UK- Age of criminal responsibility is too low, say brain scientists
Parts
of the brain responsible for decision-making and impulse control are still
developing during a person's teens
The age of criminal responsibility in England, Wales and Northern Ireland
could be "unreasonably low" given the emerging understanding of how
slowly the brains of children mature, according to a report by the Royal
Society. Widespread differences between individuals also mean that the cut-off
age at which children are deemed fit to stand trial, at 10 years old, might not
be justifiable in all cases.The comments are part of an assessment carried out by a panel of scientists, lawyers and ethicists of how developments in neuroscience and brain imaging should inform the future practice of law. Neuroscience and the Law, published on Tuesday, examines how scientific understanding of the brain has advanced in recent decades and the light this has shed on behaviour. The report also assesses the reliability of lie detector tests.
In England, Wales and Northern Ireland, a child is deemed fit to stand trial at the age of 10, but in recent years it has been shown that important changes in the brain's neural circuits go on well into a person's teens. In Scotland children cannot be convicted until they are 12.
"A number of psychologists have already shown that adolescents are not wholly responsible individuals and are inclined to take risks and behave in irresponsible ways," said Nicholas Mackintosh, an emeritus professor in the department of experimental psychology at the University of Cambridge and chair of the Royal Society panel. "What neuroscience has shown in the last 10 years is that this is at least associated with the fact that the brain continues to develop throughout adolescence."
In particular, the prefrontal cortex, which is responsible for decision-making, impulse control and cognitive control, is among the slowest parts of the brain to mature and is not fully developed until around the age of 20. "Neuroscience adds to the evidence that a 10 or 12 or 15-year-old does not have a fully adult brain in many important respects," said Mackintosh.
Research has also shown that there is huge variation between individuals and that the development of the slowest-developing parts of the brain is associated with comparable changes in mental functions such as IQ, suggestibility, impulsivity, memory and decision-making.
In contrast, the amygdala, an area of the brain responsible for reward and emotional processing, develops during early adolescence.
"It is clear that at the age of 10 the brain is developmentally immature, and continues to undergo important changes linked to regulating one's own behaviour," said the report. "There is concern among some professionals in this field that the age of criminal responsibility in the UK is unreasonably low, and the evidence of individual differences suggests that an arbitrary cut-off age may not be justifiable."
Roger Brownsword, a former professor of law at King's College London, said that the question of criminal responsibility showed how neuroscience should form part of general policy debates around criminal justice. "It wouldn't be so much neuroscience driving that but it might be that neuroscience became very relevant in the background as we review that particular question," he said.
Another emerging uses of brain imaging is in lie detection. Several companies in the US offer services that claim to reveal whether a defendant is telling the truth. "We take a similarly sceptical view of that," said Mackintosh. "Most brain imaging data might tell you the difference between someone who is telling the truth and someone who is lying, though even that is uncertain. But it is quite certainly the case that some guilty offenders who protest their innocence actually believe they are innocent. They are not lying as far as they're concerned. It is also possible that, as soon as you're told what brain imaging is picking up in your brain, it's quite easy to fool it."
He added that the large majority of behavioural scientists and neuroscientists agree that brain imaging is not yet – and perhaps never will be – a reliable lie detector.
This has implications for criminal trials, said Brownsword, where the perceptions of jurors might be dangerously incorrect unless they have been tutored in exactly what this science can and cannot do.
"Lawyers and neuroscientists have to be educated in the nature of behavioural and neuroscientific evidence that all it can do is, by and large, indicate changes in probability," added Mackintosh. "The law is not only concerned with passing sentence in court, it's also concerned with prediction and risk assessment. Is this person likely to re-offend if now released from prison? It's impossible to make this prediction with any degree of certainty or accuracy. Risk assessment is a risky business and is notoriously inaccurate."
One of the main recommendations of the Royal Society report is that there should be an international meeting of neuroscientists and lawyers every three years to discuss the latest advances in "areas at the intersection of neuroscience and the law to identify practical applications that need to be addressed".
----
The Teen Brain: Still Under Construction
Introduction
One of the ways that scientists have searched for the causes of mental illness is by studying the development of the brain from birth to adulthood. Powerful new technologies have enabled them to track the growth of the brain and to investigate the connections between brain function, development, and behavior.The research has turned up some surprises, among them the discovery of striking changes taking place during the teen years. These findings have altered long-held assumptions about the timing of brain maturation. In key ways, the brain doesn’t look like that of an adult until the early 20s.
An understanding of how the brain of an adolescent is changing may help explain a puzzling contradiction of adolescence: young people at this age are close to a lifelong peak of physical health, strength, and mental capacity, and yet, for some, this can be a hazardous age. Mortality rates jump between early and late adolescence. Rates of death by injury between ages 15 to 19 are about six times that of the rate between ages 10 and 14. Crime rates are highest among young males and rates of alcohol abuse are high relative to other ages. Even though most adolescents come through this transitional age well, it’s important to understand the risk factors for behavior that can have serious consequences. Genes, childhood experience, and the environment in which a young person reaches adolescence all shape behavior. Adding to this complex picture, research is revealing how all these factors act in the context of a brain that is changing, with its own impact on behavior.
The more we learn, the better we may be able to understand the abilities and vulnerabilities of teens, and the significance of this stage for life-long mental health.
The fact that so much change is taking place beneath the surface may be something for parents to keep in mind during the ups and downs of adolescence.
The "Visible" Brain
A clue to the degree of change taking place in the teen brain came from studies in which scientists did brain scans of children as they grew from early childhood through age 20. The scans revealed unexpectedly late changes in the volume of gray matter, which forms the thin, folding outer layer or cortex of the brain. The cortex is where the processes of thought and memory are based. Over the course of childhood, the volume of gray matter in the cortex increases and then declines. A decline in volume is normal at this age and is in fact a necessary part of maturation.The assumption for many years had been that the volume of gray matter was highest in very early childhood, and gradually fell as a child grew. The more recent scans, however, revealed that the high point of the volume of gray matter occurs during early adolescence.
While the details behind the changes in volume on scans are not completely clear, the results push the timeline of brain maturation into adolescence and young adulthood. In terms of the volume of gray matter seen in brain images, the brain does not begin to resemble that of an adult until the early 20s.
The scans also suggest that different parts of the cortex mature at different rates. Areas involved in more basic functions mature first: those involved, for example, in the processing of information from the senses, and in controlling movement. The parts of the brain responsible for more "top-down" control, controlling impulses, and planning ahead—the hallmarks of adult behavior—are among the last to mature.
What's Gray Matter?
The details of what is behind the increase and decline in gray matter are still not completely clear. Gray matter is made up of the cell bodies of neurons, the nerve fibers that project from them, and support cells. One of the features of the brain's growth in early life is that there is an early blooming of synapses—the connections between brain cells or neurons—followed by pruning as the brain matures. Synapses are the relays over which neurons communicate with each other and are the basis of the working circuitry of the brain. Already more numerous than an adult's at birth, synapses multiply rapidly in the first months of life. A 2-year-old has about half again as many synapses as an adult. (For an idea of the complexity of the brain: a cube of brain matter, 1 millimeter on each side, can contain between 35 and 70 million neurons and an estimated 500 billion synapses.)Scientists believe that the loss of synapses as a child matures is part of the process by which the brain becomes more efficient. Although genes play a role in the decline in synapses, animal research has shown that experience also shapes the decline. Synapses "exercised" by experience survive and are strengthened, while others are pruned away. Scientists are working to determine to what extent the changes in gray matter on brain scans during the teen years reflect growth and pruning of synapses.
A Spectrum of Change
Research using many different approaches is showing that more than gray matter is changing:
·
Connections
between different parts of the brain increase throughout childhood and well
into adulthood. As the brain develops, the fibers connecting nerve cells are
wrapped in a protein that greatly increases the speed with which they can
transmit impulses from cell to cell. The resulting increase in connectivity—a
little like providing a growing city with a fast, integrated communication
system—shapes how well different parts of the brain work in tandem. Research is
finding that the extent of connectivity is related to growth in intellectual
capacities such as memory and reading ability.
·
Several
lines of evidence suggest that the brain circuitry involved in emotional
responses is changing during the teen years. Functional brain imaging studies,
for example, suggest that the responses of teens to emotionally loaded images
and situations are heightened relative to younger children and adults. The
brain changes underlying these patterns involve brain centers and signaling
molecules that are part of the reward system with which the brain motivates
behavior. These age-related changes shape how much different parts of the brain
are activated in response to experience, and in terms of behavior, the urgency
and intensity of emotional reactions.
·
Enormous
hormonal changes take place during adolescence. Reproductive hormones shape not
only sex-related growth and behavior, but overall social behavior. Hormone
systems involved in the brain's response to stress are also changing during the
teens. As with reproductive hormones, stress hormones can have complex effects
on the brain, and as a result, behavior.
·
In
terms of sheer intellectual power, the brain of an adolescent is a match for an
adult's. The capacity of a person to learn will never be greater than during
adolescence. At the same time, behavioral tests, sometimes combined with
functional brain imaging, suggest differences in how adolescents and adults
carry out mental tasks. Adolescents and adults seem to engage different parts
of the brain to different extents during tests requiring calculation and
impulse control, or in reaction to emotional content.
·
Research
suggests that adolescence brings with it brain-based changes in the regulation
of sleep that may contribute to teens' tendency to stay up late at night. Along
with the obvious effects of sleep deprivation, such as fatigue and difficulty
maintaining attention, inadequate sleep is a powerful contributor to
irritability and depression. Studies of children and adolescents have found
that sleep deprivation can increase impulsive behavior; some researchers report
finding that it is a factor in delinquency. Adequate sleep is central to physical
and emotional health.
The Changing Brain and Behavior in Teens
One interpretation of all these findings is that in teens, the parts of the brain involved in emotional responses are fully online, or even more active than in adults, while the parts of the brain involved in keeping emotional, impulsive responses in check are still reaching maturity. Such a changing balance might provide clues to a youthful appetite for novelty, and a tendency to act on impulse—without regard for risk.While much is being learned about the teen brain, it is not yet possible to know to what extent a particular behavior or ability is the result of a feature of brain structure—or a change in brain structure. Changes in the brain take place in the context of many other factors, among them, inborn traits, personal history, family, friends, community, and culture.
Teens and the Brain: More Questions for Research
Scientists continue to investigate the development of the brain and the relationship between the changes taking place, behavior, and health. The following questions are among the important ones that are targets of research:
·
How
do experience and environment interact with genetic preprogramming to shape the
maturing brain, and as a result, future abilities and behavior? In other words,
to what extent does what a teen does and learns shape his or her brain over the
rest of a lifetime?
·
In
what ways do features unique to the teen brain play a role in the high rates of
illicit substance use and alcohol abuse in the late teen to young adult years?
Does the adolescent capacity for learning make this a stage of particular
vulnerability to addiction?
·
Why
is it so often the case that, for many mental disorders, symptoms first emerge
during adolescence and young adulthood?
This last question has been the
central reason to study brain development from infancy to adulthood. Scientists
increasingly view mental illnesses as developmental disorders that have their
roots in the processes involved in how the brain matures. By studying how the
circuitry of the brain develops, scientists hope to identify when and for what
reasons development goes off track. Brain imaging studies have revealed
distinctive variations in growth patterns of brain tissue in youth who show
signs of conditions affecting mental health. Ongoing research is providing
information on how genetic factors increase or reduce vulnerability to mental
illness; and how experiences during infancy, childhood, and adolescence can
increase the risk of mental illness or protect against it.The Adolescent and Adult Brain
It is not surprising that the behavior of adolescents would be a study in change, since the brain itself is changing in such striking ways. Scientists emphasize that the fact that the teen brain is in transition doesn't mean it is somehow not up to par. It is different from both a child's and an adult's in ways that may equip youth to make the transition from dependence to independence. The capacity for learning at this age, an expanding social life, and a taste for exploration and limit testing may all, to some extent, be reflections of age-related biology.Understanding the changes taking place in the brain at this age presents an opportunity to intervene early in mental illnesses that have their onset at this age. Research findings on the brain may also serve to help adults understand the importance of creating an environment in which teens can explore and experiment while helping them avoid behavior that is destructive to themselves and others.
Alcohol and the Teen Brain
Adults drink more frequently than teens, but when teens drink they tend to drink larger quantities than adults. There is evidence to suggest that the adolescent brain responds to alcohol differently than the adult brain, perhaps helping to explain the elevated risk of binge drinking in youth. Drinking in youth, and intense drinking are both risk factors for later alcohol dependence. Findings on the developing brain should help clarify the role of the changing brain in youthful drinking, and the relationship between youth drinking and the risk of addiction later in life.Reprints
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--------------
Understanding
the Teen Brain
It doesn't matter how smart your teen is or how well
he or she scored on the SAT or ACT. Good judgment isn't something he or she can
excel in, at least not yet.
The rational part of a teen's brain isn't fully
developed and won't be until he or she is 25 years old or so.
In fact, recent research has found that adult
and teen brains work differently. Adults think with the prefrontal cortex, the
brain's rational part. This is the part of the bran that responds to situations
with good judgment and an awareness of long-term consequences. Teens process
information with the amygdale. This is the emotional part.
In teen's brains, the connections between the
emotional part of the brain and the decision-making center are still
developing. That's why when teens are under overwhelming emotional input, they
can't explain later what they were thinking. They weren't thinking as much as
they were feeling.
What's a parent to do?
You're the most important role model your kids have.
Sure, their friends are important to them, but the way you behave and
fulfill your responsibilities will have a profound and long-lasting effect on
your children.
- Discussing the consequences of their actions can help your child link impulsive thinking with facts. This helps the brain make these connections and wires the brain to make this link more often.
- Remind your teens that they're resilient and competent. Because they're so focused in the moment, adolescents have trouble seeing they can play a part in changing bad situations. Reminding them of instances in the past they thought would be devastating, but turned out for the best can help.
- Become familiar with things that are important to your teens. It doesn't mean you have to like hip-hop music, but showing an interest in the things they're involved in shows them they're important to you.
- Ask teens if they want you to respond when they come to you with problems, or if they just want you to listen.
Parents tend to jump in with advice to try to fix
their child's problem or place blame. But this can make teens less likely
to be open with their parents in the future. You want to make it emotionally
safe and easy for them to come to you, so you can be part of their lives.
Signs of trouble
It's normal for teens to be down or out of sorts for
a couple days. But, if you see a significant mood or behavioral change that
lasts more than 2 weeks, it could mean something else is going on, such as
depression.
If you think your teen could be depressed,
promptly seek professional treatment for your child. Depression is serious
and, if left untreated, can be life threatening.
Your teen needs your guidance, even though they may
think they don't. Understanding their development can help you support them in
becoming independent, responsible adults.
Medical Reviewers:
- Holloway, Beth, RN, M.Ed.
- newMentor board-certified, academically affiliated clinician
- Roux, Susan L., ARNP
---
Risky behavior by teens can be explained in part by how
their brains change
Using such tools as functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and positron emission tomography (PET), scientists have peered into teen brains and found that typically, until a person hits his early to mid-20s, his prefrontal cortex is still rapidly changing. So are the cell endings and chemical connections that link the cortex to parts of the brain associated with gut impulses.
When people are around 15 or 16 years old, many brain cells in the cortex die off while others are created, and new connections form among them. A lot of the basic cognitive abilities — advanced reasoning, abstract thinking, self-consciousness — rapidly expand during this time period, says Laurence Steinberg, a Temple University psychology professor. “The connections within the brain don’t fully branch out until age 22 or so. The kinds of capabilities that connectivity contributes to — emotion regulation and impulse control — probably plateau in the early to mid-20s.”
Research that Steinberg and colleagues published in January showed that when adolescents are in the presence of peers, what is known as the reward circuitry in the brain is more activated than when adults are with their peers. These electrical signals impel us to seek pleasurable things, and it’s only natural that such feelings should be more intense in teens, Steinberg says. “Adolescence is when you start to mate, and from an evolutionary point of view it’s adaptive to do this outside the family, with people close to you in age. So it should be part of our inheritance to feel good when you’re around people your age,” he says.
These circuits — which include dopamine-containing neurons in the prefrontal cortex and deeper areas of the brain, such as the nucleus accumbens and amygdala — may provide a hormonal jolt that causes some teens to embrace risky behaviors, according to researchers. Racing cars to the point of crashing into a tree isn’t going to win you a mate, but if you survive, you may impress your peers.
Susceptible as they are to social feedback, praise and rejection — more so than adults, according to research by Steinberg and others — teens often do what peers want them to do, or what they think peers want them to do, rather than what we might say is rational, Steinberg said.
Risk-taking isn’t all bad
Yet as difficult as this risk-taking, peer-driven, reward-
seeking behavior can be for parents and other adults to deal with or merely observe, it’s important to see the positives, and to realize that youthful foolishness usually doesn’t last forever, says Silver Spring-based neuropsychologist William Stixrud.
He finds it helpful to point adults to the scan images that show that teenage brains are physically different from theirs and to the research showing that brains change over time.
That science has found physical differences between teen and adult brain structures and activity means something to his patients — and their anxious parents, Stixrud says.
He finds it “enormously useful” to be able to explain to teenagers that it’s their “sensitive and reactive amygdala” that causes them to feel things more strongly than others do but also makes it harder to live in their own skins.
All brain functions are immensely complicated, but the amygdala plays an important role in emotional memory, and this area of the brain seems to show more activity in teenagers than in adults, according to research by Dutch scientists at Leiden University and others. For Stixrud, an overactive amydgala helps explain why teens’ feelings of aggression, fear and depression may be more intense than those of adults.
When research comparing prefrontal cortices of adults and teens first came out in the 1990s, his colleagues interpreted it to mean “we need to keep them on a short leash, because they aren’t fully developed,” Stixrud said. More recently, he said, he and other professionals have tended to focus on the power and adaptability of the teen brain.
The brain development that can make teens and young adults take scary risks also motivates them to go out on their own, seek new experiences and sometimes create new things.
Genes and environment
Some neurologists worry that too
much can be made of scans of the brain’s complex structures and functions.Neurological images “are powerful, but images are not causes” of behavior, says Tomas Paus, a professor of psychology and psychiatry at the University of Toronto, who has authored research papers with Steinberg but is more skeptical of overarching interpretations. “The causes are in our genes and our environment. The image is just a manifestation of those causes.”
Paus has examined thousands of images of the teen and adult brains in his work, which is focused on alterations in the coatings of brain cells. He sees differences between the two age groups, but he cautions that they are subtle. So subtle, he says, that it can be difficult to say whether it is aging or experience that causes the changes.
“If you have [the scans of] a given 20 individuals, teens or adults, and compare them with another 20, you’ll find it very difficult to classify the teens and adults,” Paus says. “I don’t think there are quantitative differences. It’s a continuum, and one that is influenced by our experiences,” and not just age.
“A 17-year-old has different experiences than a 40-year-old,” he adds. “It’s not only the brain that changes our experience; experience changes the brain.”
Consider the case of Brian Blacklow, who became a Stixrud patient at age 12, after he started cutting class at Westland Middle School in Chevy Chase and spent most of his time roaming Washington, grabbing magazines from bookstores, reading Kerouac novels and watching planes land at Reagan National Airport.
Eventually he dropped out of a Connecticut boarding school and hoboed down to Florida with his girlfriend. They spent the next few years living rough in Florida. For several months they were homeless.
Perhaps only a teenager would be foolish enough to do what Blacklow did. Yet he now says the experiences informed his whole life.
Blacklow, now 37, eventually went to college and is now a master educator in some of the District’s roughest schools. Blacklow says he has empathy with students and teachers that he would lack if his path had taken him directly from Chevy Chase to an elite college, like many of his peers.
“Those experiences molded me,” he said. “They made me who I am and they hold value for me. How much of that was immaturity related to the prefrontal cortex and how much is just arrogance and foolishness, I just don’t know.”
Stixrud points
to patients such as Blacklow — and what we know of teen brain scans — when
seeking to reassure parents that children who are struggling when they are 14
or 16 or 19 or 22 won’t necessarily be struggling at 25 or 28.
“They will have a very different
brain,” he says. “That is arguably the most useful thing I can do for families
in lowering levels of anxiety and fearfulness about the future, and helping
kids and parents understand each other.”For teens and parents living through these years, “be patient” may the wisest words. Science tells us that by age 24 the teenage brain has mostly morphed into an adult version.
Of course, adults sometimes do crazy things, too.
Allen is the author of “The Fantastic Laboratory of Dr. Weigl: How Two Brave Scientists Battled Typhus and Sabotaged the Nazis.”
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TARGETED TEENS AND 20s: I have found a new pride and fearlessness
Editor’s note: Lovefraud received the following email from a young woman whom we’ll call “Adriana.” The name in the story below has been changed.This is a story about two girls who were on the same sports team in high school. Both showed lots of potential and both won lots of achievement awards … Both went on to do athletics in college. One was a sociopath … the other was shy and introverted.
I was the introvert. Other people saw my success, but I just enjoyed athletics and was not seriously competitive… I was excellent because I enjoyed it. As strange as that sounds. I moved a lot as a kid… This last high school was the one I went to the longest: three years. Little did I know, but this was to be the worst three years of my life. People always said when I was young that I was very sweet but seemed sad … I look back on it now and see I was a perfect target. I was funny, charming, but reserved. I modeled in New York in the summers. Lots of people at the school liked me, but I was too shy to be social … and I also knew always … for some inexplicable reason to stay away from Katie and her friends.
It was strange because I saw this person every day for hours at practice, but I knew I should never even hope to be her friend. Of course there was always a hierarchy of girls at every school I went to, but Katie and her friends in particular were very scary. The more I got to know Katie, the more I was aware that she was somehow better than I was. I was somehow less than her. It was strange. But I ignored it. The day at practice when she learned I modeled in New York during the summers she got up and left practice and did not return even the next day. No one else thought anything of this … And I didn’t want to either, but it bothered me … I ignored it. After all I didn’t want to think she was somehow jealous of a person like me … I thought it was wrong to assume such things about people … When she came back she started making little comments about me. For example that I was “weird” or that I “had to wear a lot of makeup.”
She requested to play the position I played on the team and didn’t do as well as I did, but said it was easy. The little things she did really wore me down, but I ignored it. In truth, I was a loner and a bit strange. I saw some truth in everything she said. And that would be my downfall. I wanted to believe the things she said, because I am a person who likes to listen.
There were other stresses in my life when I was young … One day I just snapped. There were some girls talking about how Katie was the best on the team and how she was such a nice person. I told them, “No, she’s horrible like really *(&^^ horrible.” And it got back to her. She used this to pretend she was the victim to my jealousy and how I always wanted to be like her. People at school, namely the boys she flirted with, bullied me at her request. She even got her friends to say things to me she wanted them to, which is disturbing.
I had always been wary of her, but other people really do like her. She was the president of my class for example.
This is a description on how she treats most people:
Katie knows what she has to offer. And she knows how to market herself to the masses. She is obsessively religious. In fact, people joke about how religious she is. She is always talking about Jesus and the Bible. She prays where people can see her pray and as often as she possibly can. She acts sickly sweet to most people. She talks about being positive all the time. She smiles all the time. She works hard and is talented but does the minimum requirements to reach goals. She uses the fact that she “works hard” and “is talented” to gain respect from people … She uses everything she knows she has.
This is how she treats her targets:
1. At first she waits till you are alone to say the meanest things to you in the nicest ways. If you say to another person that you dislike her, you’ve got to be careful because she has “followers” (often people who support her because she is “religious”).
2. She waits until you do something she can use to destroy you. It could be anything. A bad joke for example.
3. After she has found something to make you look bad she will use tactics 1 and 2 to break you down, and attack you with a small group of friends.
4. When she has hurt you enough to make you try to either apologize for perceived “wrongdoing” or confront her about how she is treating you, she’ll turn what you say around and make it sound like you hate her and have a problem with her. At this point she tells specific people who honestly are not very intelligent or brave that you’re being mean to her … She has groups who she manipulates because they are loyal to her, etc. … The harassment is bad, but she makes you see the ugliness in normal people … And that is worse.
5. This can turn into isolation and repeated harassment of the target … A few of the people who she got to harass me actually apologized to me a year after we all graduated from high school … But I’ve found when you’re dealing with a sociopath you can’t expect things from people because they are being deceived.
6. She is a self-preservationist. Everything she does to hurt someone is done in a way that will keep her removed from the “situation;” she won’t ever acknowledge that she even has a problem with you. The problem is completely yours. And the people who are harassing you. She (apparently) has nothing to do with it … When in reality … She is completely responsible for all of the pain the target experiences. In fact if you are in a group with her and her friends and they are being cruel to you, she will not say anything, in fact, she may even leave to make you think, she doesn’t really want this to be happening. But she does, she is completely responsible. She knows exactly what she is doing.
A person may think that I do not quality to write on this topic because I was young … or this treatment is not stressful to a person … but being harassed by two to three groups of people because of the encouragement by one person … no matter what age … is horrible.
This is how I’ve healed myself:
To be honest I still relapse into disgust over this person’s beyond hypocritical nature. And it is really depressing how witnessing the reality of this person’s complete lack of ethics has hurt me so deeply. I was not romantically involved a sociopath, so I felt nothing towards her other than a deep wish we could have been teammates … or even friends. So I think my story can help people who have tried to share their love with sociopaths, because I wished this person could have been my teammate, my friend … for a very long time …
I see what could have been. But it is all a lie. Because the charm this person exudes to other people, never to me, is superficial. There is nothing the people she “loves” can really get from her, unless they are benefitting her in some way. Which could be called a kind of attachment. But honestly, only certain people are interested in that kind of relationship.
I have blocked this person from all means of communicating with me and forgiven myself for attempts to “reconcile” with them. I have accepted that anytime I try to fix “the situation” with Katie, it will only end with pain and disappointment on my end. I have accepted that people all over the world will think of her as a kind, attractive, charming, sweet Christian. When in reality she is only attractive … manipulative, lying, and completely self-serving.
It’s beyond hard, I find, even to this day, to accept how hypocritical she is to get what she wants. Because she is a complete hypocrite. I think that the reason why she talks to profusely about being a Christian is to hide her real intentions. She acts so charming to hide her insatiable desire to obtain material wealth. Which she will surely find.
I am not her only target; she doesn’t have many but a handful of people are aware of her nature. These people tend to think she is very intelligent for being able to manipulate people like she does. I got tired of hearing this, so I tried for a while to act as she does. It is not intelligence. It is just strange behavior.
She is made very differently than others. She is a person who is intelligent, but she is not brilliant, or even remarkably intelligent. I was able to anticipate whatever she was doing before she did it; I just didn’t act on my intuition. Fiercely believing all people are good and some are just temporarily mislead, I was only vulnerable to her because of my accepting personality type.
So I have learned to screen absolutely anyone who tries to insult me. (because if you do not allow people to hurt you they can’t). It’s an art to diffuse people with personality types opposite of your own. But it’s just a skill. One that I think all victims of sociopaths are aware they need.
I’m proud that I need the skill to deal with sociopathic types … Because manipulation is not natural to me … I seek truth and love always … I seek for every place around me to be filled with happiness and true synergy … Which is something she can never deliver!
I have found a new pride and fearlessness in loving myself for who I am, because I have met someone who, without reservation, chases after monetary gain and fame. I have realized, albeit painfully, I have the natural desire to construct, to support, to understand and promote people … while she only has the desire to get what she wants. And because in my heart I want to love and care for the people around me … I have found a sense of peace that is rare, that people like Katie will never know or understand. Because they do not seek to share their existence with the world. They try to build a palace out of lies and manipulation. People will always admire them. But I know how they really are. And there is something rare and almost divine about that.
I saw Katie the other day at a prestigious art show. She was wearing a lace mini dress off the runway and four-inch heels, talking to a bunch of business men … holding a glass of wine coyly in her hand. I was wearing a nice black dress and the Ann Taylor stilettos I’ve had for five years … I was with an artist … I walked past her and she did not see me … then I turned around, stood, waved, and smiled at her … She looked stunned, like I was a ghost … I just turned and walked away.
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USA- Sanctuary for the Abused
Thursday, May 07, 2015
Seventeen Faces of the Psychopath
Described below are 16 different expressions of psychopathy, each focusing largely on the psychopath's lifestyle and habitual ways of interacting with other people. Behind each of these descriptions it is assumed that a universal psychopathic structure (characterized by narcissism, primitive impulsivity, along with deficits in emotion, empathy, guilt, and morality) belongs to each type. These type descriptions have been gathered from a variety of sources and amalgamated to form the collection. Most psychopaths are combinations or overlaps of these types:
1. THE LIAR/CONTRACT BREAKER
This P is a pathological liar who will often lie for no reason at all. He/she is usually skilful at this, but sometimes fails to remember. This P will agree to anything then turn around and do just the opposite. Legal/custody agreements and normal social protocol mean nothing to him/her. Technically, these psychopaths never lie because lying is not a relevant issue for them. The idea or image of truth doesn't exist with the psychopath, so he cannot lie…. there is for him no difference. He says what's convenient, what comes to his mind, but never figures out 'Is that now really true, or not'? There is something in normal people which wants to see the truth and wants to be truthful, but if that internal sense is missing then the word 'lie' is senseless.
A psychopath, for instance, may have gone to the bank and 'conned' the bank manager in order to get money, and what he or she said to the banker in regard to that is not necessarily concealment or lying, it's just 'part of the story' that goes with getting the money, and he does that very well and that's the adapted or successful psychopath. He says what the banker wants to hear and for the psychopath who says it, that's it -there is no truth or lying. The psychopath sometimes has an understanding that other people distingish between lies and truth and will often adjust himself and behave in accordance with these facts. But the 'liar/contract breaker' psychopath completely refuses to recognise the social sense of lies/truth, and lives only by saying and believing "what is convenient" in any given moment.
2. THE SOCIO-ECONOMIC "CLIMBER"
Frequently occupationally-successful, this P will rise to the top in work and social circles. No one knows the hell that his/her family lives through. They are often gifted and intelligent in their chosen field, but must be in absolute control. They will manipulate others to further their ideas. They can be a vindictive bullies in the office. They have no genuine social conscience. Can be suspicious and paranoid. This disingenuous psychopath's behaviour is typified by a veneer of friendliness and sociability. Although making a superficially good impression upon aquaintances, this P frequently shows a more characteristic unreliability, impulsive tendencies, and deep resentments and moodiness among family members and other close associates They are often extremely verbally gifted and charismatic, and everyone may love him/her -- except those who truly know the demon he/she is. This wheeler-dealer will leave others holding the bag.
3. THE SEXUAL PSYCHOPATH
This P will display an impulsive hypersexuality (male or female), and frequently expresses a polymorphic sexual range - eg., pornography and masturbation, promiscuity, homosexuality, and various paraphilias - including possible incestual tendencies and perversions.
The sexual psychopath takes a predatory approach towards his targets, including stalking behaviors. This type may derive his sexual pleasure from a single theme such as serial rape or pedophilia, in which his primary sexual aim will be to dominate, to use, to control, and to subjugate another person (often someone weaker and less able to manage the situation) in the service of a gradiose self. According to researcher Darwin Dorr, "the majority of pedophiles are psychopathic, or manifest a significant degree of psychological characteristics of psychopathy." Of the psychopathic pedophile, Robert Hare writes, 'The number of children who are sexually abosed by parents, other relatives, child-care workers, clergymen, and teachers is truly staggering. Unlike other abusers, many of whom were themselves abused as children, are psychologically disturbed, and often experience anguish about what they are doing, psychopathic abusers are unmoved - "I just take what's available," said one of our subjects, convicted of sexually assaulting his girlfreind's eight-year-old daughter.' For the sexual psychopath, then, all people may be targets, including both the very young and the very elderly, and both genders, who are often targeted for sex without consent.
4. THE EXPLOSIVE PSYCHOPATH
The explosive psychopath is differentiated from other psychopathic variants by the unpredictable and sudden emergence of hostility. These "adult tantrums," characterized by uncontrollable rage and fearsome attacks upon others, occur frequently against members of the psychopath's own family.
Such explosive behavior erupts precipitously, before its intensive nature can be identified and constrained. Feeling thwarted and threatened, these psychopaths respond in a volatile and hurtful way, bewildering others by the abrupt change that has overtaken them, saying unforgivable things, striking unforgettable blows. As with children, tantrums are instantaneous reactions to cope with frustration or fear. Although the explosive behavior is often effective in intimidating others into silence or passivity, it is not primarily an instrumental act, but rather an outburst that serves to discharge pent-up feelings of humiliation and degredation.
5. THE VIOLENT PSYCHOPATH
Especially distinctive is this type of psychopath's tyrannical desires is their willingness to go out of the way to be unmerciful and inhumane. Often calculating and cool, these psychopaths are selective in their choice of victims, identifying individuals who are likely to submit rather than to react with counterviolence. Quite frequently, they display a disproportionate level of abusiveness and intimidation, in order to impress not only their victims but those who observe the psychopaths' unconstrained power. More than any other type, these individuals derive deep satisfaction in creating suffering and in seeing its effect on others. In contrast to the explosive psychopaths, for whom hostility serves primarily as a discharge of pent-up feelings, the tyrannical psychopaths employ violence instrumentally as a means to inspire terror and intimidation. These experiences then become the object of self-conscious reflection, providing the psychopaths with a sense of deep satisfaction. This P has often turns into a demon. Their objective is often watching us dangle while they inflicts emotional, verbal and occasionally physical cruelty. Their enjoyment is all too obvious. He/she may be a sexual sado-maso. Women, children, men, the elderly, (and even animals) - anyone with any vulnerabiliies are his target
6. THE CHARMER, OR "SOUL MATE"
This P will come on strong, sweep us off our feet, says he/she has the same interests, wants to marry us quickly. This P may appear helpful, comforting by their feigned 'idealization' of us phase, but it never lasts. Jekyll always turns into Hyde eventually. This P is aware that you will be drawn closer by his/her relaxing aura and lack of inhibitions. This kind of P is aware that non-psychopaths are tortured by their usual neurotic compulsions, and doubt's, and guilts, and inhibitions, and that he/she can us offer an atmosphere where we are temporarily free of such tiring emotions (free like the P). When you have this kind of psychopath in front of you it's lovely, it's great, it's relaxing. Nothing feels quite as relaxing as having dinner with this psychopath because then you feel absolutely great and those darned horrible emotional states fall away, especially when having a few drinks with them, it's the greatest thing you can do, and they make you feel absolutely at peace. That's part of their charm, and it's almost as if they are graced with a kind of charisma, which is why so many women and men fall for psychopaths. The psychopath has no inhibitions, and this type can play up to achieve his sexual aims by ascertaining and telling you everything you want to hear. He will talk to a woman who is interested in poetry about poetry. He doesn't care about poetry but he will quote poets. The female psychopath will take a great interest in a man's work and talk to him for hours. She doesn't really care about his work, but will charm him with her interest. They will be romantic, invite you to candle-lit dinners, compliment you, and when they have you hooked they will drop the charm-game for the more selfish lifestyle for which they are well known.
7. THE THIEF OR "COVETOUS PSYCHOPATH"
In the covetous psychopath, we see a distilled form an essential feature of the DSM's antisocial personality disorder, and the ICD's syssocial personality disorder: aggrandizement. These individuals feel that life has not "given them their due"; that they have been deprived of their rightful level of love, support, or material rewards; that others have received more than their share; and that they personally were never given the bounties of the good life. Thus, they are driven by envy and a desire for retribution - a wish to take back what they have been deprived of by destiny. Through acts of theft or destruction, they compensate themselves for the emptiness of their own lives, dismissing with smug entitlement their violations of the social order. They act on the rationalization that they alone must restore the karmic imbalance with which life has burdened them.
For those who are merely somewhat resentful, and for whom some conscious controls remain intact, small transgressions and petty acquisitions often suffice to blunt the expression of more extreme characteristics. For the more severely disordered, however, the usurpation of others' earned achievements and possessions becomes the highest reward. Here, the pleasure lies in taking rather than in having. Like hungry animals pursuing prey, covetous psychopaths have an enormous drive, a rapaciousness. They manipulate others and treat them as pawns in their power games. Although they have little compassion for the effects of their behaviors, feeling little or no guilt for their actions, they remain at heart quite insecure about their power and their possessions; they never feel that enough has been aquired to make up for earlier deprivations. Regardless of their achievements, they remain ever jealous and envious, pushy and greedy, presenting ostentatious displays of materialism and conspicuous consumption. For the most pat, they are completely self-centered and self-indulgent, often profligate and wasteful, unwilling to share with others for fear that they will take again what was so desperately desired in early life. Hence, such psychopaths never achieve a deep sense of contentment. They feel unfulfilled, empty, and forlorn, regardless of their successes, and remain forever dissatisfied and insatiable. Believing they will continue to be deprived, these psychopaths show minimal empathy for those who are exploited and deceived. Some may become successful entrepreneurs, exploiters of others as objects to satisfy their desires.
Here an active exploitiveness, manifested through greed and the appropriation of others' possessions, becomes a central motivating force. The covetous psychopaths experience not only a deep and pervasive sense of emptiness - a powerful hunger for the love and recognition not received in early life - but also an insecurity that they perhaps really are intrinsically less than others, somehow deserving of life's marginal dispensations.
8. THE QUIET PSYCHOPATH
This P is socially withdrawn, often dirty, unkempt. Odd thinking is observed. This P is occasionally insecure and irresolute, perhaps even faint hearted and cowardly. Psychopathic aggression in this variant, when present, represents a paradoxical response to felt dangers and fears, intended to show persecutors that one is not anxious or weak, and will not succumb to external pressure or coercion. Such craven and cowardly individuals are spineless psychopaths. These personalities commit violent acts as a means of overcoming fearfulness and of securing refuge. For them, aggression is not instrinsically rewarding, but is instead essentially a counterphobic act. Anticipating real danger, projecting hostile fantasies, spineless types feel it is best to strike first, hoping thereby to forestall their antagonists.
9. THE BRAINWASHER
This P can charismatically charm and manipulate groups of people to achieve his goal. Often found in religion and politics. His goals: manipulation, control, compliance, money, position, attention. He masterfully targets the naive and vulnerable.
10. THE RISK TAKER/THRILLSEEKER
This P never learns from his past follies. He is doomed to forever repeat bad judgment after bad judgment. Poor impulse control is a hallmark. This type of psychopath often engages in risk taking for itself - for the excitement it provides, and for the sense of feeling alive and involved in life, rather than for such purposes as material gain or defense of reputation. Many of these individuals respond before thinking, act impulsively, and behave in an unreflective and uncontrolled manner. Beyond such simple impulsiveness, however, the risk-taking psychopaths are in addition substantially fearless, unblanched by events that most people experience as dangerous or frightening. In contrast to many psychopaths, whose basic motivations are largely aggrandizement and revenge, these individuals are driven by the need for excitement and stimulation, for adventures that are instrinsically treacherous. They are, in effect, thrill seekers, easily infatuated by opportunities to prove their mettle or open their possibilities, The factors that make them psychopathic are the undependability and irresponsibility of their actions, and their disdain for the effects of their behaviours on others as they pursue a restless chase to fulfill one capricious whim after another. The introverted variation of this type may turn more specifically towards substance abuse - alchohol, heroin, speed, or whater drug - as a way to get his thrills and excitement without the more overt behaviors of the former.
These daredevils are attracted to thrills like lemmings to cliffs. Look for: Sex, drugs, and rock ‘n’ roll. They will draw you in with: Fun, excitement, and adorable adolescent rebelliousness. They will drain you dry by: Overdoing everything exciting, and underdoing everything else. Thrillseeker P's are the one's you see everyday: Cowboys, cowgirls, day traders, party animals, rebels without a cause, and that one lover you just can't seem to forget. DEFENSIVE STRATEGY: Keep your brain engaged even when theirs are turned off. Especially then.
11. THE PARANOID PSYCHOPATH
This P is suspicious of everything and everyone. Usually there's no reason. He is terrified of exposure and may be potential dangerous if threat of exposure is imminent. This P will often accuse others of wrong-doing, and will never accept responsibility. It doesn't matter whether he made the mess or not, someone else must take the blame. A master at projection. Their features frequently blend with those of the paranoid personality disorder. They are characterized best by their autocratic power orientation and by their mistrust, resentment, and envy of others. Underlying these features is a ruthless desire to vindicate themselves for past wrongs by cunning revenge or callous force, if necessary.
Left to their own ruminations, they begin to imagine a plot in which every facet of the environment plays a threatening and treacherous role. Moreover, through the intrapsychic mechanism of projection, they attribute their own venom to others, ascribing to them the malice and ill will they feel within themselves. As the line between objective antagonism and imagined hostility becomes thin, the belief takes hold that others are intentionally persecuting them. Not infrequently, persecutory delusions combine with delusions of grandeur; however, these later beliefs play a secondary role among these psychopaths, in contrast to their primacy among fanatic paranoid personalities.
Preeminent among malignant psychopaths is their need to retain their independence and cling tenaciously to the belief in their own self-worth. Their need to protect their autonomy and strength may be seen in the content of their persecutory delusions. Malevolence on the part of others is viewed as neither casual or random; rather, it is seen as designed to intimidate, offend, and undermine the individuals' self-esteem. "They" are seeking to weaken the psychopaths' "will," to destroy their power, to spread lies, to thwart their talents, to control their thoughts, and to immobilize and subjugate them. These psychopaths dread losing their self-determination; their persecutory fantasies are filled with fears of being forced to submit to authority, of being made soft and pliant, and of being tricked to surrender their self-determination
12. THE 'BAD BOY' OR 'BAD GIRL' ANTISOCIAL PSYCHOPATH
This type of P is considered the archetypical delinquent, openly pursuing a diverse range of antisocial behaviors and often in trouble with the law. The antisocial psychopath is the main type found in prisons, whose availability for psychological testing results in a disproportionate representation of this type in psychopathy descriptions. The American 'Diagnostic and Statistical Manual' (DSM) description of psychopathy is based on this group of offenders, to whom the manual gives the name 'antisocial personality disorder'. Descriptive criteria for this category are as follows:
1. failure to conform to social norms with respect to lawful behaviors as indicated by repeatedly performing acts that are grounds for arrest
2. deceitfulness, as indicated by repeated lying, use of aliases, or conning others for personal profit or pleasure
3. impulsivity or failure to plan ahead
4. irritability and aggressiveness, as indicated by repeated physical fights or assaults
5. reckless disregard for safety of self or others
6. consistent irresponsibility, as indicated by repeated failure to sustain consistent work behavior or honor financial obligations
7. lack of remorse, as indicated by being indifferent to or rationalizing having hurt, mistreated, or stolen from another
13. THE USED CAR SALESMAN (OR WOMAN)
The used-car salesman is a metaphor for the psychopath who can sell you anything, even themselves. Unlike the charmer above, this psychopath uses a quick talking 'sales-pitch' to catch people out. Their main techniques are: (a). Do it because you like me - It's easy to like these types. In the short period of time when there is some doubt as to whether you are going to give them what they want, these psychopaths can sprinkle with wit and glow and synthetic kindness. The display usually ends three seconds after you give in, but while it lasts it smells sweet as cherry blossoms on a warm spring day. The main reason that people like other people is that they perceive them to be similar to themselves. These P's usually begin their sales pitch by establishing a perception of similarity. They watch you closely. They ask questions about who you are, what you like, and what you think, and then profess to like and believe the same sorts of things. Unless you are paying attention, their probes and ploys can seem like innocent chit-chat. (b). Do it to reciprocate - These types would have you believe that because they gave you something, you owe them something back. In their view, compliments are like free samples those motherly types hand out in grocery stores. The purpose is not to nourish you, but to get you to buy. (c). Do it because everybody else is doing it - This person will try to convince you that you are 'part of the crowd' or 'are in the group' of whatever craven scheme they are enticing you to join. (d). This offer is good for a limited time only - These individuals know that anything sought after or scarce takes on a value far beyond its intrinsic worth, and will use this knowledge to push your buttons. (e). Do it to be consistent - Being consistent in our behaviors and choices helps provide the important feeling of selfhood. But foolish consistency is the psychological principle that makes manipulation possible. People also try to maintain an internal sense of consistency between their actions and beliefs. This is hard enough to do without careful thought. It's almost impossible with a psychopath trying to confuse your perceptions about who you are and what you believe by making you cross one little line after another. (f) You can believe me, I'm an authority - These psychopaths know that people are likely to do what authority figures tell them. (g). Do it or else - This P knows that one of the main reasons people listen to an authority figure is the fear that they will be punished if they don't. These are just some of the techniques the used-car salesman P will use, but use them he will in a great variety of situations - even with friends and family members, this psychopath will apply his hard sell to get what he wants.
14. THE MURDERER OR SERIAL KILLER
This malevolent subtype is one of the least attractive of the psychopathic variants. These individuals are particularly vindictive and hostile; their retributive impulses are discharged in a hateful and destructive defiance of conventional social life. Distrustful of others and anticipating betrayal and punishment, they have aquired a cold-blooded ruthlessness, an intense desire to gain revenge for the real or imagined mistreatment to which they were subjected in childhood. Here we see a sweeping rejection of tender emotions and a deep suspicion that others' efforts at goodwill are merely ploys to deceive and undo them. They may assume a chip-on-the-shoulder attitude, a readiness to lash out at those whom they wish to destroy or can use as scapegoats for their revengeful impulses. Many are fearless and guiltless, inclined to anticipate and search out betrayal and punitiveness on the part of others. The primary psychopathic characteristics of these individuals blend with those of the sadistic or paranoid personality (or both), reflecting not only a deep sense of deprivation and a desire for compensatory retribution, but also an intense suspiciousness and hostility. Many murderers and serial killers fit this psychopathic pattern. Such persons might be described as belligerent, mordant, rancorous, vicious, malignant, brutal, callous, truculent, and vengeful.
To "prove" their courage, malevolent psychopaths may even court punishment. Rather than serving as a deterrent, however, punishment often reinforces their desire for retribution. In positions of power, they often brutalize others to confirm their self-image of strength. If they are faced with consistent failure, beaten down in efforts to dominate and control others, or finding aspirations far outdistancing their luck, their feelings of frustration, resentment, and anger mount to a point where their controls give way to raw brutality or secretive acts of vengeful hostility. Spurred by repeated rejection and driven by an increasing need for retribution, aggressive impulses will surge into the open. At these times, the psychopaths' behaviors may become outrageously and flagrantly antisocial. Not only do they show minimal guilt or remorse for their violent acts, but they may instead display an arrogant contempt for the rights of others.
What distinguishes malevolent psychopaths is their capacity to understand guilt and remorse, if not necessarily to experience it. Although they are capable of giving a perfectly rational explanation of ethical concepts - that is, they know the difference between right and wrong - they seem nevertheless incapable of feeling it. These psychopaths often relish menacing others, making them cower and withdraw. They are combative and seek to bring more pressure upon their opponents than their opponents are willing to tolerate or to bring against them. Most make few concessions and are inclined to escalate as far as necessary, never letting go until others succumb. In contrast to other subtypes, however, malevolent psychopaths recognize the limits of what can be done in their own self-interest. They do not lose self-conscious awareness of their actions, and press forward only if their goals of retribution and destructiveness are likely to be achieved. Accordingly, their adversarial stance is somewhat contrived and works as a bluffing mechanism to ensure that others will back off. Infrequently, actions are taken that may lead to misjudgment and counterreaction in these matters.
15. THE MORALIST OR SAINT
This P proclaims his high moral standing, and other people are seen as immoral. He wants justice for society. "Hang 'em high" he says about the murderer on the 6:00 news. These P's may be found in the professions of school teacher, prison officer, religious leader (or devout attendant), manager of an orphanage or hospital for the mentally ill, or similar jobs which require an morally responsible presentation. They may be very quick to exploit corrupt political or social situations as an excuse for being brutal and cruel, political situations like those seen in Nazi Germany, or Apartheid South Africa, which supply a socially sanctioned way to enact their pathology. When this P is not being 'watched', he/she often lies, cheats, schemes, corrupts, abuses, deceives, controls, manipulates, and torments, while portraying himself to be the morally upstanding victim when questions are asked. This P is a consumate image maker and will flaunt all credentials and accomplishments, often bullying his/her family into perfect presentation for the public, in order to reinforce his/her position as a paragon of goodness. Gaining admiration, attention, even glances from others, and evoking envy are central ploys. These 'morally compensated' psychopaths cannot depend upon love because, like all psychopaths, they have a severe deficit in the area of emotion. Instead, their egos work out a moral system which is fool-proof in any and every situation. The result, as paradoxical as it may seem, is usually a well-developed outward morality but one woefully lacking in love. Such compensated psychopaths continually and at all costs uphold moral conventions, fanatically defending their moral systems. Were they to relax the hold on their moral code, the entire structure might well collapse like a house of cards, revealing their psychopathic nature. It is rather like cooking, a poor cook sticks assiduously to the recipe, while a gifted one can change this and that according to a momentary whim. This P's saintliness or rigid morality, then, is a cover for an underlying grandiosity, immorality, and sadistic drive to power typical of many psychopaths.
16. THE CREATIVE ARTIST
This psychopath will choose lifestyles or communities where his immorality is considered a gift. He/she blends in well with other artists, writers, countercultural-bohemians, and revolutionaries. In such circles the psychopath becomes almost indistinguishable from the non-psychopath, and can comfortably seek out victims who are willing to view his pathos as 'misunderstood genius', a person whose insights are wasted on the morally burdened masses.
This P will trick you into feeling that it is you who are psychologically crippled for following social conventions like decency, respect, restraint, fairness, or justice, and will introduce you to the "liberated" life of untrammeled selfishness, rudeness, impulsivity, and sexual perversity. This type will frequently display the pseudo-intellectual style of a Bohemian. This P:
1) Will spend hours absorbed in painting a single flower. He interrupts his work only to make dramatic sounds of exhaustion and angsty-artistic grunts, demands for water and other sustenance, and frequent sweeps of his furrowed, sweaty brow. When his day's work is done, he proudly displays a painting of his own penis in a lovely shade of lilac, and with petals attached. His painting is generous in its depiction of its subject.
2) Peppers conversations with cultural, literary, and historical allusions, whether relevant or not. Says "ahh" and "hmm" a lot when listening to someone more knowledgable than himself. His favorite partner in conversation is the pre-teen girl, because she cannot dispute his opinions on Nietzsche. Nietzsche does not hang out at the mall.
3) Your favorite subject is--suprise!!--his as well. And he knows much more about it than you. Take feminism, for example. If you consider yourself a feminist, he will let you in on the "real deal" with many artists, will tell you if they are, in fact, good for the image or self-esteem of woman. It goes like this: If he likes someone's work, then they are a feminist; if you like someone's work and he does not, it is only because they make women look bad. This is why "Penthouse" is perfectly harmless--good for women, in fact, because it empowers them sexually; Madonna is bad for women because she traded her feminine curves for muscle, and makes young ladies feel bad about their bodies the way they are meant to be. Which is without muscles.
4) Will invite the family to bond with him over a crossword puzzle, which means that the clues are read to him for him to solve. No help please, you are wrong and will just slow him down.
5) Also likes to bond over "Jeopardy!" which means that he shouts out the answers to all questions before they have been read completely, thus preventing anyone else from participating. If anyone else should get a question which he does not, he will get up to go to the kitchen or bathroom. You see, the reason he didn't get that question is that he was thinking about his snack. He will mutter the answer after Alex has said it, agreeing that the host was correct. The game may proceed. Has never tried out for "Jeopardy!"
6) Is the local King of Lawn Sculpture, which consists of concrete representations made from plaster casts of his body parts. His pride and joy is the forearm and hand with middle finger extended. The significance of this, which even he does not know, is that he is painfully aware of the fact that he is a blue-collar worker with no formal higher education, surrounded by over-educated, well-travelled hippies. And gosh darn they're nice. They can intelligently discuss any academic subject the psychopath raises, but alas, he cannot.
This P is the literal emodiment of the term con-'artist'.
17. THE ACADEMIC PSYCHOPATH
These psychopaths often work as doctors, lawyers, university lecturers, psychiatrists, specialists, scientists, preists, and in other intellectually oriented professions. Clientele, patients, and students of these P's are often taken advantage of in social, financial, or sexual ways. These types are sometimes schooled in their chosen topics, but a good number are known to fudge their qualifications. Robert Hare reports - "They have no hesitation in forging and brazenly using impressive credentials to adopt, chameleonlike, professional roles that give them prestige and power. When things fall apart, as they usually do, they simply pack up and move on. In most cases they select professions in which the requisite skills are easy to fake, the jargon easy to learn, and the credentials unlikely to be thoroughly checked. If the profession also places a high premium on the ability to persuade or manipulate others, or to "lay on the hands," so much the better. Thus, psychopaths find it easy to pose as ministers, counselors, and psychologists. But some of their other poses are much more difficult to pull off. There are psychopaths who sometimes pose as medical doctors, and they may diagnose, dispense drugs, and even perform surgery. That they frequently endanger the health or lives of their patients does not bother them in the least."
As mentioned above, these P's do not always forge their qualifications, and sometimes do complete their studies in a chosen academic field. But whether formally trained or not, the marking feature of the academic psychopath is the use of formal ideas as a vehicle for interpersonal communication, and a psychic style relying predominately on intellectual functioning. This type has the universal psychopathic-deficits in emotional functioning, but unlike other psychopaths may not cultivate phoney emotional skills to use on others. They may instead degrade emotion as something messy and unreliable, and will rely solely on the manipulative powers of intellectual-authority with the backing of their office.
Most unsettling are the coldly calculated violations of power and trust committed by these psychopathic professionals whose very job it is to help the vulnerable. It is very common amongst these individuals to callously use their positions to take sexual advantage of their charges, leaving them feeling bewildered and betrayed. And if victims complain, they may be traumatized further by a system primed to side with the perpetrating psychologist, doctor, or teacher.
Blog Owner's Note: Most psychopaths are a combination of a number of these profiles & traits listed above.
For more on psychopaths go to LOVE FRAUD for eye-opening reading.
Labels: abuse, brainwashing, coercion, control, deception, emotional rape, fraud, manipulation, psychopath, psychopathy, trauma
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CANADA, NOVA SCOTIA- come on oldies - get off your arse and exercise,,,, eat better and lay off the booze and cigs so much... and don't mind getting ready 2 die.... WE'RE SUPPOSED 2 ... FOR FREKING SAKE....
DR. JOHN ROSS: Reboot multi-tier, haphazard ‘disease care’ system
DR. JOHN ROSS
Published August 7, 2015 - 4:57pm
Bill is sitting in a wheelchair in the sun outside the main doors of the Halifax Infirmary having another cigarette. The ground is littered with cigarette butts from many others before him. There is a large bandage wrapped just below his knee. He is 61 and is back for his third amputation on his left and now right legs from the complications of diabetes and smoking.
Greta is screaming on the ambulance stretcher in the hallway of the Emergency Department. She is 91 and had a stroke almost two years ago that left her unable to speak, unable to walk, and screaming for up to 18 hours every day. She has been to Emergency countless times. Numerous specialists and home-care providers have been unable to find a management solution. Her daughter is beyond exhaustion.
There are thousands of other stories about our “health-care system” not meeting our needs or those of our families and neighbours.
We read or hear about them in newspaper columns, during political announcements, from experts and review panel commissions and reports. Almost daily, we are redefining the problems and offering recommendations. Most of them make complete sense.
Why are we still talking about this? The answer is simple: Walt Kelly, the POGO cartoonist, used the following line that explains our problem: “We have met the enemy and he is us.”
When we encounter one of those thousands of situations similar to what I have illustrated above, we blame the government. We are not sure what “the government” is, but we are sure it is its responsibility. Often we blame the premier or the politicians of the day. Opposition parties grab headlines while they try to score votes, pointing out the health-care failures, and online bloggers who comment on news articles quickly fall into finger-pointing politics, often missing the point of the original article.
Why? Because change is painful. It is scary. It could mean giving up something. We think someone other than us should change. The government is failing to take care of us — “I paid my taxes!” — but we have a major system design problem: government jobs are generally secure and attract people who are often risk-averse. Considerable time is consumed planning and analyzing, controlling messages, and protecting politicians from the media. Big-system change, that requires trying new methods, and taking risks, will not come from government.
Before I go on, what is “health care” anyway? Yes, a stupid question — or is it? “Health care” is doctors, nurses, hospitals, clinics, blood tests, CT scans, medications, right? It is buildings, unions, bureaucracy, white coats, paperwork — most things beyond our control, right?
What if someone said “health improvement” and caring for health is happening every day in the public library? How about on the skating oval? It happens in church, or community fund-raisers, or at many other events where people meet and help.
What virtually everyone thinks of as “health care” is actually reactive disease or injury care — something has happened and we try to patch up the damage. There is absolutely a need for this, but it is not “caring for health.”
Smoking, obesity and inactivity — all preventable — are three main causes of disease that could be eliminated. Getting more doctors and nurses, buying more CT scanners, inventing new treatments are not long-term solutions for self-inflicted illness.
Poor education, poverty, gender inequality, unsafe communities, lack of social supports are part of what the World Health Organization and Health Canada call the “social determinants of health.” Managing these should be the role for government. Micromanaging our disease care is not a good fit for government.
Reactive disease care (what we unfortunately call “health care”) —only one of the determinants, but by far the most expensive — cannot possibly keep up with the damage caused by not addressing the social determinants.
Some diseases are not preventable. But many are. It is like building cars with faulty parts — when the car company recognizes the problem, there is a massive recall to fix the problem. In our reactive disease-care non-system, we just apply more duct tape and put the person back on the road.
The current “health care system” is specifically designed to react to disease and injury. Doctors get paid — really well — to react. Why would they want to change?
Hospitals are not wellness centres — why would they change?
Pharmaceutical companies make enormous profits from reactive disease care — no initiatives will be coming from them.
But our long wait times contribute to lost productivity and hurt our competitiveness and economy. Furthermore, people in pain move less. They gain weight and that contributes to other health problems. They get depressed. Regular activity decreases the incidence and progression of Alzheimer’s and dementia and therefore our wait times may be increasing the burden of dementia in Canada.
In February 2014, the panel led by Ray Ivany released the report Now or Never — An Urgent Call to Action for Nova Scotians. It should be mandatory reading for every citizen in this province. It clearly summarizes the current economic state of Nova Scotia and makes clear recommendations.
It did not highlight the fact that a healthy population is critical for success, so addressing our social determinants of health combined with an effective reactive disease and injury-care system are vital. Economic growth can only occur if the people are fit and healthy. A call to action means, “Stop talking and do something.”
So what can we do?
All health-care providers in Nova Scotia need to read a report from The Canadian Academy of Health Sciences, 2014: Optimizing Scopes of Practice — new models of care for a new health care system.
It recommends, like many reports before it, that we must change the way we pay “health care” (actually “disease care”) workers. People need a go-to “first assessment care” (primary care) experienced clinician (someone with broad “generalist” training) to assess their needs. It does not have to be a doctor. Maybe the problem can be dealt with on the spot. Maybe they require some more specialized knowledge and skills. There should be minimal waiting and smooth handovers.
Individual doctors are incorporated small businesses, paid through a special branch of the Department of Health, negotiated by the union-like Doctors Nova Scotia, with unclear accountability.
Nurses have their own unions and are accountable to their employers. Other professions have other unions, accountable to employers through different managers.
But there’s no overall “team” framework or accountability. Where are the patients in all this? They are not a player. But they should be. There could be a patient-managed health spending account that covers the basics (reasonable standards regulated by government) and patients could participate in directing their own care. In fact, patients could be part of the governance of the clinic where they receive their care.
Imagine this:
The government sets quality and performance standards only. The new Nova Scotia Health Authority and IWK negotiate contracts and pay health- and disease-care workers. They pay individuals or whole teams based on accountability and performance that reflect quality of care and outcomes.
Patient and family feedback would be a core value. The pay goes to the mixed team of physicians, nurses, social workers, physio/OT, dieticians, pharmacists, addiction counsellors, administrative support — from small clinics to hospital units. One pay pipeline. All members hold one another accountable and are also accountable to patients and the health authorities.
All this can be done — hold your breath — through both public and private provider systems. The WCB, RCMP, Department of National Defence and First Nations all have separate systems for their members.
Dentistry, physiotherapy, vision care, psychology, massage therapy, medications, etc. — up to 40 per cent of total health care spending — is outside “medicare.”
Most doctor’s offices are incorporated small businesses. Thousands of Canadians leave the country and spend huge sums of money elsewhere. Why is that money not being spent in Canada and put back into “the system?”
No one complains that Air Canada has different fares for different privileges because everyone gets to the same destination at the same time, either stretched out sipping champagne or crammed into an economy seat. Multi-tier “disease care” is already happening in a random fashion in Canada. Let’s wake up and organize it better.
Use one information system that links patient information that can be securely accessed by all care teams. Enable patients to interact with disease- and health-care providers through text, email, portals, telemedicine. Do not pay for medical busy work; pay for value and effective care. Help people stay at work or in their homes. Disease and health care should be supporting people to promote their productivity, not forcing them to fit provider-designed non-systems.
Furthermore, all disease-care providers need to embrace Choosing Wisely Canada — a campaign to reduce unnecessary medical tests and treatments. We waste a huge sum of desperately needed money on useless tests. We also need to initiate difficult conversations about end-of-life care, not recommend fruitless treatment options and stop thinking that dying is a medical problem; it is the natural end of the life cycle.
Governments and individuals should know which care activities are safe, harmful, worthwhile, or a waste of time or money.
There is another side to this discussion: What can individuals do? There is a really simple list that requires really difficult behaviour change and discipline:
• Talk to one another, in person. Humans are social organisms. Look up the “social determinants of health” and discover the importance of humans helping one another and the relative futility of the “health-care system” that tries to repair preventable damage and is spending all the money.
• Stop smoking.
• Eat well (generally less) and move more. The human body is more than two eyes and two thumbs to operate mobile devices. What you put in your mouth and do with your body play a big role in your physical and mental health.
• Older people and those with serious medical conditions need to sit down with their families and openly discuss end-of-life plans. One hundred per cent of us are going to die. As a physician, I have seen many hundreds of people suffer needlessly at the end of their lives because there was no plan. Take a tour through a hospital intensive care unit and see the results of not having a plan.
• Demand that we re-purpose schools and community centres in rural and urban Nova Scotia and combine them into one. Imagine opening at 6 a.m. for fitness and multi-purpose uses. At 8 a.m., community members work together with schoolchildren to prepare and eat breakfast. At 9 a.m., school starts with assistance from community elders — reading and tutoring. It gives them meaningful purpose and establishes respect. There are at least two activity breaks. Lunch is prepared from local sources together with the children — they learn that food is not all deep-fried, frozen, or wrapped in plastic. At the end of the school day, the building is used for multi-purpose community activities until 11 p.m., if needed. It is used year-round. Education topics include learning self-discipline, healthy habits, how to plan, and macro- and micro-economics from Grade Primary onward.
Regarding Bill, the man who just lost more leg to diabetes — we co-own that problem. He needed to stop smoking years ago — ideally, he would never have started. He needed to lose weight — ideally, he never would have gained so much.
Now that he has diabetes, he needs to take responsibility for managing it, but the team responsible for his care also needs to identify his discipline challenges and develop a plan to help him. They should monitor him more closely, using various small wearable devices, coach him via home video-conferencing and arrange regular home visits. His whole family and possibly even workmates can be involved. We all own Bill’s problems, because we are all paying a lot for them.
Greta’s problem was not predictable. She and her family needed a care plan from the hospital stroke team and primary care team near her home that would be dynamic, based on her signs and symptoms. The goals of care and expectations need to be discussed and clarified early.
Her daughter needs one capable go-to care co-ordinator. She should be able to communicate with that care co-ordinator via email, text, or a portal and arrange a video conference if needed. Her medical records should be readily available to all care providers electronically because there is one provincial health authority and the IWK. Greta and her daughter want to stay at home. Her end of life should be dignified and supported.
Albert Einstein is credited with observing that “the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting different results.” Are we insane? We all have our work cut out for us. But no more talking — it’s time for action.
Dr. John Ross is a Capital Health emergency room physician and a professor and residency program director at Dalhousie University. He is also the author of the Ross report, tabled in 2010, on how to improve emergency services and many other aspects of what should be patient-centred care.
http://thechronicleherald.ca/opinion/1303865-dr.-john-ross-reboot-multi-tier-haphazard-‘disease-care’-system
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READERS’ CORNER: Heed Dr. Ross’s urgent call for health reform
Published August 13, 2015 - 4:55pm
Last Updated August 13, 2015 - 5:00pm
Dr. John Ross’s Aug. 8 opinion piece “should be mandatory reading for every Nova Scotian,” writes Malcolm Macpherson. “The transition from ‘sickness’ care to wellness is challenging and will require money, education, and most of all, attitude change.” (TED PRITCHARD/File)
Dr. John Ross once again presents an informed, balanced and poignant opinion piece (“Health system overload,” Aug. 8). One more call to action.
Momentum is building for change. Patients more than ever are demanding it. We have the technology. We have community partners. The bureaucracy/system is the bottleneck.
The theme of the Ivany report, “A Call to Action,” comes to mind. Surely that was not just a call to action to those outside the system?
We remain hopeful that the premier and the minister of health will listen to the people on the outside who are willing to be part of the solution — so that we don’t have a “system overload” in the future.
Dianne Kelderman, president and CEO, Healthconnex
Political will lacking
Dr. John Ross’s Aug. 8 opinion piece should be mandatory reading for every Nova Scotian. The transition from “sickness” care to wellness is challenging and will require money, education, and most of all, attitude change.
Too many citizens treat health care as if it is their privileged entitlement. They present to physicians, arms folded, and say, “Fix me, but don’t ask me to pay for anything extra or try to change my risk-laden lifestyle.” Many need genuine help in changing, but too many feel that someone else needs to be responsible for their health. This has to change.
Maybe the incentive would come from hitting them in the wallet. The government must work with health-care professionals to increase the accountability and link it to altered payment plans. The political will to challenge the Canada Health Act is absent, with no desire to charge user fees. So we have no choice but to increase taxes and/or make significant cuts if current services are to survive. If people only realized what a difference they could make by using some common sense. However, common sense isn’t that common. We truly have met the enemy and “he is us.”
Malcolm Macpherson, Valley
Sickness-care system strained
We found Dr. John Ross’s Aug. 8 opinion piece to be very important, and the lack of response to it surprising.
His assessment of the problems of our existing system, and suggestions for how we can move forward, including taking more responsibility for our own health, were well thought out and exactly what we need to hear — again and again!
If we continue to elect governments that refuse to use a greater percentage of our tax dollars to encourage and motivate everyone to become healthy and avoid illness — especially chronic illness — our current “sick care” system will surely fall apart under the strain.
Let’s all get behind Dr. Ross, and in particular his recommendation for repurposing schools and community centres and combining them into one facility — open from 7 a.m. to 11 p.m. year-round, available for fitness and other multi-purpose uses, including the preparation of food and teaching students nutrition, engaging community elders as mentors/assistants, expanding learning to include self-discipline, meditation and broad-based mandatory physical exercise, and developing civic responsibility from grade Primary upward.
There is much more needed in broad-based learning/education than simply preparing for the job market and the demands of industry.
Cathy Carmody, Dr. Norman Greenberg, Cheryl Munroe, Margaret Armour, Rod McCulloch, Halifax, and Dr. Douglas Carmody, Summerside, P.E.I.
Gov’t too busy downloading
Dr. John Ross’s excellent opinion piece on health-care reform (“Health system overload,” Aug. 8) offers a plan of action that should be implemented.
Will our government act? Probably not; it is still frittering around trying to find government services to download to private companies.
Our provincial government started out by threatening to contract out home care for the aged and the disabled to private interests, arguing that it would save money. How typical — trying to save money on the backs of two of the most vulnerable groups in our society. Apparently, that ill-conceived venture has been abandoned for now, while our politicians look for other government services to download to private industry. And this in spite of evidence that downloading does not work; in fact, it usually costs us more.
We have a badly broken system that desperately needs reform. The federal government is well on its way to legalizing voluntary euthanasia and doctor-assisted suicide.
Sadly, many of the sick, the old and the disabled may see that as the only option open to them as the system continues to deteriorate. And remember, it is a short step from voluntary euthanasia to compulsory euthanasia.
John McNulty, Halifax
http://thechronicleherald.ca/letters/1304975-readers%E2%80%99-corner-heed-dr.-ross%E2%80%99s-urgent-call-for-health-reform
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