Psychopathy

Psychopathy  (personality disorder,  character disturbance)
Interest of	Robert Hare
Subpage(s)	•Psychopathy/Forensic and clinical aspects •Psychopathy/Munchausen syndrome by proxy •Psychopathy/Psychopathy and gender •Psychopathy/Psychopathy and heredity •Psychopathy/Psychopathy and staged events

Psychopathy is the lack of a conscience and an unwillingness to bond, a dismissive attachment style. This is not to say that they necessarily behave completely selfishly, since other behavior patterns can be learned. However, unselfish behaviour does not come naturally to psychopaths, and are likely in the service of superficial charm and deception.

“(Psychopaths are) people who I think, at the core, lack a real concern and emotional connection with people. They don't seem to understand that other people have rights. I think this is partly because of a stunning incapacity - a lack of capacity - for empathy. I think if you wanted a shorthand term, it would be people who lack a conscience.”
Robert Hare

Forensic and clinical definition

Psychopathic personality (psychopathy) is a condition marked by a constellation of traits, including callousness, guiltlessness, dishonesty, superficial charm, egocentricity and poor impulse control.

Psychopaths have chosen a criminal way of live, thinking and predation, be it channeled as in sociopathy or in a more crude and arrestable way. It is moderated by temperamental and constitutional factors like high aggression, low empathy and sometimes suggestibility and ease of dissociation. A key element is predatory aggression as opposed to reactive aggression, they are intraspecies prediators . Predatory or instrumental aggression is cold and goal oriented with little or no empathy involved. Research originated from cats and how cats feel and react when they prey. Psychopaths view other humans much like a cat views a mouse - prey to be eaten and this mode of relating can be incredibly intense (i.e. psychopathic stare).

Psychopaths often survived a neglectful childhood and other interpersonal trauma, but the great number of false positives suggests that what matters is how they choose to react to those hardships. They refuse to internalize psychic models from healthy, supportive peers and instead identify with aggressive, sadistic caretakers (primary objects) which do not get integrated in a whole self concept. This fragmentation and part object world is used for deception later on in a chameleon-like fashion, enforced by envy-centered egocentric thinking and brutal aggression.

Behaviorally, from a DSM point of view, psychopaths show a mix of histrionic, borderline, narcissistic and antisocial personality disorders plus additional paranoid and schizoid features (thinking borders on delusion and transient psychosis are frequently observed). They can tell right from wrong, they "already see, they disagree." (G. Simon)

Biological motivational systems are fused and impulse driven, especially sexual, aggressive and attachment systems; reptilian residues might take over. Relations to others are defined by a power paradigm, so that sexual and attachment needs are perverted to control and subdue others. Sadomasochistic pleasures self-enforce damaging and antisocial actions and dominate a consistent pattern rationalization and denial.

Prevalence

Psychopaths are thought to make up as much as roughly 1 percent of the general populace and up to 25 percent of the prison population. This is pretty easily tested, but the entire phenomenon is not given much attention and brought into the public consciousness much. This number is almost certainly underestimated, as the PCL-R test addresses males and the prison population by definition. With a lower cutoff and salient psychological traits such as lying and deception considered equally damaging as physical violence (i.e. for leadership positions, also proposed for women) estimates rise.

There is considerable evidence that psychopaths are over represented in management positions, that is to say that modern hierarchies are disproportionately headed up by psychopaths.

Kernberg, in a lecture about malignant narcissism notes, that:

“... on the surface they don't show to be that ill. Except that they are individuals with unusual needs of extreme grandiosity , extreme aggression, extreme antisocial features and extreme paranoid orientation.

We find such persons very often in leadership positions of organizations or political systems, particularly at times when there are natural sharp divisions in the social body between social in-group and out-group and political ideologies or parties... that reflect that in their ideological formation... and they - under such turbulence, situations - they become the leader of an extreme group that exerts its superiority, the need to fight its enemies - they lead the group taking on a function... a direction... of the group towards triumph and exploiting the paranoid nature of the ideology showing an extremely aggressive behavior and total absence of any guilt feelings regarding the attack of the enemy [sic].

So, the search for the security of triumph, the security of the attack on the enemy, the suspicion of the danger of the enemy and the ruthlessness and total abandonment of moral constraints makes them ideal leader [sic] for such a regressed social situation.

So they become very dangerous leaders of institutions... school systems... hospital systems... political parties... or nations.

So... they don't become ordinary dictators - but they tend to establish totalitarian systems. They have to be loved... and feared at the same time, not just loved! They are not just narcissists who have to be admired and they are happy. They have to be loved because they are superior and the followers have to be afraid of them.

We have evidence that the personality of Stalin and of Hitler [...] presented these four features. [...] And, of course to these days [sic] we have such leaders all over the world... Idi Amin - nice illustration in Africa... and so on... and... ehm... we don't have to look very far... to find they today... eh... examples of that. [laughter].”
 (2017) 

Importance

Psychopathy is of great importance to the deep state. People who are totally selfish are also totally controllable by a suitable combination of threats and rewards. Psychopaths foster these motivations, as it fits their own view of how people (and the world at large) function (machine-like). By contrast, people with a conscience are less likely to be so manipulated and are more emotionally robust.

In the case of Tony Blair for example - lying to start a war in which over 1,000,000 people were killed could reasonably be expected to create psychological problems (i.e. at least sleepless nights or remorse). This does not seem to be an issue for Mr. Blair, whose only semblances of remorse are perfunctory in the extreme.

Sociopathy

Full article: Sociopathy

Psychopathy should not be confused with antisocial personality disorder, although these conditions overlap; the former is a largely personality-based condition, the latter a largely behavior-based condition. On WS the term sociopath is used for sucessful psychopaths, people who end up as leaders (see Kernberg quote) rather than in prison; who are successful in hiding and deceiving the public about their underlying psychopathic traits.

Another way of learning from a psychopath is by identification. These (often covertly) aggressive personalities become mercenary, sometimes forming teams and close relationships with them. They imitate psychopathic behavior to gain psychopath's recognition and advantages.

It is now understood that psychopathy is a spectrum ranging from normal to severely disturbed, not merely a genetic switch and that constitutional and environmental (learned) factors interact in a process, which is self enforcing via sadistic pleasure derived from deception, a psychopathic emotion called contemptuous delight. Meta-­analyses reveal considerable (29–56%) genetic influence on psychopathic traits, although they leave unanswered the exact nature of this influ­ence, i.e. how these genes get activated when 44-71% of children with this predisposition do not develop these traits. These findings underscore the importance of learning and free will in human development.

Intelligent psychopaths may channel their aggression in socially acceptable ways and may cause even more havoc when their crimes are non-arrestable or they can avoid being caught. However, the psychological makeup of those (so called sociopaths) is in every aspect as disturbed, perverse and harmful as their counterparts in prison. They may be even more successful in exploiting others, who are merely seen as prey.

Devaluation and psychopathic ITHY

Psychopaths devalue other people to bolster their pathological grandiose self. They feel even more contemptuous delight if this devaluation is covert, manipulating the mark into harming them self.

"I am only trying to help you (ITHY)" is a mind game described by Berne, when people have covert selfish motives underlying the offer to "help". Benign motives include social agency workers, hospitals, etc needing people to justify their budged; on the other end of the spectrum are black angel nurses, educational workers deriving secret pleasures from "necessary" punishments, doctors colluding with Munchausen patients and social control, even warfare disguised as "protection" and solicitousness.

Psychopaths may offer "gifts" which turn out to be rather annoying or rubbish - devaluing the mark - while playing the servant all along and expecting a great deal of gratitude in return. (Face masks and vaccines come to mind).

Projection

Psychopaths engage in a special type of projection, a malignant type of dramatization, called pseudo projective identification by Meloy. It has more in common with brainwashing or mind control techniques, which seems to come quite natural to them: it follows from deception (a core trait) and their wish for omnipotent control of their victims - they want others to accept their will as their own (which is a core definition of mind control).

They project their inadequacy onto others (they know they are different in core traits), often with devaluing attributes like "insane", "psychopathic" (aka "conspiracy theorist"), rendering people helpless or putting them in a powerless position, muzzling them socially or physically (critics defined as ill and confined).

Not satisfied with fantasy the Psychopath engages in repeated rehearsal of perverse scenarios and staged events, not merely playing a role but living the part - for the moment, and then switching to another role if needed. He also expects that others - seen as possessed parts of his grandiose universe - play their role in his dramatization as perfectly as he does. He engages in a livelong quest for manipulating and coercing vulnerable marks to comply to the (covertly) devalued position, using deception or threatening violence if instrumental.

Some come to believe their own lies. This has merely practical reasons, because when they live the part of benevolent dictator, "helper" or even victim (if their grandiose aspirations are thwarted), they are more convincing by believing their own fabrications (i.e excuses) and lies. The sadistic teacher or torturer may really "believes" that he is helping others becoming a better person (and that he knows better, of course) or protecting his family or country.

Other "philanthropes" may also believe in the "goodness" of i.e their foundations or genetic research projects. A critical point is often reached when the unrequested offering of "help" or "benevolence" is rejected. Open hostility or rage may be instrumentally displayed to knuckle the "ungrateful" under to succumb to the devalued, (in his mind: slave-like) position.

Weblinks

I Am Fishead is a documentary which explores the topic with world-renowned experts in the field.
Promotional access code for viewing - Short synopsis - IMDB page.

 

Examples

Page name	Description
Tony Blair	Remarkably popular at the time, Tony Blair was a UK prime minister, now infamous for lying the UK into invading Iraq, notwithstanding massive opposition. He is currently sought for War crimes by many people.
Document:Maintaining a Kakistocracy
Allen Dulles	Dulles served the longest ever term as Director of Central Intelligence and dominated American intelligence for a generation. He personified a cadre of Ivy League pragmatic elitists in high echelons of the government who greatly admired Germany’s scientific achievements.<a href="#cite_note-1">[1]</a> Dulles was fired by JFK after the Bay of Pigs and bore a grudge against him thereafter.
Lyndon Johnson	Generally agreed to have been heavily involved in the plot to assassinate his predecessor, JFK.

 

Related Quotations

Page	Quote	Author	Date
Human sacrifice	“While documentation of the widespread existence of Satanic human sacrifice cults is lacking, evidence of other forms of systematic human sacrifice is available. Two examples in modern history are the Catholic Inquisition, a human sacrifice cult of a religious-theological nature, and the Third Reich, a human sacrifice cult of a military-political nature. (In calling the Inquisition and the Third Reich cults, I am using the word in a broad, informal, and unscholarly sense, to mean an organized group driven by a well-elaborated theological doctrine, which for the Nazis was Aryan racial mysticism.) The fact that the Catholic Inquisition and the Third Reich were both run by middle-class, Caucasian, educated individuals from Judaeo-Christian cultures suggests that it is psychologically possible for ordinary middle-class citizens to be perpetrating such crimes in North America today, especially given the high level of violence in contemporary Western societies.”	Colin Ross	1995
Psychopathy/Psychopathy and gender	“For mothers, presenting the facade of ordinary, devoted maternal care provides an invaluable subterfuge for abuse.”	Anna Motz	2016
Psychopathy/Psychopathy and staged events	“It is only beneath the surface, well hidden from view, that darker tendencies lie.”	Robert Hare Paul Babiak

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