality disorder as the 1st type of abuse. In psychopathic children, the second type of abuse could cause the psychopathic child to act out against his parents, sorta like a "rebellion"/reactance thing. It also goes will with the fact that psychopaths don't bond with their parents and that psychopathic children tend to make less eye contact and have less interest in interacting with their parents as toddlers and also since psychopaths tend to be more independent-minded and like to have their own freedom to do what they want, if they are held back and suppressed by their parents, they can act out. It is not uncommon when the psychopathic child is subjected to either of the 2 types of abuse to violently push back and Dr. Kent Kiehl said that there is no shortage of psychopathic children who go as far as to kill their parents in such cases. This is why its very important that parents can recognize early signs of a budding psychopath and properly intervene and change their parent so that the child can become a functional adult.
The second type wouldn't affect a psychopath save for the lack of cognitive skills the parent would fail to provide in that situation. The rest of it wouldn't even be noticed. It could make the life skills part more difficult, but the rest of it would just be irrelevant background noise.
“He is a chef, and he has left a fair amount of that past behind him.”
Expected to read that he was a social worker or similar! As he’s a chef how is it he gets to work with abused people?
Beyond saying that he works for the person that works with the survivors, I can't say too much more than that as it isn't my place to give more details.
That was a fantastic read! I am fascinated to learn more about the short and long version of the gene you mentioned.
I am very glad you wrote about this. A line needs to be drawn in the sand, at long last, about what is acceptable parenting, for all neurotypes.
Thanks for writing this. I've been wondering, and not quite getting around to asking.
Excellent
Another great insight. Well done 👏
Thank you, Gareth.
> The first type of psychopathic is a low functioning one. This is the type you will find in all the psychopathy studies because they are only done in prisons, and low functioning psychopaths tend to be dwelling within them. They don’t tend to be particularly good at masking, don’t have great cognitive empathy, and they also cycle in and out of prison.
> The last group is the ‘A-Listers’, also known as ‘Above the Snowline’ psychopaths. These are the ones of legend. They are dangerous, they have no cognitive empathy, they have no regard for laws, and they are predators.
I am confused, what is the difference between low-functioning psychopaths and ‘A-listers’? Is it that the later are more violent or that they are like that because of childhood abuse?
A low functioning psychopath might think, "I need money." and see someone walking down the street and just go up to them and mug them. This might work for a little while, but it isn't exactly the most well planned crime. Sooner or later they will be arrested and put in jail.
Then, they get out, and think, "I need money", and start all over again. Sooner or later they end up in prison because they have multiple arrests for the same thing, and end up in prison.
An 'A-Lister" is smart and can get away with things that they do. They are hard to catch, and they tend to have no compunction doing what most people would find atrocious. Add to that, they don't feel badly about it, and also can be quite violent.
So they are more intelligent? I am still a bit confused, but it’s interesting, thank you.
'A-Listers' are high functioning in terms of mask, intelligence, ability to delay gratification, but they are antisocial in nature, and violent.
The "A-lister" thing made me remember about Dr. Kent Kiehl who talked about an antisocial psychopath in his book who was a true "A-lister", think he also scanned his brain though not 100% sure. I remember for sure that he scored the rare 40/40 PCL-R, rated by 2 independent forensic psychs even if PCL-R may not count for much. But what made him different was that unlike other 40/40 scorers who tend to have entire boxes full of papers that show their insanely large criminal record and are uncontrollable like animals, this guy was only arrested I think twice or something like that and somehow managed to convince the judges to let him go on parole both times.
He said that this guy was the most terrifying psychopath he ever met in his life and once he signed a non-disclosure thing and a forensic psych (some random woman who was working under Kiehl I think) and he started talking for the volunteer prison study, this guy admitted to doing such horrific things that Kiehl likely wasn't allowed to put them in his book bc the publishers wouldn't let it be published but somehow this guy wasn't caught for any of them. He commits crimes so frequently and consistently and still managed to stay out of prison.
But what happened was that this time, he was rejected by the parole board and he thought that the woman who was interviewing him snitched; once the woman heard that, she was so terrified that she left the country, quit her job and cut off all her contacts and changed her info because she knew that he would come and fck her up beyond help.
All I can say is that working with A-listers sounds scary.
Writing this out made wonder something. Athena, given that psychopathy past a certain threshold of minimum qualification tends to be sort of on a gradient, what would happen if a regular psychopath who meets the minimum qualification (e.g. 13% smaller amygdalae, relevant genetic structures etc.) messes with a psychopath who is so much more extreme (e.g. 45% smaller amygdalae, presence of specific violent genetic structures like the MAOA thing, etc.) like for example the regular psychopath were to con the more extreme psychopath or try to challenge him in some way. To quantify it in a different way what would happen if say, a 26/40 PCL-R and a 40/40 PCL-R were to go against each other (And I know that not even all 40/40s are equal, Kiehl wrote about it in his book that some 40/40 scorers have such extreme brain abnormalities that he would score them 50/40 if he could)? I don't know if you wrote about this before, but if so, please direct me to the article. Thank you!
I have done very little writing on true 'A-Listers', but the one you describe sounds just like what I have heard they are like. Extremely antisocial, and entirely without interest in being anything else. I have a post speaking about antisocial psychopaths and the numbers that there are which is fairly small, and 'A-Listers' would be in that group, but they are there own category within that group of antisocial psychopaths.
Ah thank you, I think I've read that article sometime ago.
Oh that makes sense, I thought that they were basically antisocial high-functioning psychopaths then.
High functioning inn those regards, but part of my definition of "high functioning" would be a person not engaged in crime or violence
Yeah that makes sense. I think it is paradoxal why a person would engage in crime if they have good intelligence, impulse control and can predict consequences of their actions = can see that committing a crime has more negative consequences than positive and is just not worth it. It is more applicable to orderly societies though, I wonder if it would be different in societies/countries where it’s different, like the police barely works or it is in a war zone. High-functioning psychopaths will likely not commit dumb crimes like killing someone for not giving them something maybe, but crimes that aren’t caused by very low impulse control and poor choices will still be committed I think. Like there will be no reason not to commit them in those circumstances. That’s why I would separate antisocial from functioning.
I would guess the A-listers also have strong masks, and likely quite skilled at manipulation.
Yes, quite true
Love your terseness. Tersity?
The A-listers in general avoid prison by having much better masking and avoidance of legal authorities
Does this mean that using the rod is not effective parenting ? I am not talking about being abusive, but occasional beatings. Should those be avoided even with NT children?
Yes of course, it's ineffective and hugely damaging. Occasional beatings ARE abusive. There is a wealth of information out there, please look.