From the back cover of Without Conscience by Dr Robert Hare PhD
“Most people are both repelled and intrigued by the images of cold-blooded, conscienceless murderers that increasingly populate our movies, television programs, and news paper headlines. With their flagrant criminal violation of society’s rules, serial killers like Ted Bundy and John Wayne Gacy are among the most dramatic examples of the psychopath. Individuals with this personality disorder are fully aware of the consequences of their actions and know the difference between right and wrong, yet they are terrifyingly self-centered, remorseless, and unable to care about the feelings of others. Perhaps most frightening, they often seem completely normal to unsuspecting targets.“
From Martha Stout’s book The Sociopath Next Door
“1 in 25 ordinary Americans secretly has no conscience and can do ANYTHING at all without feeling guilty. Who is the devil you know?
Is it your lying, cheating ex-husband?
Your sadistic high school gym teacher?
Your boss who loves to humiliate people in meetings?”
Do you know someone who fits these descriptions? Most of us have. If you work with the public in any way, are single and out there trying to find the perfect mate, or just find these types of personality disorders interesting you don’t want to miss this show.
We’ll be discussing both books and:
- How to recognize the signs of psychopathy?
- What is the difference between psychopathy, sociopathy and schizophrenia?
- Why should anyone care about mental illness?
- How to protect yourself from being swindled, conned, used, or humiliated (even the experts can be manipulated).
Learn how to enter in to new relationships of ANY kind with your EYES OPEN! It could save you money, time, emotion and possibly your life.
Do you think you might have been the victim of a psychopath? Call us the night of the show or email us your experience.
Listen HERE or in iTunes:
For what it is worth, my son, who is a psychopath (ASPD) and has had a lflsetyie of this since adolescence, including murder for which he is incarcerated, actually GLORIES in his visciousness. In prison he spends his time plotting to violate the rules and not get caught, though he does eventually get caught. He is exceptionally intellectually bright (99th percentile on IQ tests) and has many skills, including the ability to hide a cell phone inside an electric razor in such a way that the razor still worked if turned on, but the charger was actually charging the cell phone too. When he finally (after 3 years) got caught with the cell phone (not until after someone ratted him out) the Major commented to me that he’s an electronic genius, isn’t he? Yep, he is! But even then, the authorities only got part of the cell phone (no sim chip) so they could not give him a felony charge for having a cell phone, only Part of one. His criminal career, though he is quite bright, is more like keystone cops and his plans and crimes were usually quickly caught and he was incarcerated for them. His murder conviction was at age 20 sort of like the guy who robbed the bankk and wrote the note on the back of his deposit slip he announced before hand that he intended to kill this woman and why, then killed her, then told her friends that he HAD killed her, and gave them her purse and jewelry to prove it. Needless to say, he was arrested that day. DUH!? (he also put the gun under his mattress)Why would someone who is obviously so BRIGHT act in such a STUPID manner? The only word I can come up with is that he is SO ARROGANT that he underestimates the rest of humanity by a factor that is unbelievable. He intermimttently gets away with some of his scheems, scams and crimes, so never learns from the consequences of getting caught. He actually glories in the times he does NOT get caught, and blames every episode where he is caught on something or someone else, never ever seeing that his own STUPID behavior brought on his getting caught.Except for one episode of theft when he was age 11, which I can see in retrospect was ASPD behavior (he denied responsibility even in the face of witnesses, evidence, etc. and became very sullen and showed no remorse only anger) until he became and adolsecent, his success in life seemed predestined, he was bright, capable, charming, and seemed to work at school work and life in a positive manner. But when he hit adolsescene about age 16, he did a 180 degree turn and became totally defiant to all authority of any kind, and seemed to lose his ability to even try to conform to anything except criminal behavior. He dropped his good friends and immediately took up with low lifes. He also as far as I know never did drugs outside of smoking marijuana a time or two. He never drank alcohol or smoked cigarettes.Life in prison (over 50% of his life now at age 37) has honed his skills in manipulation and in appearing to have repented of his way of life but it is still very superfiscial and when he is frustrated he almost involuntarily drops the Charming Ted Bundy manipulation, and shows the Charlie Manson affect he displayed as an adolescent.For many years he had me snowed and I truly believed that he had seen the light and embraced a moral code. However, recently I learned that he had done nothing of the sort. Falling into a hoard of letters he had written to one of his buddies the letters let me see into his mind and soul, and all I saw there were ASPD thoughts and desires.My mother, upon reading the letters he wrote to his friend, vs the pious and loving letters he wrote to her said It is almost like two different people wrote them. Which is a pretty good analogy. He could discuss philosophy, religion and morality in such a manner that he could appear to be a very moral person. Reading the other letters, however, let me see that the entire manipulation was just that. He might unemotionally discuss and appear superfiscially to believe these philosophies, but it was only part of the manipulation.It saddens me that the son I gave birth to, with all the other advantages and blessings that he had, became such a monster witout the least bit of human empathy. My biological father, (I was not raised by him) was also a psychopathic man, and I strongly believe that my son’s behavior is the result of at least in great part, his genetic make up.The arrogance, the belief that other people are beneath contempt and that he is entitled to whatever he wants, that all problems in his life are caused by others. My biological father though, was street smart enough to get away with his crimes which overshadowed even my son’s crimes, and never went to prison.I sincerely hope that there is found a way to overcome the genetic predisoposition that seems to be passed on in some cases. I hope that there is hope out there somewhere, but for immediate hope for my son and those like him, prison is the only option. It cost me a great deal of pain and anguish to come to the conclusion that for my son there is no hope, and until I finally came to that conclusion and cut off communication with him it continued to cause me anguish. Now that I have realized, finally, that there is NO hope, I can heal and go on with the rest of my life. Hanging on to unrealistic hope is as malignant as a cancer of the soul.