Therapist Clueless About Sociopaths

[Dana1010]

@joeylittle, picture this: Before the night of your attack, those same people were your best friends and confidants. You shared everything with each other and considered yourselves kindred souls. Then once you were attacked, you were faced with the truth that those were never people but just a collection of words and facial expressions choreographed to manipulate you. That's what we're talking about with sociopaths.

Also, if someone is acting like a psychopath, I can't get too bothered about mislabeling them. For PTSD, schizophrenia, BPD, clinical depression, and other disorders where the sufferer isn't doing massive, massive damage, then yeah, I would never want to mislabel anyone innocent. But if you're conning everyone around you, manipulating people, ruining lives and enjoying the process, the least you should have to put up with is being "mislabeled."

 

[joeylittle]

Before the night of your attack, those same people were your best friends and confidants. You shared everything with each other and considered yourselves kindred souls. Then once you were attacked, you were faced with the truth that those were never people but just a collection of words and facial expressions choreographed to manipulate you. That's what we're talking about with sociopaths.

Sure. That goes to my point about the difference in trauma you are talking about being centered on whether or not you knew the person, not whether or not they are socio-/psycho-paths. That part is scary, sure, but not as relevant to what you are talking about - in my opinion.

Anyway, now it sounds like you are saying that sociopaths are definitely not involved in my attack at all, because I would have needed to know them in order for it to "count". I'm sorry, but what is different about being smooth-talked by a stranger for 15 minutes and being tricked into a car, and smooth-talked by someone who was a confidante for years - if the end result is, we get battered, why does knowing them a lifetime make the trauma any different than knowing them for less than an hour?

It's frankly overwhelming to me that people, human beings are capable to doing such horrible things to others. Whether or not they are called sociopaths doesn't play into it. I 100% respect that there is a difference between having a developed relationship with someone who betrays your trust, and a short relationship with a stranger who betrays your trust. But I think THAT is the difference - knowing the person - not that they are a psychopath.

Can you not consider that the difference is in knowing or not knowing the assailant and for how long, versus them being a psychopath vs. them being some other diagnosis? I do not question your gut feeling that they were psychopaths, the people you refer to. I question that being traumatized by a psychopath is different from any other trauma. I instead think it has to do with knowing or not knowing your attacker. And that's about as clear as I can be.

We really don't have to agree - I won't hijack the thread any longer - I just (apparently) feel stronger about this than I thought. So thanks (I mean that, truly) for reading and commenting.

@shimmerz, my reference to Child Sexual Abuse (CSA) is merely to say that anyone who is a victim of CSA would have many if not all of the same things to say about the nature of their attackers - but I do not think we can then assume that all perps of CSA are psychopaths. That would probably be not true. So the reasons why psychopaths cause "different" trauma aren't really so solid. That's all.

 

[greenleaf]

Can you not consider that the difference is in knowing or not knowing the assailant and for how long, versus them being a psychopath vs. them being some other diagnosis? I do not question your gut feeling that they were psychopaths, the people you refer to. I question that being traumatized by a psychopath is different from any other trauma. I instead think it has to do with knowing or not knowing your attacker. And that's about as clear as I can be.

@joeylittle ... knowing vs. not knowing is certainly a big difference. However the more specific issues that a well-known attacker has can result in huge differences for the survivor, in my opinion. As the survivor grows up, they have to somehow reconcile a really pathological person's exact behavior with a sort of model of human behavior options...

I think if we are badly and chronically harmed by something as a kid, to the point of the "reptile brain" getting involved in ptsd, we're absolutely going to find the ability to identify it deeply important !!! I totally at least feel like I understand -- I feel that specific aspects of my brother's problems have been very important too. We were around these people during developmental parts of our lives, often with no support.

...how does that abuser differ from all the other humans around? Why? How can we spot this absolutely crucial danger in the future?

If the abuser hides the pathology really well from casual acquaintances, the survivor might be strongly motivated to figure out how to tell such abnormal folks apart from "normals". Also, how do "normal" folks actually behave -- that can be a huge issue to figure out, where are the normal boundaries ... I'm still working on that one. :rolleyes:

Did the survivor have "normal" folks around as a kid, who behaved in a trustworthy fashion? That might have given the survivor a good alternative "model" for humans and trusting some a bit at least, but might also leave other questions... why are those people unable to see what the abuser is doing, or unwilling to stop them, or whatever, if they are really so "nice"?... and so on.

I am sort of extrapolating from my memories of how I felt about certain groups of people around age 15 or so... as I mentioned, I would definitely not call my abusers psychopaths. They did perhaps cyclically subordinate their empathy toward me, though, when in an abusive period; other folks here have mentioned the lack of empathy as a horrific aspect of abusers' behavior. Cyclical lack of empathy would likely feel very different from absolute, and leave some different issues.

For me, the cyclical nature of one of my brother's abusiveness was a huge issue in that my mother and grandmother always grabbed onto his "normal" behavior in parts of the cycle as evidence that he'd improved, nothing really bad had happened... I felt like my view of reality was something I had to hold onto for safety, their models of reality weren't predicting events dangerous to me. As a kid, this was a really hard thing for me, very isolating. I was very fortunate to always have a good friend or two though (compartmentalized, didn't fit into the home world), all along, and have met some truly wonderful people -- and was motivated to keep finding more such folks all my life so far.

My radar for "brother-like" problem people works pretty well but I didn't develop good skills to protect myself in other ways, having to do that as an adult.

I am describing how details of a (cyclical lack of empathy?) affected me, again, because I can definitely imagine that having to interact with someone totally lacking normal empathy, or however psychopaths work, would cause specific detailed issues too by analogy.

This does NOT imply that any such details are *worse* than other types of abusers, the ptsd is in a totally different category, or any such thing! People are reading all sorts of things into the poster's words that she didn't intend, from my perspective.

 

[joeylittle]

However the more specific issues that a well-known attacker has can result in huge differences for the survivor, in my opinion. As the survivor grows up, they have to somehow reconcile a really pathological person's exact behavior with a sort of model of human behavior options...

Absolutely - this is really nicely put. Makes a ton of sense, and I appreciate the use of "pathological"; good way to describe what i think we are all trying to talk about.

 

[shimmerz]

Okay, so I can see how pathological can be used in this context. I guess the question I have is how does the OP or anyone else who is planning on addressing this issue in therapy refer to the pathological behaviour? Pathological what? How can one describe properly what this pathology is in order to be understood by a therapist without being seen as putting across a unconfirmed diagnosis?

And sorry @joeylittle , I didn't know what CSA referred to at all - here in Canada we call your CSA 'CAS'.

 

[Dana1010]

I am describing how details of a (cyclical lack of empathy?) affected me, again, because I can definitely imagine that having to interact with someone totally lacking normal empathy, or however psychopaths work, would cause specific detailed issues too by analogy.

I want to point out that while the sociopath does absolutely lack empathy, he can feign it and put on a mask of friendliness, good will, and even love. So the utter confusion caused by the switch from Dr. Jekyll to Mr. Hyde in the sociopath might be quite similar to that caused by the "cyclical" empathy you describe - maybe you can't even be sure your parents weren't faking it too.

One interesting thing about my dad is that he didn't hide what he was around us - that might explain why I feel more keenly traumatized by the psychopaths who came into my life later, even though my dad was by all accounts, a living nightmare. I always had my dad figured out as someone who wasn't safe, so I sort of always kept him on the outside. The later psychopaths, however conned me and manipulated their way through the barrier and into my inner space. I think most of us are familiar with the model of how trauma happens - a sudden threat or attack breaks through ones outer, protective shell without giving the victim time to recognize it as a threat and steel themselves against it. This perfectly describes the moment of realization that you've been conned, you've been in a fake relationship with a fake person who has bled you, took from you, and is now discarding you like trash. Instead of the attack forcing it's way in from the outside, it is already in your core and explodes there shooting shrapnel in all directions.

 

[Ronin]

'Absolutely', nope
'Lack empathy' - nope. Differences in scale of being/not being an empath does not mean the empathy in its entirety's absent.
Second note: To plan how to get at other people that much, you just *have to* be able to understand how they think. That is a form of empathy. Plain common sense. It's not well possible to exploit something you don't understand at all.

That switch you're speaking of is some pop culture nonsense. Doesn't work in real life. Most often you really wouldn't know. And doesn't it seem oxymoron, someone so well able to feign emotions... to be caught on something so trivial as very visible changes in presentation? I didn't think so.

Not all awful people are sociopaths.
And there's difference sociopaths/psychopaths. They're not interchangeable. It's whole different M.O., signature, etiology, way to tackle such person(s) in practical dealing.

I'm also really fond of how just about everyone on this site uses combat-like terminology to describe so various different traumata that have nothing to do with combat but just oh well. That's god damn off topic so I'll keep my mouth filled with something like a cupcake instead of running it here.

 

[Dana1010]

'Absolutely', nope

Just like black isn't "absolutely" black except in your mind when you compare it to white, as in these (black?) characters against this (white?) screen.

To plan how to get at other people that much, you just *have to* be able to understand how they think. That is a form of empathy. Plain common sense. It's not well possible to exploit something you don't understand at all.

This is actually a really good point, and a subject of some of the more interesting research being done now.

What I heard about psychopaths who are empathetic is that it's raw preliminary empathy that is actually converted to sadism. In one study, psychopaths who scored highest on empathy tests had quite high rates of violent, sadistic crimes like rape (this was in a book by Andrew Dutton). So you have to be careful there.

Here is a good link -
[DLMURL]http://www.theglobeandmail.com/arts...lent-for-recognizing-emotions/article4704549/[/DLMURL]

Not all awful people are sociopaths.

Indeed, most awful people aren't sociopaths and they can be every bit as destructive as the ones who are. I acknowledged this in the OP.

combat-like terminology

Sorry, the combat terminology just works. It's much more effective to describe things in concrete terms than emotional. Maybe I'll try automobile accident terminology.

 

[joeylittle]

Pathological what? How can one describe properly what this pathology is in order to be understood by a therapist without being seen as putting across a unconfirmed diagnosis?

Pathological as in "indicative of mental or physical illness". Someone can be a liar. Someone can be cruel. A manipulator. A sadist.

In my book, there is a huge difference between actually describing the symptomology and going ahead and "choosing" the right diagnosis label to batch them all together as. In fact, that's how mis-diagnosis happens.

It is clearer and more accurate to fully describe how someone behaves. I hear so many people refer to narcissists - and I'm not sure all of them would be narcissists. They might be overly self-involved; that can be called narcissistic. But "narcissist" has a clinical meaning. And if you are trying to describe someone in your life who has hurt you and you call them a narcissist - instead of describing their actual behavior - you might be actually wrong.

So, calling someone the bundle "psychopath" is not nearly as specific, actually, as listing their behavior.

 

[Ronin]

]@Dana1010, you really lost me on that black-and line. I get it. You're clinging to a 'point' you've made as truth. Have at it. That comparison didn't quite work even as a parallel, alas.

You're ignoring the people within those studies are more likely to be a population with criminal record. In other words, decompensated. Those that couldn't for some reason keep their issues (and neurotype) in check. Or plain chose not to. That is significantly different from everyone on the same spectrum. People within this thread have said this before. You have very small subset of population. And you use it as THE population. And furthermore valid for EVERYONE of that population. Basing on what you took from those studies; not even necessarily what the studies *were* saying.

Your last comment just is a kind of response I'm not going to dignify with a personal comment. Although rather expected you'd say that.
TLDR what gives you the damned right to think you've earned the right to appropriate other people's efforts, years long experience, training, service to their respective communities, countries, and those of other countries, education, loses, suffering, the list goes on... is really beyond me.

We're not your effing entertainment and bloody metaphors.

 

[Dana1010]

@Kaia, it was honestly just an analogy, but since we're on a PTSD forum, I understand your confusion. I wasn't equating myself to a vet, anymore than I'm equating myself to a trout when I say, "I was a fish out of water." I meant no disrespect.

 

[Friday]

That's the thing, though, @Dana1010 ...

- All soldiers this
- All child soldiers that
- All psychopaths this
- All sociopaths that

If people were using molestation metaphors for things that are nowhere near the sphere of sexual assault (she took the shoes I wanted to wear! I felt so raped!), and talking about how all women this, and all Asian people that, and all PTSD people this, and all rape victims that... It would become very clear, very quickly why so many of us are trying to say that you can't generalize like its an accurate representation of the all. At least not, and have have everyone else jump on board.