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
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.
#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.
3
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
#4
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
#5
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
#6
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
#7
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
#8
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
#9
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
#10
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
