Psychopath. Just hearing the word makes us tense up. It is not an official clinical diagnosis, but many use the term to describe callous and morally depraved individuals.

While it’s true that this group exhibits a range of disconcerting tendencies, such as low empathy and remorse, grandiosity, impulsivity, and sometimes aggressive or violent behavior, scientific findings show that people have varying degrees and types of the condition.

Psychopathy seems to have some degree of heritability, although genetic and epigenetic factors are not entirely sufficient to account for the disorder. A prevalence of between 15% and 25% has been observed in incarcerated populations and approximately 1% in the general public, with a male-to-female ratio of about 3:1.

One Reddit thread where users have been describing their real-life encounters with psychopaths offers a chilling glimpse into how these traits can manifest in everyday life.

#1

Clinical psychologist here.

At first I didn’t know. If anything, given the context he was more put together than most of my patients.

The subject of his criminal past came up. I only knew he had served prison time some years before, not what he was in for. I had met with him a month or two when this came up.

Turns out it was two separate sentences served. Both were for r**e. In both cases he was the exact thing we are afraid of: a guy lurking in a dark alley jumping a drunk girl.

He told me about these things as if he was talking about the weather. When it dawned on me that he expressed no remorse or guilt whatsoever I got the same cold, gut-wrenching kind of primal fear you feel when you’re out for a walk and almost step on snake.

Image credits: anon

#2

I’m a bit late to this, so not sure this will be seen, but my wife is bugging me to share. I actually started my career in forensic psychology, but decided to get out of it after I got stabbed and assaulted a few times by patients. I then started working with children and teens. It was there, working with an 8 year old girl, we’ll call her Sarah – that I came across my first person I’d ear mark as a psychopath.

Sarah came from a pretty good family and they were really dedicated to help her moving forward. The parents had no obvious concerns with their own behaviour and they seemed to be pretty well regulated folks. They had bounced across a few therapists before seeing me, most of which seemed to struggle with the fact that Sarah did not seem to be demonstrating more traditional behavioural issues (e.g. she was not impulsive, she did not just lose her temper and go wild). Instead, Sarah was attentive, planning and meticulous. She was pretty text book in that she had a long history of mutilated barbies and some quite hurt animals along her path. The part that was bit unique with Sarah is she rarely got in trouble for doing anything because it seemed that she was really good at convincing other children, usually those a bit younger than he of doing things.

We got my foot in the door by doing some psych testing with Sarah. I had a booklet in front of her (thing costs about $200) that we use for the tests. Sarah proceeded to slowly rip one page at a time while looking me in the eye. I have a pretty good poker face. She asked me what I was going to do about it. I said “nothing”. She continued. After a while she admitted that she was surprised I had not reacted yet. I told her it wasn’t my booklet and that “I just work here”. That actually was why she stopped.

The next 9 hours I spent with Sarah continued with this kind of stuff. The most uncomfortable part was that she just stared at me constantly and tried to read my face. I think she was really thrown off by my lack of expression. When she was observed with her parents she did the exact same thing. Child protective services was already well involved and everyone was kind of unsure what to do about this kid. She was (fortunately or unfortunately) about to move across the country and into a heavily wooded area. I remember her dad somewhat sadly joking “at least the animals there might fight back”. I remember the parents just seemed scared. About 6 months after she moved one of the worst fires in the history of the area happened and destroyed entire towns. I’ve always wondered if it was Sarah.

Image credits: anon

#3

When telling that “he kept thinking about how k**ling people would be more fun than “lame” animals” (stray cats and dogs and everything else he could catch). Only 11 years old.

Image credits: Stokbakko

#4

I typed out a long response to this but then deleted it because I couldn’t really describe it without giving too many details away. One thing I will say is that psychopaths aren’t all your classic mu**derous criminals. Sometimes the nicest people you’ll meet are psychopaths, and it’s all an act to manipulate you to do what they want, or think a certain way about them, because that makes them feel like they’ve won and/or are superior to you. Watch out for the nice guys.

Image credits: hotrhino

#5

When i was a student we had an interview with a lady that k**led her baby child with a handgun because it cried so much that she couldn’t take it. At first we weren’t told that she was a psychopath and we were just told to listen to her side of the story. She was reading us from her journal that she made while she was in the institution. Not once did she mention that she was sad that her baby died, or how what she did was bad.

She was just reading angry toughts about her husband that left her and turned her in the police about what she did. She was justifying the k**ling because the baby was so unbearable and once she mentioned that she was angry and mad that her husband did not believe her that she didn’t have any other choice but to k**l the baby. She was very smart and well spoken and the whole time she was speaking she was trying to make us feel sorry for her for beeing locked up. We later learned that sometimes she was lying about not k*****g her baby and other times just brag about it, depending on who she was speaking with. Very normal looking person and very good speaker.

Edit: So to answer some of your questions. I am not from the US and I don’t think her name will matter to any of you. She was not schizophrenic nor had postpartum psychosis (if she did she would have felt any kind of remorse about what she did, which she did not) When I said normal person I ment it in a way that if I was talking to her in any other situation but this (in a mental institution) I would have no idea that she is a psychopat. She k**led her baby only for one simple reason, at the moment it just wouldn’t stop crying. She didn’t try to hide it or anything, at first she lied to her husband that it was by accident but than she admitted.

Image credits: coralfever

#6

Not a psychologist but a counsellor.

They were talking about a disagreement they’d had with their partner. An accidental spillage of water onto some electronics, it could honestly happen to anyone. As calmly as if he was describing… I dunno… changing a channel… he started saying how he pinned his partner up against the wall and started trying to strangle her. No emotion, no change of tone. Just as if it were a normal thing.

I was a trainee at the time and NOT qualified to deal with DV, needless to say I transferred the client to another therapist. However I was not allowed to end the session and had to sit with him for another ~20 minutes. I’ve never been so scared in my life. I felt like a small prey animal trapped in the room with a predator. He just didn’t care.

However, if you met him you’d think he was just a normal, successful kinda average dude.

I am 99% sure he was a sociopath, because he kept trying to get certain reactions out of me, kept changing his tactics, kept trying to ‘charm’ me, and when I wouldn’t rise to it became weirdly, coldly irritated. I’ve never had a client like it before or since.

Image credits: d3gu

#7

Current psychologist working in a prison here.

I’ve worked with three individuals I dare say would have met the criteria for anti social personality disorder within the last 2 weeks.

One commonality is that they use behaviours as tools to benefit only themselves. S*******m harm not because they wish to hurt themselves but to use it as a tool to lure staff into the cell to incite violence/gain extra medication/be sent to the SHU which comes with a status.

Image credits: almostfrasier

#8

I was a Police Officer I do have a Psychology degree. In My career. I have run into 3 psychopaths. One in particular. I meet him when He was 15. He was beating up His Mother. Remember the line from Jaws. “Look into a shark’s eyes. They have dead eyes”. That’s the way it was with this kid. His Mother went to the Hospital. She refused to press charges. But He did swing on Me and My Partner. Judge thought He could be saved.

Well numerous sexual a*****t charges latter. He was put away till He was 21. 3 months after His release He was flipping burgers at a 24 hour BK. A very accomplished Professor and Author came in to use the rest room. Well This rehabilitated person followed Her into the rest room. He r***d Her then sliced Her open. A State Police Sargent Happened to see the blood running under the door of the Ladies Room. With Him still sitting next to the body. He is now doing Life. I wish I could say I was shocked as to how He turned out like this. But even at 15 You could see it. You just had to spend 10 mins. talking to Him. And look into those eyes. (Yea I know not very scientific).

Image credits: Fallenone19108

#9

Teacher here- not psychologist.

I had a student in 3rd grade, 8 yrs old or so. Transferred from another school. He was very quiet, kept to himself, not talkative at all. He had an IEP (special ed). I do not recall what for. Anyway, one day my back was turned, I was writing on the dry erase board, when suddenly I hear a scream. I turn around and a student had a pencil stuck to their hand. I immediately asked what happened. All the students said “M” had stabbed him. I didn’t know why or what triggered him to do it. When I turned to M he was sitting quietly at his desk like nothing had happened.

I was shocked because i couldn’t understand why he would do such a thing. I then decided to look through his folder that came from his other school. I found an anecdotal from his previous teacher. In the notes she explained how M had stabbed another child on the chin with a pencil. I gasped and immediately wrote a letter to my principal asking for M to be removed from my class for the safety of my other students and mine.

Before this could happen we had to meet with his parents. Day of the meeting came, mom is present and so is baby sister (about 3-4 yrs old). We explain to her what transpired. She explains to us that he hasn’t been the same since dad left them. Mom also said they were already seeing a psychologist as a family. I felt awful! Towards the end of the meeting I notice baby sister has burn scars on her hands and arms. I ask mom what happened. She tells us that M poured alcohol on her and set her on FIRE!!!! That did it for me. I knew I could not and should not have him in my classroom. I made sure he was taken out immediately.

He was referred to another school/ hospital for children with mental disorders. I never saw M again. To this day, I still think of him and wonder what became of him. This was about 16 years ago. If you saw him, you would NEVER think this child was capable of such horrible things.

Image credits: Teach06ER

#10

I am a mental health professional working in corrections (max security facility). In my experience, psychopaths will have this “predatory” stare, especially when they are trying to manipulate you. It is completely unnerving and hard to describe to someone unfamiliar with this population. They also tend to be narcissistic and overly charming, making a point to be overly friendly with you.

Image credits: tiffpebbles

#11

Not a psychologist, but I was a mental health worker and unit manager at a psychiatric facility for juveniles.
One of our patients was there because when he was 16, he beat a woman unconscious, tied her up with a phone cord and r***d her.
When he finally got out, he called back one day to check in (a fairly common occurrence) and told me he had a girlfriend. I told him that was great and asked her name. In a voice that literally gave me chills, he said, “I haven’t talked to her yet, I’ve just been watching her.”
Yeah, I called his case manager and the half way house he was staying at….

Image credits: Dexter_Thiuf

#12

When describing some of the awful things he had done to people, he didn’t express remorse, regret, or even anger – he expressed disdain. He was disdainful of people that he had irreparably harmed because he did not get enough out of it – he used them for his own ends and he genuinely believed that they had failed him.

Image credits: anon

#13

Not my story but a friend’s who work in a criminal psychiatric facility. He had talks 2 days a week with an inmate there to see if he was holding up. He was in there for an unprovoked, rather brutal a*****t for 2 years I think. A few months in my friend brought up the a*****t and wanted to talk of the motivation behind it. His answer:
“oh this guy was walking with this gorgeous girl that I winked to, and she ignored me, so I decided I should show her there are consequences for her disrespect”
The victim was hospitalized for like a month partly due to a crushed ribcage by metal pipe.

Image credits: Nuditi

#14

Five year old came into our school for behavioral kids. Was referred to us after his parents found his old backpack he had supposedly lost. It had three dead cats in it, who had essentially been dissected alive.

Image credits: anon

#15

I’m a licensed mental health counselor, not a psychologist. He (30 something M) went into detail about how he “disciplined” his son by bouncing his head off the wall. Laughed about how he got disoriented afterward. I reminded him that I needed to call to report this and offered him the chance to be present for the phone call. He left overnight. By the time Childrens services showed up the next day he had left his wife and children and disappeared.

Image credits: anon

#16

The first one I encountered during my internship as a forensic psychologist. I noticed nausea coming up, but I suppressed it because I was so focused on observing. The man said things like he didn’t really know what to do after bashing his ex’s brain in with a vase, so he set on the couch and started smoking a joint. But then his dog wouldn’t stop whining because he couldn’t stand the sight of his owner laying there, so he covered her with a tarp and took a nap. Instincts, they’re real dudes!

Second one was a guy whose history I was taking and he said he once set his baby brother on fire when he was 7, because he was curious if his onesie would burn. The brother died of his injuries, but ‘obviously’ his mother covered that up.

And then many more as I worked in forensic psychiatry for 6 years.

Image credits: willow_star86

#17

As a social worker, I was talking to a guy with diagnosed anti-social personality disorder. It wasn’t so much the lack of empathy as the way he was running in circles around questions. If I brought up his d**g use, he brought up his car accident. Very obviously manipulative, trying to create multiple sob stories about he was the victim in every circumstance including multiple assaults he had committed.

About a year later that R. Kelly Gale King interview came out and the similarities I saw in my client with R. Kelly was shocking.

Image credits: Stmuse

#18

During couples therapy the woman is crying her eyes out, absolutely gutter over her husbands choices, he looks over at me and says, completely honest “Am I suppose to do something right now? Is this the part where I’m suppose to care?”

Image credits: NadiaLee81

#19

Therapist here – a good sociopath will, on the surface, seem totally invested in treatment – they kind of schmooze you/try to impress you. Then eventually you catch on that they’re manipulating you to think one way while they’re totally thinking/behaving opposite of what you think. Also, if you’re an empath and really pick up on people’s moods/“vibes”, sociopaths/psychopaths just give you a big gut feeling that something isn’t right – you almost feel slimy after talking to them. That’s my experience anyways🤷🏻‍♀️.

Image credits: willowluna2911

#20

Training psych student here, so I don’t have any specific real life people, but I do have a case we looked at for research purposes that was pretty grueling.

A seventeen year old boy was convicted of arson and double homicide from setting a house on fire. The victims inside were his parents, who were on the second floor. He had started the fire downstairs in their living room, and had made sure to gas the front and back doors before exiting through a window.

When he was taken into custody, he showed absolutely no emotions, other than a disdain for the sound of the radio in the police car. Other than that, he held normal conversation about girls and video games, as if he hadn’t just burned his parents alive.

When he was questioned, he, in detail, explained that he had slowly syphoned gasoline from both parents cars over the course of a few months. He didn’t have a job or his own car, so he had no other method to acquire it without seeming suspicious. His parents didn’t notice the subtle losses in gas in their cars, and went about life normally.
He stated that he went about committing the arson as if he were making breakfast. The casual demeanour of his words was described as “unnerving and unsettling”. At the end of questioning, he asked if their bodies had been recovered, and asked if he could see them, because he “wanted to know what they looked like after burning”.

Pretty jostling stuff in this world.

Image credits: WitnessesProtection

#21

Not a Psychologist but grew up with a psychopath. By mothers best friend had 4 sons, the second oldest was (as my mum would put it) pure evil. He pulled the legs of insects from he was 1, k**led frogs and tried setting a dog on fire. When he got to 5 he tried throwing a kid into a bonfire but fell in himself and had bad burns covering a lot of his legs and torso.

When he was 9 he used to hunt and t*****e rabbits and foxes, we knew he was also feeding cats to stay dogs by breaking their legs. 16 he pushed an old man down the stairs at a park and k**led him (this didn’t come out until he was caught later in life). By 18 he broke into an old couples home and shot them both dead. He has been in jail ever since.

Up until his conviction his mother always thought he was normal and even her favourite. She died a few years later. The judge said he was the coldest human being he ever witnessed.

Image credits: Nightmarex13

#22

This happened 8 years ago, and I quit my job afterward.

So, I was seeing one patient for a little over a month. Let’s call him Josh. I always knew he was a little off, but it didn’t strike me how f****d up he was until our final session.

He came in one day with a video camera, and said he needed to show he his art work. He proceeded to show me a video he took of his brother, tied down to a table, naked, in a spread eagle position. He took a turkey baster, filled it with boiling hot water, jammed it into his brother’s urethra, and forced all the boiling water in. His brother writhed and screamed and begged him to stop, but he didn’t. This was only the beginning.

Next, he got a nut cracker, and he put his brother’s left testicle in between it. His brother started crying and pleading with him at this point. Very quickly, Josh slammed down on the nut cracker, causing his brother’s testicle to pop, juices flying everywhere. Then he moved the nut cracker to the right testicle. He made the crushing of the right testicle much slower.

When we reached this point of the video, I looked over at Josh in disgust. He was erect. I ran to the bathroom and vomited. I called the police, and he was arrested at my office. We live in a f****d up world.

#23

I’m a psychologist, but not a therapist. However, this weekend I got called out to my sister’s home because her husband was threatening s*****e. I got there, freaking out thinking that I was going to find a body, to him just sitting there sipping whiskey. He thought it was funny – I literally had my video camera out and had already googled the Sheriff’s number in case I found him dead.

We went inside after I chewed him the f**k out, and he tried to tell me that he ‘never said anything about hurting himself.’ He convinced me that my sister was overreacting and being dramatic. Well, my sister came home a few minutes later, I made it there before her, and she started reading the texts:

> Tell the kids I love them. Tell them to say their prayers, their ‘yes ma’ams and no ma’ams.’ Tell them not to feel sad. I want you to be happy. I don’t want you to feel guilty about this. This wasn’t your fault, this has always been my destiny. (I’m trying to think of more but it was basically a straight 20 minutes of this s**t and then he turned off his phone.)

So he basically wrote a s*****e note in order to get a response from my sister and just f*****g lied directly to my face about it. Then, when he got confronted in front of me, he sat there talking about how ‘he was in trouble.’ He lambasted my sister for calling his parents.

I suggested counseling, he went off about how no ‘mortal man’ can tell him about himself.

So, tl;dr, yesterday I realized my brother in law is a complete psycho – no empathy, no remorse, focused solely on himself, willing to put other people through hell just to get his way. I knew he had issues, but this is beyond anything I suspected, and he just still can’t wrap his head around how awful it was. For anyone concerned, his own mother and father got involved and they’re making him stay with them until he gets some counseling. We’ll see how that works out, not really hopeful.

#24

Not a psychologist but a patient that co-lead a support group once. Had to quit when I realized I was over my head because one guy went into serious detail about how **his lifelong obsession was to cut someone’s skin off perfectly intact and use it as wallpaper.** He was completely serious and we couldn’t seem to cut him off. Guy wasn’t just being that edgy group member either, he seemed genuine and honest and he was perfectly composed the whole time he spoke. It was so casual, like he was talking about his 5-year goals or favourite hobby something. That’s probably the most terrifying part.

I wouldn’t usually answer a question I don’t qualify for, but felt that this one was good enough to share.

Image credits: puffpuffpazuzu

#25

Not psychologist but knew one that examined a 15 yr old boy who set fire to a teacher when she asked why he did it the response was “she said that she wanted to learn how to dance someday, so i lit her on fire so she can dance like a flame instead of taking lessons” in the most carefree voice and she now regrets doing her job.

Image credits: Steeldivde

#26

Psychology student here. I got the chance to sit in on the interrogation (on a monitor in the other room) of this guy who was clearly off. He seemed like a normal enough guy, c*****d a joke about the bland room and sat down, smiling like how politicians do, just that fake but somehow authentic smile. I thought he was actually innocent at first because most people I’ve seen interrogated who are guilty are really quiet, shy and nervous, but he was confident and relaxed. To make a long story short, he was a 20 some year old who shoved his mother into the corner of a wall, her head c*****d open and he watched her bleed out. Through the whole interrogation he was laughing and smiling, you could clearly tell he felt no emotional connection to his own mother, and had no guilt about anything he’d done.

Image credits: Kalgor91

#27

Asked him to draw a picture of how he was feeling that day. He drew a detailed picture of me on fire. He was five.

Image credits: anon

#28

He was mad that he was put in juvie for r**ing a girl. He admitted to doing it, and was mad that she ruined his reputation. He laughed about it.. and laughed at girls in the room who were sexual a*****t survivors. I had to ask for him to be removed from my caseload because he was negatively impacting the group… and me.

#29

” I sometimes think that k**ling humans would be more fun than my fish” 10 years old. Scarred me forever.

Image credits: RexySurf

#30

Not a Psychologist, but knew someone who was diagnosed as a psychopath in school.

We’d started on the same day, so we’d sort of gotten lumped together. People tended to avoid him because he was frankly a little odd. He didn’t do anything particularly, but looking back that was it, he didn’t do anything. He didn’t seem to ‘enjoy’ anything, he just sort of followed everybody around. Anyway, years go by and he and his family move to the states.

A few weeks later my mum calls his mum and finds out some things. The guy (we’ll call him E) had a rage fit and launched chairs, tables and who knows what else through windows, doors, anything in reach. It had apparently taken 3 police officers to pin him down, during this time he’d also apparently stripped naked. After a short interview he was commited to a hospital where he was diagnosed as a psychopath.

Some time later he came back here. Me and my mum ended up staying friends with the family, since I also knew E’s siblings really well and I went to their house. I decided before going I wasn’t going to treat him differently, as I believe even people like that deserve some form of normalcy even if they don’t understand it. Maybe it was because now I knew, but I realized just how…off he was. I’m not sure what it was exactly, but he could talk about some pretty messed up stuff completely straight faced, I specifically remember him saying he wanted to join ISIS so he could shoot people. He wasn’t particularly intelligent, so I never got the ‘Hannibal Lecter’ vibe, but I definately understand what people mean by a primal sort of fear. It’s the feeling of your body priming itself to bolt at the first sign of trouble, muscles tensing, subconciously judging how quickly you can get to the door etc.

I remember one time, after a particular, uh, enlightening conversation with E about how the Jews were secretly aliens, I stepped outside for a breather and spoke to his mum in the kitchen. I knew her pretty well, since I was in my mid teens by this point, so I asked her straight, “Mrs E, please don’t take this the wrong way, but if E has one of his moments when I’m around, what do I do?”. She sighed, looked at me and said, “Whatever you have to do”. She’d apparently been told by the psychology team there was a very high likelyhood E would try to k**l one of the family some day and she’d explained to the others there was no shame in defending themselves.

I haven’t seen or spoken to the family in quite a few years for one reason or another, but I sometimes wonder how they are. It might seem over dramatic, but that day I did steele myself that I might end up killing one of my oldest ‘friends’ to stop him killing me or one of his siblings. I rationalised it that in that moment he wouldn’t be E anymore, just a threat.

Image credits: GenericlyOpinionated

#31

How do you know if you’re a psychopath? I technically care about people as a whole, as far as their rights and such, but individually I feel like I don’t care about people like I’m supposed to. I think there’s a disconnect. Most people are just an inconvenience to me. I try to be a good person on the surface, but I don’t feel like I am not-so-deep down.

Image credits: selfmade117

#32

Not a psychologist, but my wife is. I’ve asked her previously a question that goes along these lines. She says that oftentimes psychopaths and sociopaths fit in with the rest of the population, they manage to hide their strange behaviour and temporarily replace it with behaviour seen as “normal”.

She gave me some examples; Ted Bundy, Rodney Alcala (The Night Stalker) and John Wayne Gacy just to mention a few. While these men where a little weird in their childhood, they quickly understood that to fit in they had to radically change their behaviour so that they could lay low. Gacy even managed to get married and have kids.

So in my wife’s personal experience, it sometimes is very hard to indentify a psychopath as they tend to know what “answers” will qualify them as “normal”. But she says that a few revealing traits are the overwhelming joyfulness when telling stories, the aversion to sad memories and the overall difficulty understanding other people’s feelings. But even then, these are not traits exclusive to psychos.

#33

You feel it in your gut first. Using a validated measure, and constructing a thorough case history to discuss in supervision – this is how you test your gut feeling. But you feel it often quite quickly.

It tends to begin with just a sense that something is “off”. When you’re doing therapy with someone, we tend to build up quite a strong rapport with people. So there’s lots of micromimicry going on, and you start to “tune in” quite deeply to unconscious body language. When you’re in this state, sometimes you just start to feel very uneasy and you can’t articulate verbally exactly why yet. This is often because of subtle micro expressions (super fast flashes of emotion, lasting fractions of a second) that we perceive, but don’t consciously register. You see flashes of contempt-related emotions and “burglar smiles” – basically emotions related to dominance and deception.

The next thing you’ll notice is a lot of use of projection going on. This starts quite quickly (usually in an assessment session – I mean as an aside, being assessed by someone else can feel quite threatening to anyone’s self image, let alone a psychopath’s). Quite predictably there will be status challenges – asking you about your credentials, your experience etc, and then often some put-downs and digs with plausible deniability (eg. joking that all psychologists are mad themselves), or just turning the tables by asking who’s the maddest person you’ve ever treated. You start to feel on the back foot and like you’re now being assessed by them.

As time continues, they will attribute a lot of their own emotions to you as the projection deepens. Eg commenting that you look sad, asking if you’re ok, or conversely asking why you got angry just then. As time passes their affect turns from microexpressions to more overt dominance displays (leaning back, smirking, getting up and striding around etc). By this point your initial gut feeling is getting more supportive evidence and it’s time to bust out the validated measures.

The biggest sign of all is a general unwillingness to show any vulnerability at all, or to be in a one-down position. The engagement will be superficial – often “pally” or “matey”, with lots of “banter” and joking, always flying close to the wind of outright mockery and contempt. They will start subtly and increasingly become overt in their need to control and dominate the therapy sessions. If the therapist maintains an aloof control, the ante may keep being raised and even end up with overt intimidation of the therapist.

#34

This thread is interesting so I thought I’d contribute.

I’m not a psychologist, I’m a criminologist. Obviously it’s not the same sort of thing and I’ve never been in a clinical situation, but you might be interested in some related experiences. Note here that I’m going to be very careful with my language in order to maintain professional integrity; apologies for the stilted language.

I’ve been to a couple of prisons for academic stuff and work. These are not actually all that interesting, because I knew what the people in there were for and it wasn’t as if I was surprised that some of them were psychopathic. But those would be my first experiences.

But my area of professional and academic expertise is child sexual victimisation. I’ve very occasionally seen psychopaths in the making, as it were. Victims who have been so terribly victimised and neglected that you can see them setting out on the path of an a****r or other type of criminal. It wasn’t my responsibility to intervene (and I don’t have any expertise in that area of things), but knowing the case histories it was sad to watch. I’ve talked to a few police officers, social workers and so forth about a few of them. It’s like watching a large tree toppling in slow motion–you know it’s going to crash into the ground, but there’s not much you can do about it.

I have met (in a professional capacity but in a roundabout sort of way as it’s not the usual stuff I do) the relative of a serial k**ler who was also once a suspect. I came away from that meeting knowing with certainty that they were the guiding hand behind the crimes of the serial k**ler. The police were pretty sure as well, but there was simply no evidence. Both are now deceased, and frankly I’m not going to shed any tears for them. There was definitely familial a*&se there as well.

I have encountered some persons, a very small number, that were psychopathic and quite smart. This was through working within my field. One of these persons indicated that they were a*****e towards animals in lieu of, or to work up to, children. I’m not going to repeat it, but what they said was something that haunts me to this day and I haven’t even been able to repeat to my closest friends or even my psychologist.

Another one of these persons escaped justice. A very, very smart person. It was no-one’s fault; the investigation was excellent, the police were great, everything lined up and a lot of justice was achieved. That person, however, escaped justice by being very, very smart. They were responsible for very serious, sustained offending and would definitely be classed as a psychopath.

Last, I met a friend of a person who used to be within my social circle who was also victimised in their childhood. I have a suspicion, without any solid evidence, that they have committed serious crimes. They hold down a professional job and are very successful in life. From the standpoint of someone who cannot diagnose psychopathy and was not treating or analysing them, but has studied it, I would say that they lack any real empathy or conscience. A lot of their emotions (but not all) seemed to me to be a simulated and conscious act.

The a**se they suffered was of the worst possible kind. As a result they were wary of most men, but warmed up to me a little due to the work I do.

A**se and neglect during the formative years seem to be a very common thread for many criminals and psychopaths. That said, I dare say there are some who are just wrong in the head, but I, personally, haven’t encountered any of that sort.

I’ll end this already-too-long post with a word of caution to everyone reading. It’s very easy to be horrified of the actions of psychopaths and criminals. It’s easy to be fascinated by their psychology. But these are *people*, just like we are. Most of the time, their actions can be traced back to what happened to them, how they interpreted it, how they learned from their life experiences.

There but for the lottery of birth. There aren’t any evil monsters living under bridges or in forests; it’s just us. We bear responsibility for the evil of psychopaths as a society, as communities and nations. We create the conditions for crime and evil. We are the monsters, and we create the monsters. As Oscar Wilde put it, we are each our own devil, and we make this world our hell.

#35

Not a psychologist but worked in a residential treatment facility for teen boys for a while during college. My biggest take away was that most criminals aren’t fundamentally bad, they’re broken in some way, and make bad choices sometimes. But there was also a degree of honor among them. We lived on a huge campus and the cabins of patients didn’t interact much. Because I was a young, small, woman I was obviously never going to be a physical match for my patients should they decide to attack me. It wasn’t scary though. I actually never felt safer than when we were transitioning to and from activities because I knew if one of the patients in another cabin so much as looked at me wrong, my boys were not going to put up with it. They bonded to me quickly – and other staff, typically because they didn’t have very many good examples of adults in their own lives.

That said there was one kid I will never forget as long as I live. This kid, let’s call him D, scared the s**t out of me. D had been inpatient for over four years (the average stay is 6 months). He had recently stepped down from the secured cabin to our cabin and his reputation preceded him. At first I was naive and figured he was just misunderstood (the last time I ever got white savior complex). It eventually became clear that Ds problems were deeper than I was remotely equipped to deal with. Apparently this had been the case over the 4 years he’d be there. He couldn’t be in a foster group home because he’d r**e the other children (typically younger boys but if he were mad enough he’d do it to anyone he could pin down.) He was essentially unadoptable and didn’t want to be adopted anyway because he thought his mom would be hurt. She wasn’t. She was just as scared of him as everyone else. I finally realized how bad it was when I realized he’d punish himself if in so doing he also got the satisfaction of hurting someone else. For example, he’d constantly talk s**t to the biggest guy on our cabin. The guy would ignore it until eventually D wore him down enough or said the right thing and then the big guy would kick Ds a*s. And D got hurt. But the other kid would get lockdown for putting hands on someone. It delayed his release. D got off on that. He didn’t care about physical pain if it meant someone else was made to suffer.

One night, everything was winding down and it was almost time for bed. D wasn’t listening or participating or something. I don’t even remember the exact event, only that something happened and next thing I know D is coming at me and he’s not holding back. He wants to k**l me.

Another therapist, a large, wonderful, patient man, pulled him back and put him into what we call a hold. It doesn’t hurt but it does pin you down. I used that time to go into the office and call for backup. There were no windows in the office but i could hear D outside the door screaming for me to come out so he could “r**e me with a stapler like I deserved” and other very specific threats.

But even still I thought maybe he could be rehabilitated. Then, the next day, the large man who had protected me wasn’t at work. I asked about him. He was on probation because D claimed he hurt his arm while restraining him. There were cameras everywhere and we watched the video but when it’s a fight with several people gather around like that it can be hard to tell details. Eventually the therapist resigned because getting fired for “a**se” is a quick way to end your career. It wasn’t until that day that I realized the whole thing was calculated. D acted out enough that our cabin wasn’t able to go to the dining hall and had to have sack lunches for dinner. He knew this would create aggravation. Then he used the already tumultuous atmosphere to act out and get the other boys more riled. He knew if he came for me, someone would step in. He knew that it would probably not follow exact standards for a hold or at the very least the video would be inconclusive. He knew the therapist would quit or be fired. There was no point. The male therapist wasn’t overly hard on D, he just happened to be the one on duty when D decided to ruin someone’s life.

It was that event that made me realize that some people aren’t worth saving.

I ended up moving states, taking an office job, and never returning to the city I worked in.

#36

My wife worked as a counselor at a center for youth at risk. Lots of really sad stories there – neglect, p**********n, gang involvement, etc. There are two stories that really stick out to me, and we have speculated that they may be related.

One day she sent me a picture of this rabbit that had been… halved? It was just the back end of the rabbit laying on the ground with the heart laying a next to it, in a staged fashion. The heart was completely colorless and drained of blood, with the arteries and veins cleanly cut. There was zero blood on the ground or on the fur of the half of the carcass that was there. This rabbit carcass was not chewed or torn, but cut cleanly down the middle. The kids living at this facility were definitely not allowed to have knives, scissors, etc. When my wife brought this to the attention of her superiors at work she was basically gaslighted and told it was obviously a coyote or something. This was a fenced facility that no coyote could get into, even the rabbit shouldn’t have been able to make it in there. They never investigated and my wife was, more or less, told to drop it. She had her suspicions about who it may have been, but never was really sure.

Fast forward a few months, and my wife finds out one of the kids that she worked with there had stabbed his mom in the neck multiple (10+) times. I can’t remember if the kid was adopted or not, but I think that’s beside the point. She still isn’t sure if it was him who made the dead rabbit art, but if I had to put money on it he would be my bet.

#37

I’m a mental health counselor for a residential inpatient with adolescents and I always love these threads so I started looking. That’s when I realized that I actually think I’m currently working with a psychopath, whom I’m actually seeing in about four hours.

The most history I’ve gotten from him is that he has 4 counts of m**der, has been physically aggressive with two girls, and has been in and out of gangs since age 12. His history of violence doesn’t seem to phase him much but he’s also in the throes of working a 6-9 month long residential that usually surpasses a year, so he’s only about a third of the way through the program but part of me feels I’m waiting for a level of remorse that’s never gonna show.

He’s court mandated (obviously) and seems to be making good progress. He’s been there for about 3 months and I just recently started working with him after his last counselor left (she was an intern, didn’t leave because of him).

As I spoke with him I got the vibe that he wasn’t necessarily remorseful and actually expressed a desire to hop back into the gang to make enough money and move out to buy his own place in the projects. He said that he knew what he did was wrong and that he wants a different life for himself and that getting a place in the projects is just a fall back plan. However, he only said this to me after I approached the topic as to why this wasn’t a good idea, and he seemed to willingly agree. He’d had a history of getting into problems with some of the other kids in the residential, but that’s not new or unique by any means. When I was assigned his case I was determined to help get him on the right track, as all of us in this field are. But some part of me thinks he’s placating me cause he knows I don’t know him that well.

I’ve studied psychology as well as psychopathy for a while now and I think I may have been blinded to this possibility because he seems like a good kid, and he’s just that, a kid.

No callous indifference, no hint of malice, he makes it seem like that was just what he had to do. Which a looooot of kids growing up in very impoverished areas are almost taught to do. But as I read this thread he immediately came to mind. I’m not sure if it’s just me looking for it now or what but I feel like there’s more going on there than appears to be.

#38

Not me, but my brother is a psychologist, and he’s told me some crazy s**t. Once, he was talking to some brothers (separately) who were bullying their younger brother who kept bullying their little brother. One of them told my brother that he would beat their little brother with a phone book because they wanted to do an experiment to see if his bones could break. The other one said that he locked their little brother in the basement for a whole night because he thought it was funny that his little brother was crying so loud. They’re both adults in a psych ward now…

#39

It is extremely hard to be honest. I’ve worked with plenty of people with diagnoses of “psychopathy/psychopathic traits”, or “antisocial personality disorder” (as it is now called) who are definitely not psychopaths. They are actually quite rare. The closest I’ve come was a meeting with a guy after he had just been sent to prison for murder; he described the murder very blasé but with lots of detail with an intent to disturb me. He also mentioned having a psychologist as a child due to his mother’s concerns for his “robotic nature”, however he upset the psychologist so much she refused to see him… So he says. I ofcourse have no proof of this and am not inclined to believe it.

It’s important to note though, that psychopathy isn’t a “bad” thing, it’s psychopathy plus a history of a**se that causes the antisocial behaviour and tropes many associate with psychopaths, and the same behaviour can occur without the psychopathic genetic/neurological makeup.

#40

Often there is a particular face they make when they are relating a story, usually about how clever they are. One of the Ted talks on how to spot a liar calls it ‘duping delight’. Sometimes they can’t contain their rage and you see them switch.

Edit: last sentence is a personal observation not related to the ted talk

Edit: to add link. We had to watch it for our criminology class. As other posters have noted there is no evidence based way to spot a liar. I just found the duping delight fascinating. I also see it in the faces of my young niece and nephew at times!

#41

Not a psychologist, but a nurse who sees way too many psych cases. One time I had a pt who was brought in after trying to break into a families house while they were home. He was on my telemetry unit because his electrolytes were outta whack and he was acting like he didn’t remember trying to bust into an entire families house with them home.

He was getting antsy, but the hospital I worked at had a stupid fall-risk policy that kept patients in bed, even if they were young/healthy/capable of being responsible for their fall. Mental health patients like to pace, especially when they start to feel like they’re using it. So, anyway, I’m trying to keep dude in bed because if his feet touched the floor a loud alarm would go off, pushing his crazy a*s closer to the edge. So, I’m in there trying to talk to him and deescalate.

We’re talking and he tells me he is a bad person, that his cat was mutilated and his sister asked what happened to it and he told her the dog did it. But, he told me that his secret is that he did it. He k**led the cat so bad that it looked like a dog ripped it to pieces! He also shared with me that he knew what he was doing when he tried breaking into the family’s home, and that he wants to hurt people. Of course, I shared this info with the hospitalist and the psychologist and, naturally, he was discharged free and clear the next day. No follow up with the law or outpatient psych. Gotta love it.

#42

The eyes when they believe they’re supposed to put on an emotion. You have to understand. It’s going ouch when you bang your funny bone, even though it doesn’t hurt, because all your life, people have cried out in pain when they’ve banged their elbow. You meet enough people like that and you find yourself hating any obligational situation in your life when you have to lie, like being asked how you are and saying good when you’re not, simply because all you can associate it with, is them.

Image credits: AllElse11

#43

I’m not a psychologist but I know a few, have studied it extensively and my sister works with MH in the police.

He told me he tried to care how people feel but he doesn’t know how that would even come about. How do you know you care for someone? How do you not feel indifferent? He just said he has 3 emotions indifference, anger and pity.

#44

Not a psychologist, but 4 days ago after 35 years I found out by myself that my father is either a psychopath or a hardcore narcissist without him taking any guilt at all for anything or any feeling of remorse for what he is doing. Having blamed and shamed me all my life when we were both alone, so there were never witnesses. “You are the best son, I can think of” in public and “I’m so disappointed in you!” and way more in private. Push and pull. You can’t do anything right and think you are to blame.
There was not much physical a**se, because it seems they don’t like to leave traces (on your body).

I did a s**t ton of personal development work on my own for 4 years and left my home country 3 years ago because I thought something was wrong with me. I was lying in bed and cried out of fear of having to go into a mental asylum many times.

3 years of separation and hundreds or even thousands of hours of contemplation and building up knowledge about personal development and many insights lead me to freedom – Only to realize that because of this history with my father I was in a relationship with a narcissist. Because I now was very sensitive I could feel when I got manipulated by her, I cut cords immediately.

You are a honeypot for these types of personality disorders, because you are already weak and an easy prey. So chances are high that its not only one person in your circle of “friends” – and you can literally trust no one who he has had any contact with at all. It is enough when people have had a nice first impression of him, that they doubt everything you say and by that increase the feeling that you already have that you are going insane.

Because of this, if you have only the slightest suspicion I’d suggest seeing a counselor. Because he is a neutral person and tell him about your suspicion.

A clear sign after the break in period where he/she gains your trust is that you feel confused or like in my case, you think that something is wrong with your mind or that you go insane if it goes long enough.

Only after hardcore analyzing yourself and listening carefully how your body and mind reacts to the words spoken by that N or P you have a slight chance to identify him/her.

Also another sign I think is overlooked too often is that when you have very low self esteem, are insecure, constant self doubting etc. Chances are high that you are under the influence of at least one a****r.

Their biggest tool is that you trust every word of them, which makes it almost impossible to see what really is happening. Also it (In my case) always happens off record, so you never have proof that they manipulate you. They are ultra nice to your friends, so when you start talking to them, they are on the side of the a****r which can really drive you crazy with self doubt. It must be like that to be physically abused and everyone says you are responsible for having been abused. Victim shaming.

And a last tip: If you realize it, don’t confront them and don’t try to rescue people of his circle, you might have already the label crazy on you.. He managed that. They have to loose their identity which is for them the same as to die. So they might even k**l to prevent this from coming out. Cut cords and never exchange anymore words with them or their friends is my solution. And check your friends for signs of this behavior.

It really is that creepy, or even more. (After having read it again).

#45

I remember a resident I worked with when I used to work one of the “Orderly” positions during the evening shift at a facility for kids and adolescents with special needs and mental health conditions near Chicago.

This resident was a young man in his early 20’s who I had worked with a lot. For the most part I actually got along with him really well and he usually seemed to show affection towards others. However, I had been warned by experienced staff to be careful near him as he is very strong and used to suffer from delusions. Despite the claims, he was always friendly towards me, possibly since we both had very similar hobbies and liked science-fiction. But one day as I came in to work for the evening shift, I saw the staff who usually worked with him in the mornings, and his shirt had blood all over it. I was told that during school when his staff was telling him to be more appropriate, the resident had gotten up and started punching the staff in the face and even started beating him with items he could grab. I cannot comment on the incident as I did not see it, but I had seen the resident over time afterwards, and his sense of empathy was odd. He knew that what he did was wrong and that other kids were now scared of him as a result of his actions, but he didn’t seem to have strong feelings about the day himself. It’s not that he was emotionally disconnected, because he did try to get along with most people and aimed at being more positive.

In all honesty, his incidents were uncommon and possible (but still difficult) to maintain. He was usually easy to approach and did well in the classes he took, and while he was there he had struggled with his emotions as he was both in a residential facility and coping with the loss of family members at the same time. I learned that he got arrested years after he aged out of the facility, for attacking a care worker at a group home. I miss the conversations with him and hope he gets a chance to turn things around, but I know that his mental condition while being in the jail system stops that ideal dead in it’s tracks.

#46

Just watch The Sopranos.

**Spoilers:**

* The main character, Tony Soprano is in therapy up until the second last episode.

* He goes through major psychological arcs that playout every season and in smaller episodic fashion.

* These build upon each other.

* Until we start to see Tony spinning his wheels. Problems become recurring when he’s seemingly moved past them in previous seasons.

* His psychologist is given a head’s up on research about sociopaths how they can use psychology sessions as a tool and how they will never make progress.

* This explains why in the final season we see Tony spin his wheels over and over.

* Tony’s been using psychological tricks learned in his therapy sessions on his opponents and human obstacles all series long and has not been making any progress.

#47

I work within school systems & there’s always one kid that stands out in my mind when stuff like this is asked:

“V” was a 6 year old boy who clearly had behavioral issues. He literally would not respond to any teachers when asked a question (no learning disabilities), he always had this cold stare, he basically “hated” all his classmates, and especially “hated” girls. Once he took a baby doll and started stomping on it saying it was “a girl baby” and then laughed. As the months went on he just got more and more defiant towards all adults. His classmates started saying he was “hurting” them (hitting, kicking). It got to the point where one little girl said he was “choking” her out on the playground. We would always try and talk to him about his actions, but he wouldn’t say a word. He would get recess taken away or other punishments, but his agression continued. We reached out to his parents MANY times, but they always denied his behaviors & claimed the other children were lying.

#48

Common denominator appears to be “utter incapability to empathize” with other humans.

#49

You notice almost imperceptible facial features that betray their happiness when talking about the misery of others. Maybe even happiness is too strong a word. Curiosity would be more apt. They see people as objects. Some clients say things that are attention seeking or for shock value. People with true antisocial personality disorder are more likely to try and act they way they think you expect them to, but they can’t because they don’t feel things the way people normally would. Their small facial expressions give them away. It’s like you’re sitting across from someone who is giving you the most nauseating sense of uncanny valley. Also therapist here, not psychologist.

#50

Not a psychologist. But I know a person who is diagnosed high on spectrum. Crazy interesting dude that you never fully trust. Met him through parties at university. He was THE party guy. Always hosted the best ones, knew tons of people, your typical idolized party kid that everyone had wanted to be friends with. I always thought he was a liar and never really gave him a ton of my time or energy, but friends liked his parties so we went.

Went for a smoke one day and he followed me down to talk and was trying to pull all his usual stuff. The micro facial expressions explains a lot why I didn’t believe him in almost everything. He slept with a lot of girls, like a lot. I never thought he seemed the type to just be a h***y player, couldn’t ever put my finger on why.

So he followed me down and started going off just talking and I just kinda ignored him and pulled the “uhhu” thing, I had no interest in being lied to. Finally he got fed up and started trying to turn the tables on me, saying I was stuck up, we could be great friends ect. I had enough and said basically “No, cause you’re a blatant liar and use people and I’ve seen this going on for over a year, not interested.”

Then the oddest part happened, his face just went blank. And I don’t mean blank like someone’s who in shock or anything, like scary watching a horror movie blank. I, being the dummy I am just stood there annoyed making eye contact, it felt like forever.

Finally he goes “how do you all this?” I basically told him I could just tell, had a gut feeling. He uses people, he uses all the girls he sleeps with and he uses the parties as attention, not anything else. That’s when for the first time in the whole time I had ever seen him, he told the truth. Once again I don’t know how I knew but I just knew. He has ASPD and was partially diagnosed when he was younger and confirmed when he got a bit older. I was right for his reasons why he did the stuff he did. Whole time he had this blank face with just the odd twitch on it.

Then boom, he starts laughing and joking around again, trying to get a reaction from me.

We had a few interactions like this over the years, and I still bump into him on odd occasions. He has always turned it into a game of when he takes girls home or obviously manipulates people (apparently not obvious to them), of catching my eye and shooting me a wink. Like we’re in some private joke together.

#51

Not a psychologist but work with mentally disturbed kids. We unfortunately see a lot of sociopathic children here. A lot have prior records of animal a**se. One kid came in and she would get mad at being told no by a staff. She would then systematically try to hurt every other child around her just because she was pissed. They had nothing to do with the incident.

#52

You have to watch the Child of Rage documentary on YT. The little girl sticks with you.

#53

I’m no psychologist, but I know a couple people who I have reason to believe are psychopaths. One thing they pretty much all have in common, is lies and they never feel the need to break eye contact.

#54

Not my story but my friends Aunt is a Psychologist. She had a guy come she hadn’t been treating very long. He walked in, made sure everyone was looking, and poured bleach in his eyes. She said it was a fun day.

#55

I was in the psych ward for a manic episode. I’m not a psychologist, but I have met a lot of crazy people due to hospitalization. Pretty much all of them have been kind.

One day, a new kid named “Brad” arrived. Within 5 minutes of arriving, he tried to tell me that he had al theories more impressive than that of Marx, Foucault, and Plato. He stopped talking for a minute, staring off. He then turned to me. His eyes were fixed, dead, and unflinching. He said he was r***d as a child. He stood up and went to tell everyone else this same information.

When we were watching tv in the common room, he casually told us he had hit and molested his dog and sliced his mother’s leg with a CD.

He was constantly racist, especially towards the black employees responsible for our care.

When this new girl arrived, he started getting really sexual with her and she was of course afraid and uncomfortable. We told him to stop and he did. But not before screaming at her for some reason.

He constantly sought everyone’s validation. For some reason, he really wanted mine. He talked my ear off about wanting to be my friend. Come to find out he was telling everyone that I reminded him of his rapist. Who by the slim chance, had the same name as him.

I legit thought that dude was going to k**l me. Never had I been so disturbed to encounter someone.

#56

The best way to find a psychopath is that they say everything right. My father has worked with many that knew exactly how to make you believe that they’re “doing better” and “genuinely believes you’re making a difference in his life.” He’s very intelligent and sees right through it, often kicking them out of his office. Ladies, if some guy comes up to you and says everything perfectly without anything awkward or weird, RUN.

#57

My time to shine. This guy with the nicest mom on earth (poor lady paid everything for him even tho he had a job, cooked for him, she even sold her house so the son could afford a better one) he would always “praise” his mom for all she did, but you could tell it was performative bs. One session his guard must have been off, I asked him why all the passive aggressive comments about his mom, if there was something there that was bugging him, the guy looks at me dead in the eye and tells me yeah I’m not sure I love my mom, she’s a burden. And that’s how I found out he had no empathy whatsoever.

#58

When the student I was evaluating told me about the animals he had tortured. *Sigh*, was/is always really hard to hear.

#59

Not a psychologist but from my experience of dating a psychopath (didn’t know until years in). A lot of what appears as emotion is simply mirroring emotions they see others exhibit and how they believe is the socially appropriate way to respond, whether or not they actually feel that way. This is how they blend in and appear normal to the average person.

They are narcissistic, and everything revolves around them. They are always able to place blame on other people, nothing is ever their fault. However, anything positive in their lives or others lives is because of them. Because they are narcissists they believe they are much more important than they actually are.

They have strong influence over others because of their ability to feel nothing when manipulating others, and this is how they exert control over others. They will do whatever it takes in order to come out on top of a situation with no actual regard for others lives or feelings. They may fake their feelings or reactions to continue to manipulate those around them, and they get pleasure over having control over other people and feeling like they’re pulling all the strings.

#60

So after reading a lot of these it’s worth mentioning the following:

1. Psychologists rarely even use the term psychopath anymore. Those disorders which would fall under the umbrella of psychopathy are preferred to the otherwise generic and easily confused term of “psychopath” (note how many people frequently conflate psychopathy with narcissism. There’s a narcissism personality disorder which fits many models of psychopathy, but not all so-called psychopaths are narcissists.)

2. It often doesn’t take training in psychology to spot so-called psychopaths. Formal training is needed to diagnose and treat it, but our brains are highly tuned to pick up on small things that our higher consciousness is often otherwise unaware of. This isn’t to say that we should purely trust our gut, we’re more often wrong than we’d like to admit, but how we feel about first impressions is often very important.

3. Far more people exhibit features of various “psychopathic” personality disorders than most realize. The vast majority of these people, however, live fairly ordinary, productive lives and don’t exhibit violent tendencies. It has even been argued that psychopaths are an important evolutionary element, giving us people who can detach themselves from the human experience in order to provide valuable insights or behaviors the rest of us couldn’t fathom.

4. Most of us will go through periods in our lives in which we often exhibit many symptoms of a personality disorder. But these are merely moments, they don’t truly impact our lives in the way that a true disorder does.

#61

“Psychopath’s” are super common. Athlete’s and highly successful businessmen for example tend to score pretty high in testing. Likewise, so do I. It does not mean I’m a crazy m******r. I do have to keep myself in check a lot though. Super impulsive, competitive, etc. I’ve actually benefited from the personality traits associated with it more so than not. Then again it’s also got me into a lot of trouble. I have pretty much zero regrets and not at all interested in things like long-term relationships or starting a family. I don’t like watching channels like CI though. Too many similar comparisons that make me feel yuck.

#62

I worked with someone once who was well known. His sidekick, as we grew to call him, was void of soul. You could look at his eyes and it was blackness staring back at you, an emptiness I’ve seen in the eyes of known serial killers. And when you were near him you could almost feel a vibration of evil.

It was almost like watching a mime when he was forced to interact with others. Exaggerated facial expressions, often mimicking the person speaking to him. And when they walked away his face clicked off like a tv set, tuned to static.

There’s more there but I’ll not say.

#63

My psychologist said she knew my ex was a psychopath when she watched how he “recalled” his tragic back story. His eye movements were indicative of creative parts of the brain being engaged instead of memory centers.

(To clarify: I’m not a psychologist but I have dated a psychopath. He tried to k**l me and told me that he fantasized about ripping out my organs. Also would like to add that as far as my psychologist has indicated, victims of psychopaths are actually better at picking out psychopaths than psychologists because they have much longer and deeper experience with them.)

#64

Not a psychologist, but when I found out what stuff he had done to his partner. Threatened to k**l himself if the relationship would end, ended up r*ping his partner when he didn’t want to have s*x and when he found another person to have s*x with cheated and later asked for an open relationship. Also breaking up multiple times and coming back soon after for seemingly no reason.
He also was incredibly unempathetic all the time. He would sit in front of his Laptop playing video games alone at parties, he had no sense of what to say and what not and ended up being a tad to honest about his thoughts hurting people in the process. Ended up becoming a cop, which is pretty scary.
All in all a very good looking guy that you probably at first would think is just overly sarcastic and pertly and a bit of a weirdo. You definitely wouldn’t realize when you get to know him.

#65

A 16 year old who had r***d his half sister and his reasoning always remained, “it’s ok because god will forgive me”.

#66

Psychopathy is so overrated in popular culture that people don’t understand what it is that they are talking about. Hannibal Lecter certainly did not help. Neither did American Psycho. Those are pop-psych takes on “psychopathy” although Lecter did fit the profile to an extent. Bateman struck me as more of a schizotypal narcissist than a psychopath but the character is very inconsistent. It’s all over the place – a bit of the authors own projection, a bit of the psychopathic narcissism of Wall Street etc.

Anyway…

The problem is that this is not what a psychopath looks like. You want to know what a high-functioning psychopath looks like? Take a look at Bill Clinton. I can’t issue a diagnosis based on the scant information I have from public sources but his body language, his speech pattern and his behaviour scream first order psychopathy i.e. psychopathy emerging from a physiological dysfunction.

So how do you feel when you meet someone like that? It feels slimy, empty and uncomfortable at the same time because they are unpleasant due to the lack of empathy, they are empty in terms of authenticity of personality and you are made uncomfortable by their insistence on dominating you in all possible ways. They are problematic clients because they almost never are willing to be treated individually and it is mostly that they are being brought in by a partner or by order. And then it is a chore. A f*****g chore. It’s never a therapy session, it’s always a battle and their only goal in dealings with you – to win.

Psychopathy of the first order is a physiological condition and it is not that uncommon as a trait. It can also be positive – many surgeons have it which is how they can cut people up with much less trauma. Psychopathy of the second order is acquired (aka sociopathy) and it is much more disturbed behaviour and much more overt so it is not as hidden as first order. It is also not that disturbing once you realize what it is. It is only when it is very extreme that you get ugly stories or reactions that you might not expect. Psychologists who deal with various kinds of people might be made uncomfortable by exposure to psychopathy of this kind but people who deal with a lot of anti-social people get used to it. It’s like watching a gruesome horror movie. The first makes you flinch. The second makes you cringe. The third makes you chuckle. And then you begin to enjoy it in a morbid way. But since this is work it becomes just a chore.

A very extreme case of psychopathy can be disturbing to experience but so is every other personality disorder or trait when put to the extreme and the “overt” ones – anti-social, schizotypal, narcissistic, borderline, obsessive-compulsive – can be really unpleasant to watch when they manifest in overt behaviour.

Anyway…. psychopathy is not something that you get surprised by if you are conducting an interview or treatment of someone in therapy. It is however surprising – in an uncomfortable way – when you meet such people in social situations. I dealt with military personnel among other things so that is not particularly uncommon. Plenty of psychos in armed services, police, prison guards etc. Also prisoners.

#67

My impression is these people are literally “Soul-less”. Set pieces in the game of life to give contrast to those who are wired for empathy.

#68

The PCL-SV
That and when he was describing how he murdered two kids. He had no affect. Didn’t name them. Justified his actions as not serious etc. Took a few sessions to acknowledge the murder of the second child. He was in denial, assuming I wouldn’t like him if I knew he killed the other one too.

#69

Knew a kid when I was 7. Stomped on an injured baby bird. He also lit a church on fire, even though his dad was a priest. My parents told me he would be a serial k**ler one day. No idea what happened to him but he can’t be in a good place now.

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