Can psychopath change
This Is Why Psychopaths Cannot Be Cured
- Psychopathy is a personality disorder, not a mental illness.
- There is no "cure" for psychopaths, and they will never be able to change.
- If they are in prison, psychopaths can be managed with reward-based treatment.
- But this is simply a means of control, rather than a cure.
Like many personality traits, psychopathy is a spectrum. About 1-2% of men and 0.3-0.7% of women in the general population are estimated to be true psychopaths, but for the rest of us, we fall on the scale somewhere lower down.
People who experience psychopathic traits, such as ruthlessness, charisma, impulsivity, and persuasiveness, tend to get through life just fine. Even full-blown psychopaths can be very successful — they just won't ever be the same as everyone else.
What sets a true psychopath apart from the rest of the population is a lack of empathy. They will never be able to sympathise with someone else's feelings, or care that someone else is suffering while they thrive. In fact, sometimes a psychopath will enjoy feeling superior while they cause chaos for other people.
Lacking empathy isn't a problem for a psychopath, and they won't ever believe there's anything wrong with them. By this logic, if you're ever worried about being a psychopath, that means you cannot be one.
It also means a true psychopath can never be "cured."
"From what I've read, what I've heard, what I've seen and experienced so far, people with dark triad personality disorders cannot and will not change," said Perpetua Neo, a doctor of psychology and therapist, in an earlier article for Business Insider.
She added that people with these traits — narcissism, Machiavellianism, and psychopathy — are usually good at pretending to be something they are not.
For example, even if they were coerced into going to therapy, they would be able to manipulate and trick their therapists.
"They orchestrate this show, put on a false self in front of the therapist, and they know how to push the buttons of their partner, so their partner looks extremely unstable in these situations," Neo said. "The therapist may collude unknowingly with the dark triad person against the partner who really has been the one suffering."
A paper by Nigel Blackwood, a forensic psychiatrist at King's College London, explains that psychopaths do not fear punishment or social stigmatisation. They don't feel the need to fit into social norms, so expectations of society have no impact on their behaviour.
This is why, if they are convicted of crimes, the punishment seems to have no impact on them. As a result, Blackwood explains, it's incredibly hard to rehabilitate an adult psychopath in prison.
Reward-based treatment, such as giving them their favourite food or video games if they behave, is considered the best course to manage psychopaths who are incarcerated.
But even by keeping them calm, this is a means of control, not a cure.
Not all psychopaths will become criminals, and many will get through life without anyone knowing what they are. But whether they end up causing trouble or not, there's no evidence their personality will ever change.
Can Psychopaths Be Cured? | Mechanisms of Disinhibition (MoD) Laboratory
http://www.realclearscience.com/blog/2014/07/can_psychopaths_be_cured.html
TO THE BEST of our knowledge, there is no cure for psychopathy. No pill can instill empathy, no vaccine can prevent murder in cold blood, and no amount of talk therapy can change an uncaring mind. For all intents and purposes, psychopaths are lost to the normal social world.
But that hasn’t stopped the scientists who study psychopaths from trying to bring them back. In 2012, Dr. Kent Kiehl, a psychologist at the University of Mexico and one of the foremost experts on psychopathy, discovered that psychopaths have reduced gray matter in the paralimbic system of the brain.
His longtime suspicions were confirmed: Psychopaths – who are unremorseful and antisocial – have fundamentally different brains than the rest of us. The finding was replicated in psychopathic youth the following year. While the link between brain structure and psychopathy is correlational, the youth data strongly suggested that the stunted paralimbic system is present from birth.
Kiehl was proud of the discovery and the hard work that realized it, but saddened by the accompanying implications.
“It was if my lab had discovered a new disorder, but we didn’t have a cure,” Kiehl lamented in his new book, The Psychopath Whisperer.
Hope remained, however. Roughly 1,300 miles away from Kiehl’s lab in Albuquerque, New Mexico, mental health professionals in Madison, Wisconsin were taking big steps to treat young psychopaths with a progressive new approach to criminal rehabilitation.
DEVELOPED AND IMPLEMENTED by staff at the Mendota Juvenile Treatment Center (MJTC), the Decompression Model operates without the strict deterrence and punishment commonplace at a normal juvenile facility.
For psychopaths, who give little thought to punishment and rarely, if ever, learn from it, the status quo devolves into a vicious cycle of discipline and defiance. Punishment doesn’t discourage their criminality; it cements it. Indeed, psychopaths are six times more likely than other criminals to commit new crimes following release from prison.
The Decompression Model at MJTC was originally enacted on the most troubled youth criminals in Wisconsin.
“Nearly all the boys sent to MJTC had been deemed uncontrollable at the other institutions,” Kiehl described. “Indeed, the average youth sent to MJTC had over a dozen formally filed charges.”
They also averaged in the severe range on the Youth Psychopathy Checklist, the gold standard for predicting whether a youth will be diagnosed a full-fledged psychopath as an adult.
The hallmark of the Decompression Model is positive reinforcement. The institutionalized youth are monitored continuously by all staff members for any sign of positive behavior, however small.
When spotted, the behavior is reinforced with some sort of reward. The youth are also told that their rewards can scale, meaning the longer they persist with good behavior, the greater the prizes become. What starts out as a pat on the shoulder graduates to a candy bar, which graduates to the right to play video games, and so on and so forth. The youth were being introduced to the simple benefits of social society.
The staff drew on neuroscience to decide on the rewards.
“Brain scan studies have shown that both candy bars and video games are intrinsically rewarding–that is, the reward learning centers of the brain are engaged by both food and video games,” Kiehl explained.
SO, HAS THE Decompression Model worked? In various studies, over 300 subjects who were treated at MJTC were matched with similar subjects not treated at MJTC. Researchers followed both groups over a five-year period, even after they were released.
“The results,” Kiehl wrote, “were nothing short of staggering.
”
98% of the non-MJTC youth were arrested again within four years, while only 64% of MJTC youth were.
“In other words, the MJTC program had resulted in a 34 percent reduction in recidivism,” Kiehl wrote.
Moreover, MJTC youth were 50% less likely to commit a violent crime, and, while non-MJTC youth killed 16 people after their release, MJTC youth didn’t commit a single homicide! Furthermore, detailed economic analysis revealed that for every $10,000 spent at MJTC, the state of Wisconsin saved $70,000 by reducing the future costs of incarceration. That value didn’t even include the savings to society. After all, crime exacts a tremendous monetary and an emotional toll.
What could explain the striking behavioral changes? Could the Decompression Model actually be stimulating the development of new grey matter in the paralimbic system of the brain? Kiehl thinks it may very well be. In 2012, his laboratory deployed a mobile brain scanner to the grounds of MJTC to see whether or not inmates’ brains are actually affected by the treatment.
“We want to know if decompression therapy changes the function and structure of the paralimbic system,” Kiehl recently noted. “The project is just getting started…”
Kiehl has high hopes for the MJTC program. If we can identify and treat pyschopaths early on, thousands of lives might just be saved.
Source: Kiehl, Kent. The Psychopath Whisperer. Crown. 2014
10 Frequently Asked Questions about Relationships with Psychopaths
What's amazing about recovery from abuse is that all of us survivors of psychological abuse are in the same boat so we can help each other through the process of recovery and healing. It turns out we have a lot in common and many abuse survivors face the same pressing issues during the recovery process. This article is an attempt to summarize frequently asked questions and provide detailed answers in order to shorten the path of healing and reduce cognitive dissonance.
Here is a list of questions I will answer:
1.
Is he really a psychopath? Maybe I'm saying this to feel better after a breakup?
2. How can he be so happy with someone else? Why does he give his next partner everything that I did not receive? Because I wasn't good enough?
3. Can he change? But what if he is actually a good person, and the problem was in our relationship with him?
4. What is the difference between a psychopath, a sociopath and a narcissist?
5. Should I admit my share of the blame for what happened? After all, tango is danced together.
6. Should I warn the next victim?
7. Did he really not experience any feelings during our relationship? I had never loved anyone so much before, how could he not feel anything?
8. Why do they always win? When will karma finally overtake them?
9. Why don't they just leave us alone? What is the point of dragging these relations "to the bitter end"?
10. I need to forgive the psychopath, right? For my own peace of mind, I must "forgive and let go.
"
(Additional questions)
11. Okay, I understand the essence of psychopathy, but how can I trust people again, knowing that there are psychopaths among them?
12. Why does healing take so long? Can I ever be happy again?
13. Maybe I'm a psychopath myself?
14. I heard that psychopaths try to "suck" their victims back into addiction after a breakup, but he never once tried to contact me again.
ANSWERS
1. Is he really a psychopath? Maybe I'm saying this to feel better after a breakup?
In the early stages of recovery from abuse, you will be asking yourself this question over and over again. So don't worry, it's completely normal! You are so used to blaming yourself for all the difficulties, so you can’t figure out who is really to blame for what happened. Even after you realize that your partner cheated on you, lied to, manipulated you, humiliated you and criticized you, you will continue to focus on those little things in which you were wrong.
This is because the psychopath punished you every time you stood up for yourself, ignored and remained silent when you expressed your feelings. In a relationship with a psychopath, you were forbidden to express your emotions and criticize his actions, otherwise, as you have been shown, you can be replaced with another partner in the blink of an eye. It is because of this that you continue to doubt yourself after a breakup. Perhaps you are scrolling through your head the thought “if I reacted differently, we would still be together.” You think: "If I forgive him and forget all his psychopathic antics, then I will finally feel relief." These thoughts are normal, but they have nothing to do with reality. At least the one whose actions brought you to PsychopathFree.com is probably not the greatest person in the world, right?
Keep researching, share your story and read the stories of other victims. Self-examination and learning accelerate the recovery process. Eventually, something will “click” in your mind.
I don't know when this will actually happen because, looking back at my own recovery, I can't figure out at what point it happened. But I promise: the time will come when you will stop doubting your own sanity and realize that your partner was destructive and toxic. You will remember him with endless disgust, realizing that someone did not seem to be who he is. The thought of being in the same room with him will make you feel almost physical pain, because you will finally understand what a monster he really was. Your self-esteem will be restored and you will no longer look back again and again wistfully.
Helpful reading:
Overcoming Brainwashing & The Sociopath's World of Lies
Stages of Grief from a Psychopathic Relationship
Psychopathy and Cognitive Dissonance
2. How can he be so happy with someone else? Why does he give his next partner everything that I did not receive? Because I wasn't good enough?
This should really be question #1.
Isn't it strange that every victim asks this question? Actually, nothing strange, because none of us received a course of special treatment. We all think that the psychopath loves the next victim more, appreciates him more, has a deeper respect for him. That's what psychopaths hope for. They want you to see the contrast between the horrifying end of a relationship with you and the honeymoon start of their subsequent triumph. But no person in their right mind can instantly go from being abusive with one to suddenly having a perfect relationship with someone else. Psychopaths use social media to look happy in the eyes of others, but what kind of happy person would openly brag about their happiness and brag about choosing one person over another? No, just not a really happy person. It's just someone trying to triangulate and make you jealous.
But the thing is, you still have every chance of being happy. And the only way to become happy is not to maintain contact with a psychopath and not follow him on the network.
I know you think you'll feel better if they break up. I thought so too. “If they break up, then I could be convinced that the former partner is simply incapable of love, and my heart would be calm.” Nevermind. This does not change anything. I watched the collapse of subsequent relationships and was still unhappy. I was also worried about his subsequent sacrifice. It's terrible to know that another person feels the same pain of a broken heart. I thought their breakup would heal me, but it made me feel even worse. Why? Because my healing was still centered around someone else, not myself. Once the doors closed for good, I never looked back again. It was like a release - I finally stopped caring about what was happening in his life and, of course, stopped worrying what he thought of me. I got rid of the drama, chaos, uncertainty and competition. For the first time since I met him, I was living my life again. And that's when everything started to change. Since leaving that world behind, my sanity has returned and my dreams have begun to come true.
Helpful reading:
Torture by Triangulation
A Letter to the Other Woman
3 Characters in the Psychopath's Love Triangle
The Transitional Target
3. Can it change? But what if he is actually a good person, and the problem was in our relationship with him?
Psychopaths don't change. Psychopathy is congenital and cannot be cured. Psychopaths don't want to change because they consider themselves superior to "ordinary" people. Don't worry if it will change, because it won't. Psychopaths can create the illusion of "decency" to maintain a mask of normality, but this is a sham, like everything else with them. They are not able to recognize in another person a unique personality worthy of care and love. All they see around them are pawns on a chessboard. Someone who has been able to insult you (boycott, guestlight, cheat, pathologically lie) is not able to suddenly become a decent person just because he found himself a better partner. His qualities and behavior are symptoms of a serious personality disorder, and not a temporary consequence of a bad relationship.
The media create and exaggerate the image of the “good psychopath” every day, each time demonstrating a gross misunderstanding of the essence of this disorder. Have you heard anything about "good rapists and murderers"? Of course not. Perhaps psychopaths come from dysfunctional families, or perhaps their disorder is a consequence of a violation of the biochemistry of the brain. Whatever the causes of the disorder, psychopathy is incurable. He won't change. And therefore, you should not waste your time guessing: I wonder if anyone can make a sensitive person out of a psychopath.
Helpful reading:
Are Psychopaths Insecure?
Wise Psychopaths, Honest Narcissists, Empathetic Sociopaths, & Other Virtuous Evil People
Pathological Lying: A Psychopathic Manipulation Tool
4. What is the difference between a psychopath, a sociopath and a narcissist?
Psychologists, doctors, popularizers of this topic and Google answer this question in different ways.
And I, as a researcher of this topic, alas, have not been able to find a definite answer. Here's what to start with: all of these disorders are toxic, incurable, and they all repeat the idealization-devaluation-disposal cycle.0072 ia. That is what unites them. Not just a diagnosis, but a general pattern of highly manipulative and inhuman behavior.
We cannot say that one disorder is better or worse than another. Here on the site, we do not use the concept of "just a narcissist." Whether you've been in a relationship with a narcissist, a sociopath, or a psychopath, the end result is the same: it's extremely difficult to heal the mind-heart attachment caused by a person with a personality disorder through repeated cycles of idealization and devaluation.
Helpful reading:
Idealize, Devalue, Discard
Different Titles? (thank you, Delilah)
5. Do I have to admit my share of the blame for what happened? After all, tango is danced together.
No, and we have a zero tolerance policy for victim blaming on our website for victims of psychopathic abuse. It is good (and normal) when you ask this question to yourself, but if you are trying to propagate to the victims "their share of responsibility for what happened", we will quickly say goodbye to you and ban you. Whether you are codependent, naive, self-doubt, vulnerable, or you are a completely harmonious person, violence and exploitation cannot be justified by anything. Nobody deserves such treatment. Abusers are happy to label the victim as "codependent" because that way they put the blame on us. But having codependency is no excuse for being abused, just as the fact that you left your car open doesn't mean you deserve to have your car stolen. Victim accusers like to scream that you will never get better, grow up, or heal unless you admit your share of “guilt” in what happened (because tangos are danced together, blah blah blah). However, please note that it is entirely possible to recover, grow, and heal without taking on someone else's responsibility for monstrous acts. Self-esteem and a healthy sense of boundaries are based on this.
This is how we learn to stop other people's projections, excuses, and devaluations.
Please note that the above is not a substitute for introspection and reflection. Once we have received the necessary information, learned about the warning signs of personality disorders and tested our knowledge by experience, we must take responsibility for our own choices in the future. We cannot be stuck in an endless cycle of self-destructive patterns, making choices over and over again that are detrimental to our health. We cannot ignore the experience of people who have already walked this path: they also thought that they were “not like that”, that they were a magical exception.
Here on the site, you are guaranteed a safe place to talk about what happened to you. Once you have mastered the skills learned in the healing process, you take full responsibility for the person you are about to become.
Helpful reading:
Codependency & Victim Blaming: Why Abuse is Always Wrong
Victim Blaming, Concern Trolls, and Chicken Little
The Importance of Progress
6.
Should I warn the next victim?
We all go this way. For the first time we find articles on psychopathy on Google, and everything starts to fall into place. We experience bewilderment, bewilderment, rage, horror, and many other negative emotions. The first reaction of many of us is the desire:
- expose the psychopath;
- warn the next victim.
It's so tempting in an email to quote an article you just discovered as proof that you know exactly who he is. Please, do not do that. You think he will be scared when he realizes that you have finally understood his essence, and the smirk of superiority will leave his face. The subsequent victim will read your letter, see all the alarm bells and immediately part with it. You and the victim will become best friends and will drink coffee together every day.
But the psychopath is actually using your letter to prove to the whole world that you are crazy, crazy, insane. Keep in mind that very few people are aware of and concerned about psychopathy.
The effect will be just the opposite: others will be convinced that someone still loves someone and cannot come to terms with the loss. The psychopath will use your extravagant emails to triangulate a new victim to see how unique and irresistible he is, using your "crazy" as confirmation. Absolutely nothing good will come of it. When you're under the influence of love bombardment, would you believe it if someone said that your "other half" is a psychopath?
Helpful reading:
Exposing a Sociopath: Should You Warn a Sociopath's Next Victim
Telling a Psychopath You Know They're a Psychopath
7. Did he really not have any feelings during our relationship? I had never loved anyone so much before, how could he not feel anything?
Psychopaths don't experience the same emotions that you and I do. But your love was very real. He may have convincingly portrayed a love that didn't really exist. He didn't feel it. Vulnerability, trust or affection - you felt it all.
He observed and imitated how you expressed your emotions, but he did not feel them. That's why it was so easy for him to leave you and find a replacement for you, while you need months or even years to recover.
Many people say "well, it's always easier for the one who left his partner because he made the decision first". In a relationship with a psychopath, this argument does not work. A psychopath can talk about his plans to start a family with you and have kids and at the same time sleep with another. It is easy for him to end you not because he came to this decision as a result of long reflections and analysis of his feelings. It is easy for him to end you, because he did not have any feelings for you initially. In addition, psychopathic victims who were the first to leave their abusers may report that they also took a long time to heal.
The psychopath may have experienced some emotion throughout the relationship. Envy that you are able to fall in love and become deeply attached to a person - because he is physiologically incapable of this (they ignore this fact, convincing themselves that your love makes you "weak").
Anger, when you start to see who is hiding under the elaborate mask of a "normal person" - he is insulted for this "normal person" that he created the image of which he created to deceive you. Boredom, because psychopaths are always bored. And, finally, glee, when boredom temporarily recedes, if the psychopath was able to deceive the victim and watch how she strayed from the true path. For him, there is no greater joy than to witness the self-destruction of a kind and cheerful person.
Helpful reading:
What Emotions Do Sociopaths Feel?
Ending Cognitive Dissonance
Understanding How Sociopaths Think: Why It Is Good To Ask Why
8. Why do they always win? When will karma finally overtake them?
Psychopaths are possessed. They play games in which they involve other people, never divulging the rules. In fact, their victims may not even know they are in the game. Psychopaths exploit other people's vulnerabilities and hopes to deceive people, and then celebrate victory when the victim is completely broken and devastated.
By creating and controlling every nuance of the game, they convince themselves of their own “success”, when in fact they need games in order to distract themselves from the boring life of the consumer. Without a soul of their own, they feel the need to cripple the souls of others. They feel temporarily superior, ignoring the fact that truly happy people don't have to hurt others to feel good about themselves. Psychopaths always win because the game is orchestrated from start to finish by them. But the mere fact that a person achieves what he wants does not make him a winner.
Imagine: every morning you wake up with a feeling of hopeless longing that poisons your every thought. Imagine that because of desperate boredom, you can never be consistent and happy. Imagine looking at your "friends" and "lovers" and seeing them as objects to use, clowns for daily entertainment. Imagine that this feeling is in no way connected with the specific people who are currently nearby. Imagine: you are unable to feel love, vulnerability, trust, and compassion.
Imagine that your only pleasure is to fool other people by watching them run around with you. Imagine that all of your relationships follow the same destructive, destructive scenario that you have carefully planned. And not once in your life, not for a second, have you felt those lofty, beautiful experiences that make life worth living.
It's hard to see what lies behind the "happy" facade of the sociopath's life, which he carefully maintains in the eyes of others, but in essence we have described his life quite accurately.
Helpful reading:
Please Let Go Of This Idea That The Psychopath Has “Won”
The Post-Breakup Superiority Complex
9. Why don't they just leave us alone? What is the point of dragging these relations "to the bitter end"?
One of the most important questions victims ask themselves after ending a relationship with a psychopath is, "Why didn't he just break up with me?" He spent long months lying, deceiving and wooing a new victim.
He criticized and boycotted you - acted as if you were to blame for the fact that the relationship did not work out. In fact, he just already found a replacement for you. So the question is: why not just leave you? What was the point of dragging the relationship to a victorious end? This is where a relationship with a psychopath is different from anything you've ever experienced. He wants to see you suffer. He wants to watch you self-destruct. He wants you to believe that you are crazy and jealous out of nothing, even if he is actually cheating on you. Sometimes you even think that he wants you to leave him. But just at the moment when you finally decide to do this, he suddenly backs up, expressing conflicting feelings, reminiscent of the stage of idealization. Once you admit that you still have a chance, he will suddenly turn the situation upside down.
The point is to keep you with you as long as possible so that you can use your gestures of desperation to demonstrate your "crazy" to a new victim.
In the end, in order to leave you, they choose the most cruel and offensive way. You will think that this is due to a lack of sensitivity, or because he was afraid to hurt your feelings. But in reality, everything is quite the opposite. He had many opportunities to end you early, but he chose to watch you suffer. No normal person can take pleasure in the fact that someone asks and pleads for mercy. Only psychopaths enjoy the pain of others. Only psychopaths cheat on a partner and accuse him of "pathological jealousy." That is the answer to your "why" question. Yes, because psychopaths are constantly bored! And because the situation when you rush around him, temporarily disperses this boredom.
Helpful reading:
It Could Not Have Ended Any Other Way
4 Reasons for the Cruel Breakup
Psychopaths & Projection
10. I need to forgive a psychopath, right? For my own peace of mind, I must "forgive and let go."
Many of us go through a stage where we think, "If I just forgive my abuser, I'll be happy again.
" This may be the last step on the road to recovery, but it's important to remember that healing is actually a lifelong journey. It doesn't have a linear beginning and end, but if you think forgiveness should be the means to your healing, just keep the following in mind.
The old saying is that time heals all wounds, and to some extent this is true. In the recovery process, the problem is that over time, the really bad things that actually happened are forgotten. This is the healing mechanism of our soul - selective amnesia, which protects against painful memories. You may come to the idea of forgiveness and invite your ex to have a quiet chat over lunch, just to finally reconcile.
Don't be fooled: your distorted perception is pulling you back. You are simply projecting your own post-recovery state of happiness and optimism onto how you perceive the psychopath to feel about you. In fact, it is a healthy process that helps to suppress disturbing thoughts. But you absolutely should not be led by the illusion of improving relations.
Consider the progress of your well-being as your own merit. Realize that you are feeling better because you are away from the psychopath, not because you are both willing to compromise. His return to your life will set you back and worsen your condition.
If you decide to forgive a psychopath, please keep it your own business. Just because forgiveness doesn't mean bringing the psychopath back into your life. And, of course, there is no need to tell him that you have forgiven him. True forgiveness comes from within, and you don't need another person to express your feelings to them.
If you can't forgive a psychopath, that's fine too. This does not mean at all that you harbor a grudge and are torn apart by pain from the inside. There is also nobility in the absence of forgiveness. Some abuse survivors feel that forgiving the abuser offends their best feelings, and I totally understand. This is your personal decision: someone else's soul is darkness. Do what you think is best for you, because only you know how to do it.
Helpful Reading:
Forgiving Yourself After Abuse: The Reconciliation of the Heart and Mind
Closure Without Contact
The Art of Gentleness
When a Christian Meets a Sociopath
11. Okay, I understand the essence of psychopathy, but how can I trust people again, knowing that there are psychopaths among
of them?
Trust After Emotional Abuse
Sex After Psychopathic Manipulation
12. Why does healing take so long? Can I ever be happy again?
Why Does It Take So Long to Get Over a Psychopath?
Stages of Grief From a Psychopathic Relationship
13. Am I a psychopath myself?
No, You're Not a Psychopath
Working Through Rage After Abuse
14. I heard that psychopaths try to suck their victims back into addiction after a breakup, but he never once tried to contact me again.
A Damaging Myth: Abusers Will Stalk You After the D&D
From: https://www.psychopathfree.
com/content.php?324-Top-10-Frequently-Asked-Questions-about-Relationships-with-Psychopaths-Narcissists
Translated by Peace. Top 10 Frequently Asked Questions About Relationships with Psychopaths & Narcissists
9- Can a psychopath change? And is the game worth the candle?
Previous part: Where do psychopaths come from? Who is to blame and what to do?
Victims of domestic and criminal psychopaths, tormented mentally and physically, often want one thing - to restore justice. They believe to the last in the triumph of justice (if a crime was committed) or in God's judgment for a scoundrel (if there was absolutely something that did not fall under crime). Victims often come to confrontation or court solely to look into the eyes of the perpetrator - and leave depressed, because they do not see there not only repentance, but sometimes even nothing human.
Most people, however, tend to forgive to the last. They also believe that a person, if he wants, can change.
Is this possible in the case of a psychopath, especially a criminal psychopath? You can answer this question for yourself if you imagine yourself, as advised in some articles about psychopaths, where they are called sociopaths. They advise you to imagine that you live without feeling remorse, guilt, shame, pity. You are not tormented by mental pain, you are unfamiliar with what love is, even for those closest to you. That is, there are no deterrents at all, for any misconduct and deeds.
“But at least elementary fear,” some will say. "It's impossible for a psychopath not to be afraid of anything at all."
Here. Fear. It is this feeling that can still make a psychopath change for the better. Since the psychopath has all his already few senses blunted, for this he must really be very afraid of something. For one, this is a tarnished reputation in the future (which means fewer opportunities in life), for someone - a possible prison sentence (although some psychopaths, as you know, don’t care), and someone else may need to lie in a coma between life and death.
Some young psychopaths (criminal and everyday), for lack of feelings, logically come to the point that honor must be preserved from an early age, although the feeling of honor is not familiar to them. In a word, if they change, they do it not for their own sake, or even more so for someone close, but solely for reasons of benefit and security in the future.
- How insensitive they are! someone will exclaim. - Calculating, soulless - how only the earth wears them!
Public outrage is understandable, but you also need to know that one advanced psychopath can sometimes be more useful than a group of people. Excellent organizers, professionals in their field, they provide jobs for hundreds and thousands of people as leaders. Doctors, pathologists, for whom the human body is an instrument for experiments, can bring many discoveries in science and save many lives. (True, both a doctor and an entrepreneur can turn out to be everyday psychopaths, so you need to look, in addition to the profession, what they are like in everyday life).
Pioneers - polar explorers, space explorers, as well as emigrants of all stripes, including "come in large numbers" - are also always psychopaths. One such emigrant or migrant, as always happens later, pulls a large family with him to a new place of residence. Everyone lives in contentment and prosperity - why not use such a psychopath? But only a psychopath is able to go into exile without a penny in his pocket or with a minimum of money, hoping for a chance. He, unlike people with feelings, is not tormented by thoughts about how he will be received in a new place and whether the locals will reckon with him. There is only one psychopath in this world - and everything around him is adapted to use it, whether it be individuals or systems like government ones. Psychopaths in exile are more likely than others to succeed, because only a psychopath is able to make anyone reckon with himself, using force or charm, depending on the situation.
There are known cases when foreigners occupy a prominent position in society, up to government posts - due to their incredible charm and selfless work for the benefit of the people.
These are always developed psychopaths who have learned to extract positive emotions for existence (and from a grateful people, such emotions are a powerful nourishment for a psychopath insensitive from birth). At the same time, power (what gives the meaning of existence to all types of psychopaths) is always with them, and differs significantly from that which gives a criminal or unworthy lifestyle. Any vicious path is lined with a red carpet, and the result is the same - complete energy depletion and de-energization. Perennial "priseltsy" at the age of forty look decrepit old people (if they even live to this age), the appearance and health of drug addicts and alcoholics sometimes cannot be restored, scandalous people, intriguers remain in old age in oppressive loneliness, and so on.
Having learned to reckon with people (not to love them, this is not required), having felt the return from their actions, developed psychopaths are no longer able to turn back to their former way of life.
They will not change their nature, they will continue to manipulate people, but with a different motivation - creative. Many still reach with age in their thoughts about some necessary changes in life, about a worthy place in society, about finding peace in their souls. But you need to know that there is a limit here, provided that the psychopath still wants to have time to do it in this life. This is an age in the region of 33 years, give or take two years. This is some kind of biblical age, that if you don’t change your mind before this time, then it may be too late. However, this is the "penultimate" age, there is also the "last" - in the region of thirty-six to thirty-seven years. After that, the personality is finally formed and it will be more difficult to change. Although everything is possible at fifty, and at seventy, and while on your deathbed! The main thing is that the severity of the deed should not be too great, otherwise this is already a different level of perception. Relatively speaking, serious criminals, maniacs, cannibals are no longer quite people.
This is already something transcendent, diabolical, not even bestial, as people amazed by stories about the cruelty of such criminals like to express themselves. Not even every priest gets access to prison service, only specially trained ones, because the usual methods of treatment and exhortation are not applicable to such prisoners.
What if you find that you are a psychopath and want to change? Or you have always been a positive psychopath and at the same time felt a certain embarrassment in front of yourself for being different from others. Since childhood, you have discovered unusual properties behind you: where everyone is happy or upset, you remain indifferent, although you maintain a general cheerful atmosphere. Where you should be ashamed or feel sorry for someone, you feel neither shame nor pity, although you are able to portray both embarrassment and sympathy. You found, with some horror, that you were not bothered by the thought that you might lose your parents - it could be a loss for you, except from the point of view that there would be no one to take care of you.
What is love for the Motherland, honor, duty, which they talk about at school, is also not entirely clear. Finally, you realized that any physical interaction with the outside world, hugs with other people, views of nature do not excite you as much as they should. You can list the corresponding “symptoms” for a long time, these include the perception of friends, loved ones, strangers, and so on.
You must admit, admit to yourself, that you are a sensory disability. It's neither good nor bad, it's a fact. As people are born with physical disabilities, without arms, legs, without the ability to move, blind, deaf, etc., so are you. You are who you are from birth. The disadvantage of this is that such a "disability" is not visible to anyone, and you regularly get poked for literally nothing (reproaches of selfishness, inability to love, soullessness, etc.). This, of course, pisses you off, but be more forgiving. There are also pluses from your position, if your arms and legs are in place, it’s already good.
And if there is a head, besides cold, like all psychopaths, it’s generally wonderful.
Never blame yourself for anything! Also, you must understand that you will never change your nature, that people who are friendly towards you have not said it. Let them hope for the best, leave them this hope. Make your specialty your little secret. Let this be for you one of the ways to manipulate people, in a good way. Try, experiment with the feelings of others, observe their reactions. Strive for these reactions to be positive, and your reputation as an attractive, fair, and charismatic person will spread faster than you think. You yourself will not notice how many people will begin to come to you for advice on various occasions (at the same time charging you with emotions), how many will begin to invite you to a decent society and how many admirers of the opposite sex will be found around you, even if you are not outwardly Apollo. Surround yourself with moral people or equally developed psychopaths, and always keep in mind that one person can do a lot, but interacting with other people can do more at times.
