The term ‘psychopath’ was first coined in the late 1800s, and comes from the Greek psykhe and pathos, which mean ‘sick mind’ or ‘suffering soul.’
In those days, psychopathy was considered to be a sort of moral insanity, but of course, nowadays, we know better.
However, are we right to think of psychopaths as lone killers, devoid of humanity, preying on the vulnerable, who find it hard to mix with society? The truth is that you could have one as a friend, boss or even a partner. Psychopaths live among us and manage to blend into society, but you can spot them if you look hard enough.
First, you have to change the way you think about people and how we operate as human beings. It is normal to believe that everyone else on the planet is like us, in that, they think like us, feel the same emotions like us, and understand pain and loss as we do. It is important to understand that for a few percentages of the population, this is not true. These are people that do not have empathy or remorse, cannot feel emotion, whose only goal is to take advantage of others.
These are the psychopaths, and as with any mental disorder, there are characteristics that define it. The most common way of detecting whether a person is a psychopath is by using The Hare Psychopathy Checklist-Revised (PCL-R), which is a diagnostic tool, set to determine if someone is on the psychopathy spectrum.
To score the test, participants read a series of statements that describe certain traits and rate them accordingly.
0 = does not apply, 1 = applies somewhat, 2 = definitely applies.
The highest score anyone can achieve is 40. In the US, if someone rates over 30 in the test, they are considered to be psychopathic, but in the UK, it is only over 25.
The Hare Psychopathy Checklist-Revised (PCL-R) categorizes these traits into four factors: interpersonal, emotional, lifestyle and antisocial.
The most common trait of a psychopath is their pathological lying. This is so that they can cover up their behaviour and get their own way.
Psychopaths use glibness and superficial charm to get you hooked in the first place. Once they have you under their spell, you are more likely to be willing to help them.
You’ll find many psychopaths in positions of great power and authority, this is due to their enormous sense of self-worth.
It is their manipulative behaviour that probably got them into these positions in the first place.
The most emotional characteristic is a complete lack of remorse or guilt. This could explain why psychopathic killers get away with their crimes as they simply do not care.
Some psychopaths may feel shallow emotions, in that they might feel sorry that their victim is dead because it no longer holds any pleasure for them.
More often a psychopath will be callous and show a distinct lack of empathy towards their victims. Failure to accept responsibility for their own acts is another common trait for a psychopath.
You can also see psychopathic traits in the lifestyles of psychopaths. A common trait is a parasitic way they will feed off other people to sustain their lifestyle.
Psychopaths also have a need for stimulation which might lead them to behave with impulsivity and acting in an irresponsible way. Typically, a psychopath will have no realistic, long-term goals, instead preferring to live in the moment.
Despite many psychopaths holding down impressive jobs, they do not have good social skills. They find it hard to control their behaviour in public which could lead to a revoking of their parole.
Psychopaths are known to be particularly versatile in many areas of different crimes. This makes it difficult to catch them.
Even if you have the Hare Psychopathy Checklist in your arsenal, diagnosing someone in your life who you think is a psychopath is a very serious step. It has implications either way, whether you are right or wrong. It is better to leave any diagnosing to the professionals who are trained to spot the subtle signs of psychopathy, something that non-professionals might easily miss.
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This is very incorrect, to state that psychopaths do not have good social skills, maybe if there was a low IQ.
But the worse kind of Psychopath, are that cunning & manipulative that they have everyone around them completely fooled, into thinking they are something they are not generally a perfect person.
They have excellent social skills & have a different mask for each & every person in their life.
They usually have many at times hundreds of loyal family & friends whom believe their lies & masks & are more than willing to defend them & even antognise their chosen victim.
Hey there Julie… i'm a psychopath, and baby girl, sounds like you know an awful LOT ALL about psychopathy; one could say you're "all in" .. are you're speaking in allegory? you sound pre-occupied with the subject; you are either "one of us" or you've been singled out. remember something (if you want advice from a psychopath) you need to remember; we are emotional and occasionally physical predators (in one way, shape, or form). I'd seek out new life patterns which may reduce your suceptibility to coercion. become semi-cynical, and you'll be the safer for it. hope you heed my advice, from your local friendly psychopath. xoxo
Orvill are you for real
I agree with Julie. Because of my families recent encounter with a woman who has all the ear marks of a psychopath even to the point of wearing sunglasses when it is cloudy outside. She manipulated her way into our family. I was singled out. Yes, I was at one time one of her (flying monkeys.) Ignored warnings from others because I like to give people the benefit of the doubt. She had been grooming me for sometime. Not only gained my trust but that of my husband, as well. Trusted her to stay in our home and watch our pet and take of our personnel business.. Worst mistake of our lives. Our pets where abused. Our small dogs left in their crate for 24 hours straight. No water and no food. Our Persian cat had its whiskers cut. Unbelievable!!!! What cruelty!!!!
She used our home as a storage unit. Took her over 12 hours to clear out all of her crap from our home. She had been in every inch of our home. When she removed her things from our home she stole from us. Said she would bring it back ASAP. Yeah right!!! Been over two months and never returned a thing. Her goal is to ruin our reputation as she has been slandering about me to our mutual friends. I am 57 years old and never experienced anything like this in my life. Lessoned learned I no longer trust people and very skeptical. Sad way to be but I can not help it. Everything you said Oval is all correct, as well. She is a professional chameleon. Now we have to shampoo our carpets, she damaged our walls and cost us money and our sanity.
I have a few very simplistic comments, the first being the ideal that psychopaths lack emotion, that is incorrect they do however lack concern for the average morals of society, but in response to this is the idea that people always need a scapegoat, someone to blame, a "bad guy", and psychopaths just tend to have their overview changed and then they're thrown under the bus.
I fully agree with your assessment of the psychopath . My ex is a psychopath, which took me over 15 years to "diagnose' despite the fact that I have a clinical understanding ( as a nurse) of how to approach arriving at a diagnosis, by paying attention to the symptoms, and then through process of elimination of ruling out this possibility or that possibility . But it was particularly difficult with him because he is highly intelligent, He is a scientist; an astro-physicist, and professor, But because of that, he was even better at manipulation, deception and the rest of the toxic behaviors so typical of psychopaths. Also of note, going to one counselor , one psychiatrist, one psychologist after the next, and each one pandered to him because of his professional stature (PhD, scientist, etc), so he was given a free pass on most everything. So they actually helped enable him! And 15 years of sheer frustration for me. He was brutally abusive emotionally, psychologically, mentally. Bottom line, Julie is absolutely correct in pointing out that degree and skill in manipulation, appears to be directly correlated to ones level of intelligence. And THAT makes for a VERY deadly toxic cocktail for the person trying to live with and cope with .
i had fought really hard with a phycopath and sent him out of area is there chances of him to harm the victim now also and how to prevent that
Kwown
Thanks
No there is no chance of him harming u. He dosent want to harm u.
Really depends if he thinks revenge is worth the trouble.
If he wanted revenge, He probably had many chances to do so... maybe he is not wat is thought of him.
I can understand why you would be afraid of this. The woman we encountered had us scared to death. She made the commented how her sister killed her mom. Her attitude about death was, "Oh well people die." Her ex-husband died and one of her good friends we found dead. Yes, these people are not to be trusted on so many levels.
hey im am a full scale phycopath iv been diagnosed with it however som of us should not be trusted im not going to lie about that we all can tell verry convinceing lies thats part of the reason we do it i could litteraly mak a storry that someone has told you about someone you know that you also know would never do the thing the said they did and i could flip it around and litterally mak you full fledge believe in every word that comes out of my mouth however most of the time we have the abbility to tell the truth and we do but its up to the person we tell a lie or the truth to figure out witch is being told we can be trusted it just depends on if the pesron can read us or not however not very manny can
So..full-scale psychopath...just how many people have you murdered, because the voices in your head commanded you to do so, that is, after all, what a full-scale psychopath is....and...in what way do the stupidly obviously intentionally misspelled words aid in convincing us you are a psychopath - given that statistically MOST psychopaths are highly intelligent if not brilliant? Ooops...why lie about such a thing? Do not get it....get a life, or hey, full-scale psychopath - take a life?
When I was growing up, i held true to the MacDonald triad, that being a list of three traits shared by 95% of all serial killers. I wet the bed far into my early teens, I loved to play with fire and burnt myself a few times doing it, and I felt it was completely normal to abuse/kill animals. I was a pathological liar, emotionally manipulative and controlling, but well spoken. I was a true sociopath on the verge of turning psychopath, as I regularly fantasized and meditated killing everyone, that including myself. I viewed living things as objects which I could and should manipulate, and if they caused me problems they were merely obstacles.
But I accidentally stumbled upon a cure for (at least) my own socio/psychopathism around the age of 14. I first introduced myself to natural psycho-stimulants, initially weed, and then psilocybin mushrooms. I then discovered atheism, which exposed me to intellectual standards, skepticism, and introspective psycho-analyzation, which caused me to run my behavior through a series of tests in order to recognize self-destructive behavior. This stimulation of my conscious intellect led to the developing of an internal therapist, which actively searched for predictable behavior and wisdom, which consoled and subdued my mentally unhealthy subconscious. I effectively seperated my conscious and subconscious minds from one another, with the longterm goal of consciously controlling all of my behavior, or taking control of my behavior from my subconscious. Because of this, my life took a 180 degree shift, as I’m now a self-made philosopher with a deepened appreciation for science and wisdom. I’m morally focused, I repurposed my manipulative skills to analyze and educate the people around me, and I’ve become an excellent problem solver. I went from wanting to act out emotional impulses and kill everyone to consciously controlling my behavior and loving all living things.
Weed, shrooms, and atheism literally made me a better person.
Very interesting. Something similar happened to me. After all these decades I haven't killed anybody. At least not yet.
I am interested, Jacob, if you know or have theories about why you became "sociopathic." Nature or nurture? I suspect it's most often both. In my own case, I lacked empathy for humans, not animals. This is at least partly because I was much abused by humans, including my own parents. I went through a period of fantasizing a lot about hurting people -- and I'm female. But I also think I inherited some potentially sociopathic genes, from my father, who was the main source of my angst and fury. I've had to do some pretty serious reparenting of myself, and I'm glad to say I too mostly love people these days. I'm not sure if my situation describes true sociopathy or not. There were many times in my life, though, where I lacked empathy, and didn't care about people's feelings as I should have, because no one had ever cared about mine; I was clueless that way. I do suspect that most of us have some sociopathic tendencies though, and that empathy can be learned (by some, not all).
So what should I do if I am a natural born Psychopath? I have impulsiveness and I'm at the moment masking my "true self".
All sounds like God to me....give credit where credit is due...atheism has nothing to do with self-analysis, introspection or, oh my God, anything to do with social scale behavior and responding to comparative norms. Everything you describe can be biblically lateraled by scripture...Do Unto Others...don't lie, don't steal, don't kill...sound familiar. Next thing you'll be giving Buddha the credit for your 180 degree self-healed, turn around. Anything or anyone BUT God - sounds to me like you got a little LIGHT shined on some things related to compassion and tolerance toward humanity and your place in it - congratulations! However you got there - keep going. Stay strong and don't be afraid to actually seek the Light for fear of the judgement you feel certain you will find there should you stand before and be seen by the Light for who you truly are or are becoming - no mask can hide your face from this Light and you know and fear that. in as much as whatever constitutes fear in you, but...what and who you find in the Light are what you come from. If it did NOT exist in the Creator - it cannot exist in you...no matter the toxic twists and menacing urges - at the core of it all IS something the LIGHT can see and recognize in itself. As a result - true understanding, "healing" as such, and a hope for better can ALL be found, embraced, used as power to seek understanding of the "whys" in your life, and then...get you to where you need to be to see - to see in the current comfortable blind darkness from which you currently view humanity, what needs adjusting, fixing, getting rid of, embracing or avenging to fill the empty spaces in you today that cry to be filled with pain, violence and the suffering of others. Just sayin...evil does not separate you from good...it comes from good gone wrong....but good, good was there first....and no matter the depths of the darkness, no dark can remain once the light is shined upon it...now that simple fact of physics should give us all hope for all who suffer from and can see in themselves something dangerous growing in and gaining urgency in our darkest human places.
I agree with the people who have developed awareness and chosen conciously another way I identify with a lot of these traits and was also abused greatly as a child I am sure I would have gone on to murder and all sorts of other crime were it not for Jesus and becoming a Christian not a very good one but a much better person than I would have been I still struggle to feel love but I am growing slowly and haven’t killed anyone so far
My Ex fits all those traits,I was drawn in so fast,he lacked empathy, moved into my place unannounced,lied straight away and still does.. He always went on about being a bad boy and spending long stretches in prison. He never could hold a job down,lived with other women and always abused them.He has no preference only they be younger than he.
I was never allowed to see his place,but I managed to see it and I found that he is a hoarder,even though he bragged about all this money he has accumulated.
His looks faded long ago and he hates and calls any males that have their own homes,businesses or looks after themselves
In the spotlight or not.
There are many things we would class as normal, but he has never done half of it in his life, he can't start a conversation or hold one because his mind is a blank about many subjects. To him every one is a know all and won't want you to have everything anything to do with them.He had me believe he had bowl cancer,also present me with an empty jewellery box that should have had an engagement ring.
He made me get rid of my dog,which still haunts me to this day,i got another one, but he was physicaly cruel to her. He could never do a hobby,read,or commit to anything regarding a project. A big house and car and holidays was always on the horizon but had an excuse when left to plan things. He would watch and try to control me,because we lived in the same block and he was my neighbour for many years.I had to move away,it was so mentally damaging.
After 10 years in my beautiful home,I had to leave because of a psychopath next door.
Joy, is it possible that we could talk one on one...
Hi,I recently discovered that my boyfriend pf 5 years is a psychopath..will gladly email you my story if u are interested in the topic
Hey, I'd love to hear more about that!
I am sorry that this happened to you. I have a similar situation but it’s much worse as I married him. In the past 8 years I’ve gone from being set for life to being homeless. My husband is now in prison and I am living in a cabin that his parents bought for him but kept in their name so I wouldn’t have a chance to take it, in the event of a divorce.. what’s worse yet is that his mother is also a psychopath and helps him to accomplish almost every evil thought that he has. They both lie for each other and it’s been a nightmare. I have nothing but social security now and I’m stuck here, disabled and a burden to my kids who rightfully should hate me for being with him for so long... I know I have severe PTSD from the past 8 years of my ice with him. I go to mental health appointments but the things I tell my counselor are so outlandish, I don’t think she believes me. I wonder every day how he could even think of most of the things he’s done to me and my kids and regret ever meeting him. I am mentally stuck in my head. He has stolen or destroyed everything I have ever worked for or that I care about my mothers wedding rings which I used to be married to him for example, I know he pawned them and so does his mother.. she continuously shows me the new rings that my father in law bought for her. One Christmas Eve, he and his brother were fighting in my yard because my husband was saying that their mother was a child molester. I have also stayed at their house with my husband after a party and have heard my father in law fighting with her and saying that she has molested him as a child. He is 40, in prison, and blames everyone but himself and so does she. I have no way to escape I’m financially trapped here and scared of what they’ll do next. In 2011 he burnt my house down because I told him I was in my way home to nj and leaving him. He has slashed my tires, cheated on me 100’s of times and done cruel things to my kids like putting powdered kool aide in my sons gas tank of his motorcycle and stolen their belongings and sold them. Honestly, I couldn’t make up most of the stuff he’s done to me so I don’t blame my counselor if she doesn’t believe me. His mother now helps him communicate with other women while he’s in jail and makes friends with women he’s cheated on me with and has them to her house for coffee or invites them out with her. She steals things from my home like new clothes I get or even letters he sends me from jail. I’m so lost in this world because of this toxic relationship I have no idea how to escape. Thank god you got away❣️ I would love to be out of here before he gets out of prison even if I have to wait until spring and leave with my dogs and a tent. I think he could be out by next August. I’m scared everyday and I have turned into someone I don’t even know anymore. I can’t live like this anymore 😭
m,am i would appreiciate if you did not say all phycopaths are that we are still people just like anny one else we just have an emotional block that gives us the abillity to not have any emotion and to do stuff you normals would never have the balls to do