Narcissist, Psychopath, or Sociopath

With Dr. Ramani Durvasul...

I used the image above, because there really aren’t a lot of good images that would cover the topic that I will be writing about. I am not all that familiar with the person that created the video this post is about, so I have no idea if it is going to be wildly inaccurate, or if it will actually be really good. Likely, it is going to be somewhere in the middle, though. It stands to reason that anyone in the psychological field is going to have a lot of myths regarding psychopathy, narcissism, and sociopathy in their training. The information that is provided is garbage, so often, unless they have cause to learn a much deeper and more well-rounded perspective, they often do not. Or, you have those that should know better, but in reality have something to gain personally from propagating the myths. Looking at you, Robert Hare.

Let’s see who, Dr. Ramani Durvasul, is:

Ramani Suryakantham Durvasula is an American clinical psychologist, retired[2] professor of psychology, media expert, and author. She has appeared on media outlets discussing narcissistic personality disorder and narcissistic abuse…

Hmm… all right, seems like there is a bit of a Robert Hare vibe to that bio. She seems like she marketed herself in this space of, “narcissistic abuse”, and that seems pretty one-sided to me. Understand, I get that being in a relationship with someone with NPD can be pretty difficult, but there is a reason that person is how they are, and it seems like that could be a little better outlined when speaking to others.

Elinor Greenberg does this well. She speaks about the problems that can arise in these sorts of relationships, be them romantic, parental, or in the working world, but there is an emphasis on explaining those behaviors to demystify them, but also give clarity and a reminder that those with NPD are still human, and the problems that they deal with are complex. Perhaps Dr. Durvasul does this well, however, I will say that based on the titles of her books, I may well be on the right track regarding her.

She has authored several books, including Should I Stay or Should I Go: Surviving a Relationship with a Narcissist (2017), Don’t You Know Who I Am?: How to Stay Sane in an Era of Narcissism, Entitlement, and Incivility (2019), and It’s Not You: Identifying and Healing from Narcissistic People.

So, that is a lot of books that are directed solely at the non-narcissistic people in those relationships, much like Psychopath Free, or Love Fraud focuses on the people that are convinced that their ex has some sort of disorder. I have not read her books, but I will say that my experience with this sort of approach tends to be one that placates the “victim”, and demonizes the apparent narcissist, psychopath, sociopath, or, the worst one of them all, the narcopath. Ha! Even my spellcheck is like wtf is a narcopath, because I have alllllll the words, and that doesn’t look like any of them. Stop typing with your toes.

Again, I don’t know her work specifically, so I am just noting what I have seen as common behaviors in the past. This video is twelve minuted long. Let’s get into this.

This interview starts out with some dude asking:

“What is the difference between a sociopath, a psychopath and a narcissist?”

Immediately we are not off to a good start, because her response is:

“Well, it's, you know, again, there's a lot of overlap…” I hope she has some good examples of this overlap, because that is not a strong opening statement. She does go on to say, “but the fact is a lot of people are using these terms interchangeably”.

All right, fair, that is true, this happens all the time. It’s annoying, and it is pervasive.

Ah, she immediately sunk herself.

“Every psychopath is narcissistic, but not every narcissist is psychopathic.”

Not even remotely true. No narcissist is EVER psychopathic. They are never comorbid. What creates NPD will not affect a psychopath. There is no overlap between them.

It is likely that I will no longer will take this woman seriously, and there likely will be a fair amount of criticism going forward. If you like this woman, you should probably stop reading now, because this is probably not going to go well for her.

She even states this with confidence, saying, “That’s the key difference”. If she thinks that’s the case, it is pretty clear she knows nothing about psychopathy, which makes me think she knows absolutely nothing about sociopathy, and makes me doubt that she has written anything of value on narcissism. Moving on.

A narcissist is somebody who lacks empathy, is grandiose, is entitled, is constantly seeking validation, is arrogant. It's a disorder of self-esteem, and they have trouble regulating their self-esteem. But when a narcissist does a bad thing, they feel a fair amount of guilt and shame. More shame than guilt, frankly, because they're concerned about how other people view them.

That seems pretty broad-stroked to me. My understanding is that there are a few different sorts of NPD, and that they don’t all resemble one another. She does go on to say something interesting.

Shame is a public emotion.

I’m going to listen to her explanation on this, but I think that it is a curious point. I suppose that is true, it is a response to what those around you might be judging you for.

Oh, she doesn’t explain her perspective here, so all we can do is assume that I am correct in what I was thinking about it. Psychopaths cannot experience shame. We fundamentally do not care what people think about us outside of negative opinions affecting our day-to-day lives and how peoples’ opinions might come to bear on those day-to-day lives. People with NPD do care, and, from what I have personally experienced, they can care a lot.

So they don't like being viewed negatively in the public eye or by other people--that's where the shame comes from. But they'll feel a little bad, like if they cheat on their wife, "uuuh, I probably shouldn't have done that."

Why do they feel bad about that, though? I thought they lacked any and all empathy. Seems suss.

A psychopath's a different animal. They're all of those things except: no guilt/no shame. They don't feel remorse when they do something bad.

All of what things, Dr. Durvasul? I know you don’t mean this list:

…lacks empathy, is grandiose, is entitled, is constantly seeking validation, is arrogant. It's a disorder of self-esteem, and they have trouble regulating their self-esteem.

Because that would make you sound like you have no idea what you’re talking about. Psychopaths do lack empathy. And by that I mean, actually lack it. If a psychopath cheats on you, they are not going to feel one bit bad about it. They likely would wonder what your damn problem is and why you keep bringing it up. Psychopaths are not, however:

grandiose, is entitled, is constantly seeking validation, is arrogant

Breaking down the flaws in that statement.

Grandiose is characterized by affectation of grandeur or splendor, or by absurd exaggeration. Think, this dude:

That’s exaggerated grandiosity. Psychopaths are not like this.

Psychopaths are also not entitled. I have yet to meet, or speak to, a psychopath that believes that they are owed anything in the world. We just happen to know what we want and will do what we can to get it. It isn’t that I feel entitled to this life-sized Big Daddy:

Buuutttt… I’m going to go ahead and want it anyway, and figure out where I can put it. Damn… still no room for him.

Psychopaths will never seek validation from others. It literally doesn’t even cross our minds what other people think of us. It is one of the things that actually can be a serious problem for us. When you do not care what other people think, this isn’t that there is some thought in the back of our minds that we are ignoring, or pushing down. We don’t think about it at all. Now, some people think, that this must be awesome. They are coming at it from that direction because their thoughts and behaviors are often emotionally impacted by the thoughts of others unnecessarily, and they think it would be great to be free of that. All right, fair, but you aren’t thinking about the other side of it.

If you do not care what other people think, you miss out on things that might inform your behavior. If you don’t have the ability to consider other peoples’ opinions, you will miss when you f*ck up royally. I still hear from people in my family about this or that thing that I did when I was younger, that impacted them negatively, emotionally. I was fiercely independent. I didn’t need or really care about affection, or considerate of my parents feelings. Similarly, I have no idea what my sister thought of me, or how she considered me. That’s fine with me, I still have no ability to care about that, but I can also understand that logically, I was not a great sibling to have. Since I could walk, I demonstrated to the entire family, I didn’t need them.

As I mentioned, this is fine with me, but it has negative repercussions that can radiate from the behavior. Not caring what people think often translates to having no idea when you trample them. It wouldn’t bother me, so it shouldn’t bother them, right? The notion that psychopaths seeking validation, or having a disorder of self-esteem is the epitome of showing, this woman has no idea what she’s talking about, and we are like two minutes into this thing.

Psychopaths aren’t arrogant, either. What I don’t know, I don’t know. I don’t have any attachment to who I am, I can’t be offended, and have no issue with being wrong. However, I do know that oftentimes the neurotypical definition of, “arrogant”, tends to be, “doesn’t respond to social pressure, and has no care for other peoples’ opinions” For whatever reason, that is considered, “arrogant”. Swing and a miss, yet again, doctor.

So they're, they're great serial killers…

Oh, good lord. Here we go again. Where do these people get their degrees? Out of a Happy Meal? Because I think it’s out of a Happy Meal.

…hired assassins.

All right, but you know those are different things, though, right? A serial killer murders because they have some sort of compulsion to do so. Assassins kill because it’s their damn job. I have never had an inclination to murder people. It’s messy and too much work, but if I’m getting paid a lot of money, there might be more room for discussion there. However, only if the person hiring has a clean-up crew. I am not moving two hundred pounds of dead weight. It’s just not happening.

People who are gonna go in and literally sort of gut a business. These are your guys.

Nooo… I mean, yes, that is something that a psychopath could easily do, but this is a very common thing. In fact, it is why Party City. Joann’s. Forever 21. Big Lots, among many others, are all collapsing. It’s complicated, but it is because there are private equity firms buying up shares of these companies, enough to get the on the boards of the companies, then they are using their voting power to take out loans in these companies names, that have adjustable rates.

Unlike when you or I get a loan, and your interest rate will adjust maybe every six months, or a year, these change every thirty to sixty days. Also, these are not called adjustable rate loans, they are called, back floating rate debt. These loans are taken out in the companies name, making them solely responsible, and the loan payments cannot be kept up with. That is why you have companies that have 97% of their stores profitable, they are still closing down. This is sucking the life out of them, and killing the companies and causing bankruptcies, but it also has another effect.

You might think, damn, why would the banks keep giving out these loans? Because the bank won’t be keeping them on their books. They repackage these loans into what is calles CLOs, or, Collateralized Loan Obligation.

*A Collateralized Loan Obligation (CLO) is a type of securitized debt security backed by a pool of loans, offering investors a way to invest in a diversified portfolio of corporate loans, often with a focus on leveraged loans

These are then packaged, and sold off to pension funds as an excellent debt to hold. Pension funds operate a little differently than most when it comes to investment. Take for instance, the automotive unions pensions. They invest in privat equity, because if you invest in anything with a pension every time the dividends come every quarter you have to update what's on your books but if you invest in private equity you put the estimated returns for ten years on your books so nobody knows, until ten years has passed. By then, the companies are long closed, and there is no return on the CLOs. This, in turn, destroys the pension funds.

The reason it is done this way, is because when the 2008 crash happened, it pissed a lot of people off that the government bailed out the banks, and they won’t stand for it happening again. But, they will likely demand that the government bail out the pensions, because they would otherwise see their grandpartents, or parents retirement destroyed by this practice. Want to know how much debt we’re talkking about here?

3.8 trillian

Also, keep in mind, private equity has been busy in the last several years. They own the builders, the veterniary clinics, the mortuaries, the emergency rooms, pet stores, nursing homes, doctor’s offices, orthodontists, the builders, the HVAC companies, the daycares, and a the largest shares of the home ownership market.

The people doing this are not psychopaths. They’re nothing more than greedy people, the vast majority of are neurotypical, and they do not care about anything but their profit. If you want to mnow more about this, I would recommend you find Tiffany Cianci on X. Back to psychopathy and why Dr. Durvasul knows nothing about it.

Damn, this is long, My spellcheck already gave up on me. All right, a bit more, then I will continue it in another post.

They're like I don't, I don't care who gets hurt. They'd say that and they'd mean it. Okay, where narcissist is like, "I hope no one gets hurt." Okay?

I mean… the people that I knew that had NPD didn’t seem to have much of an opinion about other people getting hurt. Maybe I’m wrong on that… but it didn’t seem to be the case. Remember that entitled aspect? The ones that I knew basically thought that if someone got hurt, they were in the wrong place at the wrong time.

The difference between the psychopath and the sociopath is the one where most people get confused, because the sociopath is a lot like the psychopath, they do bad things and they don't care. Okay? Here's the key difference: a psychopath is born and a sociopath is made.

I suppose I shouldn’t be shocked she got one thing right, should I?

Okay, that's the key.

She reeeeaaaallllyyy likes her, “keys”, doesn’t she?

So a psychopath in fact, we know in the research on psychopathy, which has also been called Antisocial Personality Disorder in our diagnostic manual…

Nope, ASPD does not, in fact, mean psychopath. It is a blanket diagnosis that covers behaviors. Nothing more. Most people with ASPD would not qualify as psychopathic, sociopathic, or narcissistic. I know, I know, many of you know this already, but it bears repeaating for the new readers. Just a quick reminder:

Psychopathy/antisocial personality disorder conundrum.

As currently construed, the diagnosis of antisocial personality disorder grossly over-identifies people, particularly those with offence histories, as meeting the criteria for the diagnosis. For example, research shows that between 50% and 80% of prisoners meet the criteria for a diagnosis of antisocial personality disorder, yet only approximately 15% of prisoners would be expected to be psychopathic, as assessed by the PCL-R. As such, the characteristics and research findings drawn from the psychopathy research may not be relevant for those with antisocial or dissocial personality disorder.

Moving on… again.

…these are people who are actually believed to have slightly different autonomic nervous systems.

Slighty different? You should do more research.

Our autonomic nervous system is actually that part that holds our sympathetic nervous system, which is our fight-or-flight system. So when our autonomic nervous system, for a normal person, gets charged up, which it would if we broke a rule, if we did something embarrassing or rude, if we ran through a red light-- our heart starts racing, we sweat, our pupils get wide, we look around because we're afraid of the consequence. A psychopath doesn't have that same kind of arousal. That's why they're able to lie on lie-detector tests. That's how they get away with it. They don't have that same kind of arousal. So where you or I may go on a roller coaster, feel that sense of excitement, we need to get that arousal in a good way. We don't like feeling it when we do something wrong. They don't feel it.

Kyle the interviewer:

So do they get stressed?

No, not in the same way.

Kyle:

So if they're driving, because if I'm driving and I see police sirens coming behind me. I mean it is a full-on, "Oh my gosh, I can't believe I'm gonna get pulled over."

Dr. Durvasul:

Oh, yeah, you're not a psychopath.

Kyle:

But a psychopath would see that and go, "Oh, I'm gonna get pulled over.”

Nope, a psychopath would think, hmm, I wonder who they’re after? if it turns out to be me, “bugger”. That’s it. Its a minor inconveience, though when I used to drive faster than I do now, I was really good at not getting tickets, sooo, there’s that.

Dr. Durvasul:

Well, this could be, they could have a dead body in the trunk and they wouldn't, they wouldn't show that.

Ugh… technically true, it wouldn’t matter if there was a dead body in the trunk, but seriously? Stereotype much?

Kyle:

And so they pull over, they get the ticket and they don't...care?

Dr. Durvasul:

No, they don't care.

True. We don’t care.

Kyle:

And they pay the ticket?

Dr. Durvasul:

And believe it or not they'll even probably get an attorney to get him off or say yeah, you know my understanding of your state laws is you can't really be doing this and they'll be cool as can be.

Yes, that is actually what she says, and no, it makes no better sense to heaar it, because it is poorly worded. I believe that she was trying to say that psychopaths don’t care about being confronted over violating laws, but what the hell do I know? Also, no psychopath is going to pay an attorney a thousand dollars to contest a ticket of like, four hundred bucks. Maybe for felony speeds, or if a ticket would negatively affect their driving record, but an attorney would be a waste of money. You can do traffic school online, and save your money.

Kyle:

And this is, this is a difference in their... makeup?

Dr. Durvasul:

They're actually, how their nervous systems are wired and their brains are

She doesn’t finish this thought, but my guess is that she meant to say that our brains are also wired differently. True.

There's actually been interesting research done with PET scans where you can see brain function and what they've shown, what they see is that the, the section of the brain that serves empathy, that doesn't naturally light up in them.

Again, true.

And you can actually teach them to be empathic for a minute but it doesn't last.

Translation. Psychopaths are great at lying to tell researchers what they want to hear. No psychopath feels empathy. Ever. Can we learn it cognitively, yes. Can we feel it? That is a no, with laughing attached to it.

Dr. Durvasul:

A lot of psychopaths who commit violent crimes end up in jail and the ones who commit more like white-collar crimes, I guess they end up as multi-billionaires because they're willing to do really, really rough stuff in their business and get through, like, a cartel leader or something like that, call for the killings of other people.

Yeah… that’s not an unusual trait for anyone in that line of work. Psychopathy is not needed. I think Dr. Durvasul needs to have a little more one on one time with neurotypical darkness. Can a psychopath do all that more easily? Sure. Does this mean that the people doing it are psychopathic. Not even a little bit. Assumptions get us nowhere, Dr. Durvasul.

I will finish this in a second part, though I only got a third of the way through it, so maybe it will be three. However, I won’t be breaking down the financial woes of the future in that post, so maybe only two.

We shall see, shan’t we?