Isn’t the last one hypochondria? This appears to be a generalised (and quite poor) categorising of various anti-social or neurotic types which he has put under the umbrella of “psychopathy”, and it’s such a patchwork, I wonder what his motive was in doing that.
In relation to explosive emotional reactions, are psychopaths never capable of explosions of anger? I remember, for instance, Aaron (a psychopath on Quora: I do not know if he’s still active on that platform or if you interacted with him) described how he could have flashes of rage, which lasted only a few seconds - but as a result he had many broken game controllers from when he threw them against the wall when he repeatedly failed to make it past a certain level on a game!
I've been wondering about this for a while - could it be that oxytocin is a kind of amplifier of emotions, rather than a creator of them? So if you can't process it, most emotions are still there, but there's nothing to 'turn them up' to a level where the person would notice them. Would explain why most emotions are muted in psychopaths rather than completely absent, and also the flash of anger thing.
Possibly related to the inability to code memories with emotions? As an NT when you get angry it feels like the whole thing is the initial reaction, not a memory. But maybe everything past the first few seconds is actually part reaction / part memory. Like the initial reaction is being amplified by your memory of the event that triggered the anger, and the fact that that memory is now already coded with the emotion of anger. And from there it's like a snowball effect, as the anger intensifies more and more, due to the memory becoming more and more coded with the emotion. Not sure what stops it just going on forever though!
No idea if there's anything in the research to support that idea, but it would explain alot...
And does anybody know if oxytocin is the only transmitter that is processed by the oxytocin receptors? Or is there another transmitter that fits into them?
It's that the oxytocin isn't binding to the receptors that process it. In our case it simply isn't used. There aren't any other receptors that are attuned to oxytocin
Ah ok, interesting! I need to start reading some of these studies, the couple that I've come across so far weren't very conclusive about anything, other than that oxytocin is involved somehow. But I know that's only a tiny tiny fraction of the research that's out there, so I'll definitely keep reading.
The idea of oxytocin possibly being an amplifier came to me when I was reading one of your posts about psychopaths not coding memories with emotion (the one about amusement parks, and knowing you have fun there, but the memories not being linked to the feeling of fun, or any other emotion). Reading that post made me realise that a huge proportion of the emotion that an NT feels on any given day, comes from memories of events, rather than directly from events themselves. I would go as far as to say that possibly more than 50% of the emotion we feel is from memories rather than a direct response to a current event, but it's hard to judge and others might disagree.
Obviously the original emotion itself is triggered by an event in the real world, but once the emotion gets linked to the memory of the event, then every time that memory is recalled, the emotion is re-experienced with it. I would say that the intensity of the emotion is usually slightly less than the original intensity when the event first occured, but it's not a big difference, and it's still a very significant rush of emotion, that affects you in a similar way to when it first happened. You often hear people saying that they're deliberately trying not to think about a particular past event, because they don't want to feel the emotion that comes with it.
Maybe it's not so much that oxytocin amplifies the emotion, in the sense of making it more intense, but more that it keeps it alive and keeps it going in NTs, by coding it into memories, in a way that doesn't happen with psychopaths, because it never gets linked to memories and therefore re-experienced when those memories are recalled.
After I realised how much of the emotion that an NT feels comes from memories, and that those memories start to form and be coded with emotion almost immediately that the event happens - and knowing how absolute the inability to process oxytocin is in a psychopath (eg not just an impairment or reduction in how well it's processed, from childhood trauma etc, but a total genetic inability to process the chemical at all) - I guess I was extrapolating backwards from there logically, and wondering whether the failure to link the memory with the emotion, in the first few seconds after the event occurs, could kind of mute or kill off the emotion at such an early stage that the psychopath is never really aware that it existed (unless they focus really hard on it, as you've described before). Whereas in an NT the linking of the emotion to the memory within those first few seconds keeps it alive long enough for the person to notice it, and then each time the memory is recalled it reinforces the emotion, in a kind of snowball effect.
I think after reading your writing, one of the few remaining enigmas of psychopathy to me, is how it's possible that psychopaths are able to feel some emotions at the very muted 0-2 out of 10 level that you've described, if they're not able to process oxytocin at all? Eg why are many emotions muted rather than completely absent?
But one thing that's very clear from everything I've read so far, is that the role of oxytocin in the body and brain is very complex and multi-faceted, so of course it's more than possible that it also has a role in the original creation of the emotion, as well as in keeping it alive through coding it into memories.
If you happen to know of any good books that bring all the latest research together in one place, I would be super grateful for any recommendations - if not no worries, I know you have a post somewhere where you link to loads of studies, I'm sure I can find that again quite easily...
Not all emotions are based in oxytocin. There are other factors going on. There may indeed be aspects of those emotions that we do not feel if those aspects have basis in oxytocin, but just like fear/adrenaline, we feel the adrenaline, but lack the fear aspect.
Ohhh ok that makes alot of sense. So the emotions governed entirely by oxytocin are the ones that you lack completely, and the emotions governed by other hormones are the ones that are turned right down. Sounds like there might be some kind of interplay going on between oxytocin and the other chemicals that may explain why the emotions that you do feel are so muted. Thanks Athena, look forward to understanding it better once I've done some more reading :o)
Well, yeah, you could call it a flash of anger: he says it literally only last seconds, but that’s all it takes to commit an immediate act of violence.
I can definitely see a basis for other mental disorders and neurological conditions in this list, but none of them sound like Psychopathy lol. My gut feeling guesses just based on the descriptions provided by Athena from the article are:
1. Hyperthymic could be ADHD, or some form of Mania.
2. Depressive could literally just be Major Depressive Disorder. I only discount schizophrenia because they don’t describe what form of paranoia it is. I have anxiety and depression and I’m often paranoid that I’m taking too much, people don’t like me, etc.
3. Insecure sounds like some form of depression possibly mixed with OCD.
4. Fanatic = Sounds like Histrionic Personality Disorder or maybe even Borderline.
5. Narcissistic Personality Disorder
6. Labile sounds like the depression after dwindling down from a manic episode. Bipolar maybe?
7. Intermittent Explosive Disorder
8. ASPD?
9. This one just sounds like nonsense.
10. This is Hypochondria or Munchausen. Or someone who is just a big germaphobe. I doubt psychopaths can develop phobias since by definition phobias are irrational fears.
This was… interesting. But stupid. I love watching Athena tear apart useless pseudoscience that people still try to tout as somehow being legitimate, it’s funny.
Thought as well. I wonder if he was approaching the word purely compositionally - pathologies of psychology and totally disconnected from the dominant tradition that established the word in the first place. But he does mention lack of empathy so...
It’s like he was using the word psychopath as a catch all term for non neurotypical or for disturbance of mental health, rather than a very wide array of different conditions that are unrelated to each other.
Plenty of conditions can cause a lack of empathy or an inhibited ability to feel certain emotions. Doesn’t mean it’s psychopathy. Even depression can flatten out the emotional spectrum.
True that. Not sure if it applies to all things he alluded to, but might be also what is perceived as lack of empathy instead of actual lack. BPDs have rather overactive reactions, but there can be certain self-absorbedness and being out of sync with others. Depression definitely can flatten everything. And alexithymics cannot even spot their own emotions, so...
I am sure that this whole bunch of 🔞💣⛓️ is either a big problem of translating issue or that in Kurt Schneiders time the word psychopath was used as sort of headline for all sorts of psychopathologies including psychosis and neurosis.
I will look him up later, perhaps I can find the original essay in German.
One short look into ICD can surely also help to clarify the definition problem. - Besides I don’t know if an ICD or DSM already existed in the 1930s or 1940s.
The ICD has existed in some form since the very late 1800s I believe and has been sponsored by the WHO since 1948. DSM-I was published in 1952 but had its own antecedents.
A quick look at Wikipedia tells me Kurt Schneider is now known for his understanding of schizophrenia and personality disorders, at the time known as ‘psychopathic personalities’. I’ll say this, his descriptions are spot on even if he did incorrectly describe them as being psychopathic in nature rather than psychotic.
Yes, you are totally right. Only that he did NOT incorrectly describe them. Today we have to read him with the historical context in mind. It does not function the other way round. He and his colleague Kraepelin invented the term "psychopathic personality" to describe deviant personalities.
What we are knowing today has grown from his work (and of several others).
The term "psychopathische Persönlichkeit" first appears from Kraepelin (1903/1904).
And Kurt Schneiders publication "Die psychopathischen Persönlichkeiten" (1923) shows those 10 subtypes, today more or less subsumed in the DSM and ICD under the headline "personality disorders".
Source: Herpertz, Sabine C.; Saß, Henning:
Persönlichkeitsstörungen. Stuttgart, 2003.
Must have been a rather adventurous time back in the 1910ths and 20's.
Psychiatry was a young discipline and personality (and all the deviations) a broad unknown and unstructured field.
Oh, no, I agree with you there. He seems like he was at least half decent based on his decision to tell the Nazis to fuck off and go continue his practice somewhere else in disgust. I’m just saying by our current, modern definitions he was not accurately describing anything close to ‘psychopathy’. He was likely a pioneer of describing and explaining personality disorders though given his definitions seem largely unchanged from our current ones.
Number 7 definitely gives off 'this is from 50 years ago' vibes.
"She's under 50 and she disrespects and disobeys? She has mood swings and destroys objects? I'm so sorry sir, your wife has hysteria. We need to give her a lobotomy pronto, then she can go back to being the perfect obedient house wife who'll never get angry at you again!"
Other than that this entire list is based on the premise that psychopathy can be anything that's not the norm. If they labelled their article "Types of Mental Conditions" they would be more accurate, but definitely not accurate to modern standards. This is literally just a guy noticing patterns in people and coming up with a list to categorize them.
As soon as I saw the title of this post I thought hang on, what? How can there be 10 different subtypes? Your brain either processes oxytocin or it doesn't!
But it was even worse than expected. So psychopathy is just.... everything?
I will look that up if I can find the original text. As well as all the others I think it is a definitory problem. Ops, the word definitory does not exist in English?
Sorry for being so annoying, just 1 more thing. I hope you can answer. Can primary (factor 1) psychopaths have schizotypal personality disorder?
I know some symptoms like social anxiety are impossible. But others like the following might occur?
Odd beliefs or magical thinking
Unusual perceptional experiences
Odd thought and speech
Eccentric behavior and/or appearance
Moods and facial expressions that don't match each other or the situation
Few to no close supports
Possibly ideas of reference too
I'm more concerned about the genetic and neurological aspects than the diagnostic criteria. Of course, no Schizotypal might have IDENTICAL genetic causes, and even if they do, it does not necessarily mean that that they will have all the corresponding characteristics, etc. all the interactions are dependent on the individual.
But I don't have enough education on the neurosciecne to understand how psychopathy and schizotypal would interact if they were to co-occur so I thought I might ask you. I'm pretty sure schizophrenia and primary psychopathy are possible, I saw some studies on this, so it probably applies to schizoptyal too.
I thought I would comment here. I do not think what I have to say is necessarily that valuable but... why not?
Firstly, I was diagnosed schizotypal, but not formally. When I tried to commit suicide because the "demons in my head were going to switch the lights out". I experience a disconnect with neurotypicals in the emotional area, also a lot of physical tensions and anxieties though so do not think it is likely that I am psychopathic. I won't be volunteering for a brain scan though just in case.
It could of course come from a different place. But my father, so he became a social worker and slept with the really damaged underage women, some of which were being raped by their parents. He had a lot of other similar behaviours but he was always very nice to me. This alone does not at all make him a psychopath and it regrettably speaks rather exactly to the negative stereotype. But the thing that made me think he might be a psychopath is that I questioned him carefully and he simply had no seeming ability to really comprehend the emotions of others, including those very close to him such as his third wife while I knew him (whom was also messed up from sexual trauma). He continually made discomforting jokes, (but I also have to stop myself making insensitive jokes, my first rule of masking). He was however, very good at being charming. People believed completely he was this incredibly emotionally deep and psychologically insightful man. He was very good at seducing women for endless sexual encounters, and living that kind of lifestyle when he wanted to. Mostly he was a solitary person though. It seems likely to me he could have been more successful but he just didn't like people that much in general.
I don't know for sure, he never got a brainscan, but that's what I have to go on. He died a long time ago so I won't be collecting any more information.
It COULD be that my father had the full thing, the full veil separating the conscious and subconscious, and I only have it partway. Disconnecting myself from my emotions enough to not allow stability, and allowing all manner of other things to come in, (I wonder if schizoid spectrum issues are partly because the person can't access their own emotions they then create emotions artificially that then become compulsive because they are not real so can't be handled in the normal way!) but not actually completely blocking off the emotions to actually be psychopathic.
Or we could both have autism that manifests in different ways?
Or it could be just a bunch of disconnected or wrongly interpreted garbage.
Yeah, it's a hypothesis. A hypothesis is not yet considered correct because it has to be tested.
It seems to me that a lot of people are going around trying to make narcissism into a type of psychopathy. But there is a huge difference there in that narcissists are passionately emotional with deep attachment issues.
I have heard before that a borderline is an unsuccessful narcissist. Like, borderline is the stage before the person becomes a narcissist and I do think that with their scatty attempts at manipulation they would often like to be more effective manipulators. So a theory could be that borderline and narcissism are a category along a scale, and schizoid spectrum and psychopathy are part of another scale.
But unless someone serious were to take that and test it, or some other discovery was made that brought light to this, we will never know.
HIIII ATHENA, Do you remember me?? I used to comment on your substack a long time ago before I stopped using the platform but now I use it again!!! Thank you for debunking that nonsense, some of it was totally laughable like the "depressive" psychopath lol
Anyway, I have a question for you. Can primary (factor 1) psychopaths become *genuinely* religious if they have some kind of a mystical experience? So I'm not talking about using religion as a tool to obtain some goals, but true belief. Would it modify their behaviour in any way if they're antisocial psychopaths or would they (despite being truly religious) end up twisting the teachings of the religion to match their personality?
I don't know that there would be anything religious about an experience. I have had many strange and mysterious things happen to me, but it hasn't made me more inclined to religion. I have no idea if there is a God or not. I am comfortable not knowing, and seeing what happens when I die.
I don't know if an experience like that could be a wakeup call or not. I suppose that would depend on the person. I changed how i behave, but not due to any concern about a God or religion, but rather because of learning cognitive empathy.
Oh and I imagine a primary psychopath wouldn't do well with any rigidly structured (e.g. you MUST do X things Y times per day) or rigidly hierarchical religion (e.g. a religion where the INSTITUTION is the primary determinant of belief and practice). They would probably just be defiant and ignore the institution or the practices under some excuse. But a more personalized and individualized religion would probably match them more. So maybe assume some form of Protestantism or Hinduism or something for the question, I thought that might be useful.
I was certainly defiant of religion because they were unable to answer what I thought were totally reasonable questions that addressed consistency in the belief system.
This is extraordinary. Even for people who have not had the benefit of reading Athena's work, this reads as the sort of codswallop that someone just made up. It reminds me of some 'natural health' books that are based on a paradigm that the author also just made up, but with more jargon.
Asthenic couldn't have anything to do with aesthetic, because aesthetai is basically a root word (greek, to perceive) whereas the first one has sthenic as root word (also greek, strength) and a is a negative prefix. Same as in atheist, apolitical, asexual.
So this guy selects 10 random character traits and labels them as subtypes of psychopathy?
And he died in 1967 so he didn't even have the excuse of creating clickbait to drive engagement from the masses...
Agreed, it's just a mess.
A hot mess.
It's numbingly lame.
Yeah, I created "numbingly. "
Just for you, Invisigoth.
Isn’t the last one hypochondria? This appears to be a generalised (and quite poor) categorising of various anti-social or neurotic types which he has put under the umbrella of “psychopathy”, and it’s such a patchwork, I wonder what his motive was in doing that.
In relation to explosive emotional reactions, are psychopaths never capable of explosions of anger? I remember, for instance, Aaron (a psychopath on Quora: I do not know if he’s still active on that platform or if you interacted with him) described how he could have flashes of rage, which lasted only a few seconds - but as a result he had many broken game controllers from when he threw them against the wall when he repeatedly failed to make it past a certain level on a game!
It seems to be the case that they are discussing hypochondria, yes.
I wonder if what Aaron was describing was the flash of anger that a psychopath can experience, coupled with testosterone. It's just a guess though.
I've been wondering about this for a while - could it be that oxytocin is a kind of amplifier of emotions, rather than a creator of them? So if you can't process it, most emotions are still there, but there's nothing to 'turn them up' to a level where the person would notice them. Would explain why most emotions are muted in psychopaths rather than completely absent, and also the flash of anger thing.
Possibly related to the inability to code memories with emotions? As an NT when you get angry it feels like the whole thing is the initial reaction, not a memory. But maybe everything past the first few seconds is actually part reaction / part memory. Like the initial reaction is being amplified by your memory of the event that triggered the anger, and the fact that that memory is now already coded with the emotion of anger. And from there it's like a snowball effect, as the anger intensifies more and more, due to the memory becoming more and more coded with the emotion. Not sure what stops it just going on forever though!
No idea if there's anything in the research to support that idea, but it would explain alot...
It doesn't appear to be the case. It appears that oxytocin itself is the originator of these emotions.
And does anybody know if oxytocin is the only transmitter that is processed by the oxytocin receptors? Or is there another transmitter that fits into them?
It's that the oxytocin isn't binding to the receptors that process it. In our case it simply isn't used. There aren't any other receptors that are attuned to oxytocin
Ah ok, interesting! I need to start reading some of these studies, the couple that I've come across so far weren't very conclusive about anything, other than that oxytocin is involved somehow. But I know that's only a tiny tiny fraction of the research that's out there, so I'll definitely keep reading.
The idea of oxytocin possibly being an amplifier came to me when I was reading one of your posts about psychopaths not coding memories with emotion (the one about amusement parks, and knowing you have fun there, but the memories not being linked to the feeling of fun, or any other emotion). Reading that post made me realise that a huge proportion of the emotion that an NT feels on any given day, comes from memories of events, rather than directly from events themselves. I would go as far as to say that possibly more than 50% of the emotion we feel is from memories rather than a direct response to a current event, but it's hard to judge and others might disagree.
Obviously the original emotion itself is triggered by an event in the real world, but once the emotion gets linked to the memory of the event, then every time that memory is recalled, the emotion is re-experienced with it. I would say that the intensity of the emotion is usually slightly less than the original intensity when the event first occured, but it's not a big difference, and it's still a very significant rush of emotion, that affects you in a similar way to when it first happened. You often hear people saying that they're deliberately trying not to think about a particular past event, because they don't want to feel the emotion that comes with it.
Maybe it's not so much that oxytocin amplifies the emotion, in the sense of making it more intense, but more that it keeps it alive and keeps it going in NTs, by coding it into memories, in a way that doesn't happen with psychopaths, because it never gets linked to memories and therefore re-experienced when those memories are recalled.
After I realised how much of the emotion that an NT feels comes from memories, and that those memories start to form and be coded with emotion almost immediately that the event happens - and knowing how absolute the inability to process oxytocin is in a psychopath (eg not just an impairment or reduction in how well it's processed, from childhood trauma etc, but a total genetic inability to process the chemical at all) - I guess I was extrapolating backwards from there logically, and wondering whether the failure to link the memory with the emotion, in the first few seconds after the event occurs, could kind of mute or kill off the emotion at such an early stage that the psychopath is never really aware that it existed (unless they focus really hard on it, as you've described before). Whereas in an NT the linking of the emotion to the memory within those first few seconds keeps it alive long enough for the person to notice it, and then each time the memory is recalled it reinforces the emotion, in a kind of snowball effect.
I think after reading your writing, one of the few remaining enigmas of psychopathy to me, is how it's possible that psychopaths are able to feel some emotions at the very muted 0-2 out of 10 level that you've described, if they're not able to process oxytocin at all? Eg why are many emotions muted rather than completely absent?
But one thing that's very clear from everything I've read so far, is that the role of oxytocin in the body and brain is very complex and multi-faceted, so of course it's more than possible that it also has a role in the original creation of the emotion, as well as in keeping it alive through coding it into memories.
If you happen to know of any good books that bring all the latest research together in one place, I would be super grateful for any recommendations - if not no worries, I know you have a post somewhere where you link to loads of studies, I'm sure I can find that again quite easily...
Not all emotions are based in oxytocin. There are other factors going on. There may indeed be aspects of those emotions that we do not feel if those aspects have basis in oxytocin, but just like fear/adrenaline, we feel the adrenaline, but lack the fear aspect.
Ohhh ok that makes alot of sense. So the emotions governed entirely by oxytocin are the ones that you lack completely, and the emotions governed by other hormones are the ones that are turned right down. Sounds like there might be some kind of interplay going on between oxytocin and the other chemicals that may explain why the emotions that you do feel are so muted. Thanks Athena, look forward to understanding it better once I've done some more reading :o)
Well, yeah, you could call it a flash of anger: he says it literally only last seconds, but that’s all it takes to commit an immediate act of violence.
It's never strong enough to cause action with me
Maybe higher male testosterone levels play a role there, as you mentioned.
Oh my, bless his pea picking heart.
(A Southern derogatory expression meaning "What an idiot".)
"Don’t make me whip out the fever analogy article. Because I’ll do it…"
Hehehe - fabulous! Please do.
Happy Holidays!
Happy Holidays, Eve.
I added the fever analogy to the bottom of the post
as a southerner, this made me laugh
I'm sure you can relate!
I can definitely see a basis for other mental disorders and neurological conditions in this list, but none of them sound like Psychopathy lol. My gut feeling guesses just based on the descriptions provided by Athena from the article are:
1. Hyperthymic could be ADHD, or some form of Mania.
2. Depressive could literally just be Major Depressive Disorder. I only discount schizophrenia because they don’t describe what form of paranoia it is. I have anxiety and depression and I’m often paranoid that I’m taking too much, people don’t like me, etc.
3. Insecure sounds like some form of depression possibly mixed with OCD.
4. Fanatic = Sounds like Histrionic Personality Disorder or maybe even Borderline.
5. Narcissistic Personality Disorder
6. Labile sounds like the depression after dwindling down from a manic episode. Bipolar maybe?
7. Intermittent Explosive Disorder
8. ASPD?
9. This one just sounds like nonsense.
10. This is Hypochondria or Munchausen. Or someone who is just a big germaphobe. I doubt psychopaths can develop phobias since by definition phobias are irrational fears.
This was… interesting. But stupid. I love watching Athena tear apart useless pseudoscience that people still try to tout as somehow being legitimate, it’s funny.
Thought as well. I wonder if he was approaching the word purely compositionally - pathologies of psychology and totally disconnected from the dominant tradition that established the word in the first place. But he does mention lack of empathy so...
It’s like he was using the word psychopath as a catch all term for non neurotypical or for disturbance of mental health, rather than a very wide array of different conditions that are unrelated to each other.
Plenty of conditions can cause a lack of empathy or an inhibited ability to feel certain emotions. Doesn’t mean it’s psychopathy. Even depression can flatten out the emotional spectrum.
True that. Not sure if it applies to all things he alluded to, but might be also what is perceived as lack of empathy instead of actual lack. BPDs have rather overactive reactions, but there can be certain self-absorbedness and being out of sync with others. Depression definitely can flatten everything. And alexithymics cannot even spot their own emotions, so...
I am sure that this whole bunch of 🔞💣⛓️ is either a big problem of translating issue or that in Kurt Schneiders time the word psychopath was used as sort of headline for all sorts of psychopathologies including psychosis and neurosis.
I will look him up later, perhaps I can find the original essay in German.
One short look into ICD can surely also help to clarify the definition problem. - Besides I don’t know if an ICD or DSM already existed in the 1930s or 1940s.
The ICD has existed in some form since the very late 1800s I believe and has been sponsored by the WHO since 1948. DSM-I was published in 1952 but had its own antecedents.
A quick look at Wikipedia tells me Kurt Schneider is now known for his understanding of schizophrenia and personality disorders, at the time known as ‘psychopathic personalities’. I’ll say this, his descriptions are spot on even if he did incorrectly describe them as being psychopathic in nature rather than psychotic.
Yes, you are totally right. Only that he did NOT incorrectly describe them. Today we have to read him with the historical context in mind. It does not function the other way round. He and his colleague Kraepelin invented the term "psychopathic personality" to describe deviant personalities.
What we are knowing today has grown from his work (and of several others).
The term "psychopathische Persönlichkeit" first appears from Kraepelin (1903/1904).
And Kurt Schneiders publication "Die psychopathischen Persönlichkeiten" (1923) shows those 10 subtypes, today more or less subsumed in the DSM and ICD under the headline "personality disorders".
Source: Herpertz, Sabine C.; Saß, Henning:
Persönlichkeitsstörungen. Stuttgart, 2003.
Must have been a rather adventurous time back in the 1910ths and 20's.
Psychiatry was a young discipline and personality (and all the deviations) a broad unknown and unstructured field.
Oh, no, I agree with you there. He seems like he was at least half decent based on his decision to tell the Nazis to fuck off and go continue his practice somewhere else in disgust. I’m just saying by our current, modern definitions he was not accurately describing anything close to ‘psychopathy’. He was likely a pioneer of describing and explaining personality disorders though given his definitions seem largely unchanged from our current ones.
Number 7 definitely gives off 'this is from 50 years ago' vibes.
"She's under 50 and she disrespects and disobeys? She has mood swings and destroys objects? I'm so sorry sir, your wife has hysteria. We need to give her a lobotomy pronto, then she can go back to being the perfect obedient house wife who'll never get angry at you again!"
Other than that this entire list is based on the premise that psychopathy can be anything that's not the norm. If they labelled their article "Types of Mental Conditions" they would be more accurate, but definitely not accurate to modern standards. This is literally just a guy noticing patterns in people and coming up with a list to categorize them.
Sounds about right to me
Thank you so much for your first paragraph! I thought exactly the same but can’t express it as well in English.
Glad someone noticed as well. Sometimes when studying psychology, it teaches you more about society than it does the brain.
As soon as I saw the title of this post I thought hang on, what? How can there be 10 different subtypes? Your brain either processes oxytocin or it doesn't!
But it was even worse than expected. So psychopathy is just.... everything?
Everything and add a little more.
The fact he has gone for TEN types is a red flag, too…
If he was approaching this on a scientific basis, he would be unlikely to come up with such a neat number.
Also, is he just using ‘psychopath’ to mean ‘neurodivergent?’
Yes, I thought the same thing. It seems very convenient in the number of subtypes.
I think that he is just trying to identify anything he considered to be even minorly different than "normal" and label it "psychopathy".
I will look that up if I can find the original text. As well as all the others I think it is a definitory problem. Ops, the word definitory does not exist in English?
It would likely be better said, a disagreement in definitions, if I am correct in your meaning.
I am sure we understand each other very well 😊
Thank you for proposing a better wording.
-Lobotomy is the only way to cure psychopaths.
Dr. Waldo Von Zenowsky, 1963.
🙄
AFAIK a lobotomy would result in a person who cares even less about things than a psychopath so I fail to see the point
Well, they also pretty much lose agency, so no longer a trouble, therefore "cured" as in pacified.
I agree
Yeah, sentiments like that are pretty common, unfortunately.
Sorry for being so annoying, just 1 more thing. I hope you can answer. Can primary (factor 1) psychopaths have schizotypal personality disorder?
I know some symptoms like social anxiety are impossible. But others like the following might occur?
Odd beliefs or magical thinking
Unusual perceptional experiences
Odd thought and speech
Eccentric behavior and/or appearance
Moods and facial expressions that don't match each other or the situation
Few to no close supports
Possibly ideas of reference too
I'm more concerned about the genetic and neurological aspects than the diagnostic criteria. Of course, no Schizotypal might have IDENTICAL genetic causes, and even if they do, it does not necessarily mean that that they will have all the corresponding characteristics, etc. all the interactions are dependent on the individual.
But I don't have enough education on the neurosciecne to understand how psychopathy and schizotypal would interact if they were to co-occur so I thought I might ask you. I'm pretty sure schizophrenia and primary psychopathy are possible, I saw some studies on this, so it probably applies to schizoptyal too.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schizotypal_personality_disorder#Genetic
It seems like it would be pretty contrary to psychopathy, but I don't know.
I thought I would comment here. I do not think what I have to say is necessarily that valuable but... why not?
Firstly, I was diagnosed schizotypal, but not formally. When I tried to commit suicide because the "demons in my head were going to switch the lights out". I experience a disconnect with neurotypicals in the emotional area, also a lot of physical tensions and anxieties though so do not think it is likely that I am psychopathic. I won't be volunteering for a brain scan though just in case.
It could of course come from a different place. But my father, so he became a social worker and slept with the really damaged underage women, some of which were being raped by their parents. He had a lot of other similar behaviours but he was always very nice to me. This alone does not at all make him a psychopath and it regrettably speaks rather exactly to the negative stereotype. But the thing that made me think he might be a psychopath is that I questioned him carefully and he simply had no seeming ability to really comprehend the emotions of others, including those very close to him such as his third wife while I knew him (whom was also messed up from sexual trauma). He continually made discomforting jokes, (but I also have to stop myself making insensitive jokes, my first rule of masking). He was however, very good at being charming. People believed completely he was this incredibly emotionally deep and psychologically insightful man. He was very good at seducing women for endless sexual encounters, and living that kind of lifestyle when he wanted to. Mostly he was a solitary person though. It seems likely to me he could have been more successful but he just didn't like people that much in general.
I don't know for sure, he never got a brainscan, but that's what I have to go on. He died a long time ago so I won't be collecting any more information.
It COULD be that my father had the full thing, the full veil separating the conscious and subconscious, and I only have it partway. Disconnecting myself from my emotions enough to not allow stability, and allowing all manner of other things to come in, (I wonder if schizoid spectrum issues are partly because the person can't access their own emotions they then create emotions artificially that then become compulsive because they are not real so can't be handled in the normal way!) but not actually completely blocking off the emotions to actually be psychopathic.
Or we could both have autism that manifests in different ways?
Or it could be just a bunch of disconnected or wrongly interpreted garbage.
While I can offer no insight into your father, nor your situation, this was really interesting to read and consider.
Yeah, it's a hypothesis. A hypothesis is not yet considered correct because it has to be tested.
It seems to me that a lot of people are going around trying to make narcissism into a type of psychopathy. But there is a huge difference there in that narcissists are passionately emotional with deep attachment issues.
I have heard before that a borderline is an unsuccessful narcissist. Like, borderline is the stage before the person becomes a narcissist and I do think that with their scatty attempts at manipulation they would often like to be more effective manipulators. So a theory could be that borderline and narcissism are a category along a scale, and schizoid spectrum and psychopathy are part of another scale.
But unless someone serious were to take that and test it, or some other discovery was made that brought light to this, we will never know.
HIIII ATHENA, Do you remember me?? I used to comment on your substack a long time ago before I stopped using the platform but now I use it again!!! Thank you for debunking that nonsense, some of it was totally laughable like the "depressive" psychopath lol
Anyway, I have a question for you. Can primary (factor 1) psychopaths become *genuinely* religious if they have some kind of a mystical experience? So I'm not talking about using religion as a tool to obtain some goals, but true belief. Would it modify their behaviour in any way if they're antisocial psychopaths or would they (despite being truly religious) end up twisting the teachings of the religion to match their personality?
Thanks!!!!!
I don't know that there would be anything religious about an experience. I have had many strange and mysterious things happen to me, but it hasn't made me more inclined to religion. I have no idea if there is a God or not. I am comfortable not knowing, and seeing what happens when I die.
I don't know if an experience like that could be a wakeup call or not. I suppose that would depend on the person. I changed how i behave, but not due to any concern about a God or religion, but rather because of learning cognitive empathy.
Oh and I imagine a primary psychopath wouldn't do well with any rigidly structured (e.g. you MUST do X things Y times per day) or rigidly hierarchical religion (e.g. a religion where the INSTITUTION is the primary determinant of belief and practice). They would probably just be defiant and ignore the institution or the practices under some excuse. But a more personalized and individualized religion would probably match them more. So maybe assume some form of Protestantism or Hinduism or something for the question, I thought that might be useful.
Happy Holidays!!!!
I was certainly defiant of religion because they were unable to answer what I thought were totally reasonable questions that addressed consistency in the belief system.
It rather reminds me Gannushkin's rough categorization of psychopathies (only he has 16 types I think): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyotr_Gannushkin
They're rather transalated as "accentuations of character" or maybe "personality disorders". That's more like "lost in translation" thing.
I don't know whether Schneider was influenced by Gannushkin who lived and worked earlier.
This is extraordinary. Even for people who have not had the benefit of reading Athena's work, this reads as the sort of codswallop that someone just made up. It reminds me of some 'natural health' books that are based on a paradigm that the author also just made up, but with more jargon.
That's a good way to tease us haha. Looking forward to the next article debunking
Asthenic couldn't have anything to do with aesthetic, because aesthetai is basically a root word (greek, to perceive) whereas the first one has sthenic as root word (also greek, strength) and a is a negative prefix. Same as in atheist, apolitical, asexual.
Good to know, thank you
I was unaware of the root word, it was simply what it reminded me of.
Maybe he was trying to go for the kind of pop psychology space now taken by "narcissism".
That's possible
Lucrative too. He could run courses and such reclassifying everything under the sun as psychopathy.
If he was a REAL grifter he could get paid everytime someone talks about psychopathy.
That would be something
are you able to see my messages on this post? i think there was some problem before but now it should be visible
I saw them. yes