18 replies to this topic

[the L]

http://www.psycholog...is-psychopath-0


The current approach to defining sociopathy and the related concepts is to use a list of criteria. The first such list was developed by Hervey Cleckley (1941), who is known as the first person to describe the condition in detail. Anyone fitting enough of these criteria counts as a psychopath or sociopath.

[ouija ouija]

Hmm, a very interesting subject, especially in the light of recent mass killings and more and more(it seems), wars.

As I was reading through the article I was thinking "oh dear! I have some of these traits!", so the final sentence was pertinent: 'Are there degrees of psychopathy, so that normal people may possess psychopathic traits?'. I wondered if psychopathy as a trait was increasing, as a way of coping with the way the world is now?

[ealdwita]

I seem to have scored pretty high on that list for some reason. *Checks cupboard for stock levels of farva beans and chianti*

[Mr Right Wing]

the L, on 02 February 2013 - 03:14 PM, said:

http://www.psycholog...is-psychopath-0


The current approach to defining sociopathy and the related concepts is to use a list of criteria. The first such list was developed by Hervey Cleckley (1941), who is known as the first person to describe the condition in detail. Anyone fitting enough of these criteria counts as a psychopath or sociopath.

Most psychopaths -
1. Are the victims of physical, sexual and psychological child abuse off their parents.
2. Have a defective self-image seeing themselves as worthless.
3. Encounter bullying problems at school.
4. Work in demeaning jobs tradionally done by servants - Waiter, porter, cleaner, gardener, caretaker, chef, butler, etc
5. Cant hold down any of their jobs.
6. Torture animals.
7. Continued to wet the bed way beyond early childhood.
8. Has odd sexual fetishes.

So what happens is you have a couple living in a deprived area of the country who are unhappy in life because of the economic hardship it causes. It makes them stressed out and over time they become quite negative about themselves. Once their minds have caved in due to the stress and negativity they find the only way they can make themselves feel better is to self-medicate using drugs and alcohol. This strategy works until they have children -
1. Children need feeding, washing and clothing. As the parents waste most of their money self-medicating they can take care of their childrens needs so they get neglected.
2. Children moan when their needs arent being met. This grinds the parents down until they start beating the children to shut them up.
3. Drug and alcohol crash - When the parents are coming down their moods crash and they take it out on their kids (or others around them) by being abusive.
4. No boundaries - The parents leave the kids to bring themselves up as they prefer to spend their days high as a kite or down the pub getting bladdered. As such no one is around to lay out rules to them and teach them correct behaviour.
5. Undeveloped sexuality - No boundaries means the child doesnt go through the Oedipus complex (sexual boundaries are learnt in this).

When you watch the news and hear about problem families on council estates they are all of the above. Anyway the children reach the age where they go off to school and -
1. They wear dirty, smell, tatty clothing so they get bullied.
2. They dont have boundaries so they dont treat others correctly which again causes them to get bullied.
3. With them living in an abusive household they think being bullied is normal so they dont report it at school and get bullied relentlessly.

From a psychological perspective a young childs cognitive skills and reasoning are not well developed. As such if someone is abusive towards them (parents or school bullying) they have a tendancy to believe whats being said. This results in the defective self-image and a kid screwed in the head. They perform poorly at school because bullying makes them skive and the result is they leave without qualifications. They then go for demaning jobs in the workplace which they fail to keep
because -
1. Having no boundaries they dont see the problem violating the rights of their colleagues or feeling remorse when they do.
2. Having no boundaries their behaviour is odd. As a result they are seen as weirdos (think Jimmy Saville lol) and people want nothing to do with them.

The height of not being taught boundaries is wetting the bed at an old age (even adulthood), torturing animals, committing crimes and generally poor behaviour. As they have no concept of boundaries they dont see the problem doing any of those things and feel no remorse. As an adult not having sexual boundaries means they engage in paedophillia, incest, rape, beastiality, necrophillia and many bizarre sexual fetishes.

If they keep themselves out of prison and have children then they tend to pass their problems onto the next generation in a never ending cycle plus one thing. They sexually abuse their kids too.

Edited by Mr Right Wing, 02 February 2013 - 04:22 PM.

[ouija ouija]

^ ^ ^  so I was right ......... sadly

[Jinxdom]

Everybody has traits of pretty much every mental health issue. For it to be a mental illness it has to be deemed a problem first.
Then there is the problem to find if it is stemmed from a physical(chemical or another brain anomaly), or an actual thinking problem(which comes from the social stigma type things).

They are just written in a way that it makes it easy for people to falsely conclude that a person has a mental illness by people who haven't actually studied or understand the process.

The reasons behind why people do things are important, not just the external factors and the end results.

Edited by Jinxdom, 03 February 2013 - 03:14 AM.

[eight bits]

There are happier and less happy ways to express any truth. Whatever trait is in one person is also likely to be found in anybody else. The relative importance of the trait differs, as does the use made of the functionality the trait confers, especially whether an inclination is acted upon directly, or used as an intermediate contributor to finding a better solution.

So long as it is a fact that a human being can present an impersonal problem (stick a knife in my ribs and demand goods and services from me), then I must have the capacity to treat a human being as a thing to be dealt with impersonally. People need the capacity to act as a sociopath would in the some situations, and those who have the capacity will leave more children than people who lack that capacity.

Well, that was our ancestors' situation 100,000 years ago. By now, we all have the capacity. So, the remaining question is what to do about it. Most of us combine the capacity to think about more options than we act out with the ability to devise lower-cost strategies for dealing with our problems than declaring war against everybody else. Most of us are sane. Or pretty close to sane, anyway, most of the time.

[libstaK]

ouija ouija, on 02 February 2013 - 07:27 PM, said:

^ ^ ^  so I was right ......... sadly

Don't worry ouija, the fact that you EMPATHISE with some of those feelings pretty much cancels out the idea that you might be one.  A psychopath would not recognise themselves as being those things in anything more than a clinical sense (there would be no ....sadly attached to their notion of being any of those things at all)

[lightly]

i guess i'm ok?      ..  a little late on the bed wetting maybe.

[Babe Ruth]

Is there such a thing as an "overt act" that actually makes one a psychopath or sociopath?  Can one have sociopathic thoughts, but never take action?

[HavocWing]

Fire setting is also another sign.

[Harlequin Dreamer]

Me when I'm pi55ed off.

Edited by Harlequin Dreamer, 03 February 2013 - 09:38 PM.

[ouija ouija]

libstaK, on 03 February 2013 - 11:50 AM, said:

Don't worry ouija, the fact that you EMPATHISE with some of those feelings pretty much cancels out the idea that you might be one.  A psychopath would not recognise themselves as being those things in anything more than a clinical sense (there would be no ....sadly attached to their notion of being any of those things at all)

I was half joking when I said I thought I was a psychopath , but thank you for addressing my fears, anyway. I was actually referring to Mr Right Wing's post where he explains the vicious circle of poverty, neglect and abuse which is producing more and more psychopaths/sociopaths.

[R4z3rsPar4d0x]

I  scored pretty high, hmmm

[Jinxdom]

Psychopaths aren't born or bred from poverty, It's genetics. The lower standards of poverty just makes everything worse and people pay more attention to the extremes circumstances.(the boundary thing). You are more apt to find a psychopath as in the position of CEO(or mob boss) then in the ghetto or in prison. A person who isn't psychopathic will have a harder time getting out of poverty because there are things that his emotions will not let him or her do. (I.E. screwing people over for instance which a psychopaths will gladly do so even if it wasn't deserved or even necessary).

Everybody has psychopathic and sociopathic tendencies but if you can think of reasons why you should and balance it between why you should then they are not either. Everybody has the tendencies since they are built in as a trait to survive.