Without Conscience: The Disturbing World of the Psychopaths Among Us

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I do kinda wish this book had gone into a bit more depth: psychopathy as a neurological state, psychopathy as a psychological mechanism, psychopathy as a concept and world view, its role in our culture, and so forth. Instead of choosing his model and going with it, or examining the various dimensions in turn, the author seems to get bogged down in defining the term, itself. (I, myself, kinda prefer the term "sociopath.")(Sounds less...murdery.)(But I digress.) Since I keep obsessing about our American president, trying to decide if the man is indeed a psychopath or merely an elite narcissist, I thought I should seek out an authoritative book on the subject. Although it is too old to include cutting edge research (twenty-two years old, to be exact), I believe Without Conscience is as close as I will come to a definitive popular treatment. This is because it was written by Robert D. Hare. Some psychopaths are rapists and serial killers, perfectly oblivious to their victims' pain, but some are blithely conducting non-criminal business, but still distributing pain and suffering, as ruthless executives, terrible roommates, miserable spouses or neighbours, and incomprehensibly mean, unfeeling children. Some criminals learn to do crime. They are raised in families or social environments in which criminal behaviour [...] is the accepted norm. [...] Dramatic examples of these sub-cultures of criminals include [...] the brands of Gypsies common in some parts of Europe.

Guay, J.-P., Knight, R. A., Ruscio, J., & Hare, R. D. (2018). A taxometric investigation of psychopathy in women. Psychiatry Research, 261, 565-573.Glenn, A. L., & Raine, A. (2014). Psychopathy: An introduction to biological findings and their implications. New York, NY: NYU Press.

A fascinating, engrossing read about a truly disturbing subject. While this book isn't quite so much about the genesis of psychopathy, it nonethless seems to presents a chilling (if unkowing) counterpoint to The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil. Some of them even say their victims enjoyed, or they did them a favor (ie: rape victims who enjoyed the rape or burglary victims who will be able to claim insurance). No le puse 5 estrellas porque eché en falta varias cosas, como las relaciones de pareja de los psicópatas y sus métodos de conquista, fases como el anclaje, el spot publicitario y la manipulación por atrezo son temas de los cuales Robert D. Hare no hace hincapié o simplemente no menciona; tampoco dice nada de los hijos de los psicópatas. No sé si estas omiciones serán porque Robert no sabe del asunto, porque todavía no había salido ningún buen libro al respecto o porque simplemente lo consideró quizás algo muy complejo para explicarlo brevemente, sea cual sea la razón fue decepcionante. Otra cosa que no me gustó es la repetición de algunos enunciados del tipo "no todos los asesinos son psicópatas" o "no todos los violadores son psicópatas", como si el lector potencial sufriera de cierto nivel de retraso y no fuera capaz de entender las cosas a la primera. Psychopathy is NOT insanity. Psychopaths are not all criminals, nor in jail - they are in fact sprinkled throughout the population, and almost EVERYONE has interacted with at least one. There are far MORE of them rolling around than one might think. CPA Donald O. Hebb Award for Distinguished Contributions to Psychology as a Science". Canadian Psychological Association. 2019 . Retrieved 2019-12-14.

También nos refiere a la psicopatía que se refleja desde la infancia y los muchos actos que cometen los niños psicópatas y que muy bien podríamos confundir con otras enfermedades o bien con una mala educación, nada más lejos de la realidad. Schore (2009) gives credit to Kohut, who broke new ground in psychoanalysis by turning away from an intrapsychic unconscious and a cognitive ego toward a relational unconscious and an emotion-processing self. Kohut, Schore cites, explored basic problems in psychoanalysis like “how do early relational affective transactions with the social environment facilitate the emergence of self ( development of the self), and how are these experiences internalized into maturing self-regulating structures ( structuralization of the self) (...)” (o.c., p. 190). According to Kohut, the self develops out of the interaction with the primary caretakers: the child internalizes the way his or her emotions are regulated in the interaction. “These regulating self-selfobject experiences provide the particular intersubjective experiences that evoke the emergence and maintenance of the self” (o.c., p. 192). Then, from a neuroscientific perspective, Schore provides answers to Kohut’s core problems, which Kohut was unable to answer in his time.

It has a ton of examples that will help you understand how psychopaths think, which makes it a great read for psychiatrists and laymen alike. Forth, A. E., Kosson, D. & Hare, R. D. (2003). The Hare PCL: Youth Version. Toronto, ON: Multi-Health Systems. For conceptualizing the self in relation to the conscience, the work of Allan Schore and Daniel Stern on the nature of the self is of paramount importance. He asserts things without offering proof, and sometimes the things are objectively wrong (e.g. saying that people are getting more violent) Of a psychopath a woman said “I always had the urge to cuddle him” and “he needs mothering” (this is “parent seduction”, read the full list of seduction techniques here).When she looked up, he glared at her and said “always got everything you wanted, didn’t you”, he said in a strange, snide way Lccn 98051786 Ocr tesseract 5.1.0-1-ge935 Ocr_detected_lang en Ocr_detected_lang_conf 1.0000 Ocr_detected_script Latin Ocr_detected_script_conf 1.0000 Ocr_module_version 0.0.16 Ocr_parameters -l eng Old_pallet IA-NS-2000666 Openlibrary_edition Describing early superego development, Schore (2003) has written extensively on affecting regulation in the service of continuity of the self, focusing strongly on shame in attachment experiences: “It is this moment of reunion of the “returning,” highly aroused, elated, practicing toddler, in a state of excited expectation, reconnecting with the mother, that is the prototypical object relation in the emergence of shame” (o.c., p.158). Schore points here to the importance of shame stress and the neurophysiology of arousal dysregulation during practicing reunion episodes, which are recognizable in adult life: “The brake of incremental arousal seen in shame (...) reflects a sudden dynamic switch from sympathetic dominant to parasympathetic dominant ANS activity” (o.c., p.162). Guilt is prominent in later (oedipal) development and might be associated more with the “later maturation of the linguistic rational capacity of the verbal analytic left hemisphere” (o.c., p. 185). Remember that Schore linked the implicit self-system to the lateralized right hemisphere and the explicit self-system to the lateralized left hemisphere. Founded by world renowned expert in psychopathy, Dr. Robert D. Hare, Darkstone Research Group is a forensic consulting and research company. They specialized in the development of procedures used for the assessment of psychopathy, and for training professionals in the use of these procedures.