Psychopath

I understand what you mean, but why is a ‘logical’ defence more superior to an ‘enotion’ led one?

Secondly, I can’t see a fragile, vulnerable ego being more dangerous than one that has no feeling?

Obviously there is a range for both disorders.

’Labels’ are important leading to diagnosis, treatment and informed decisions around medication, safe guarding and support. Many clients are relieved by knowing, certainly beneficial to family and loved ones that are living with it too.

@whumpthereitis Appreciate your view.

Yes I can't divulge much but essentially it's historically been emotional knee jerk reactions rather than logical. So, rather than a lack of emotion that would perhaps expect in a psychopath, it's been overwhelming amount of emotion that after the incident is concealed one way or another into non existence.

This now is the same in that I believe I made the mistake of telling them the truth about themselves as I had enough of being manipulated. A result of that was at first emotional defensive anger which then led to a completely new image that never existed before, a new narrative has been created that paints me as dangerous and them the victim. However, the way it's unfolded makes no logical sense to everyone involved legally, everything is contradictory and massive holes in the narrative. Despite of evidence, they have since doubled down on it and now carrying on as if none of it is happening at all and living a false life in a bubble.

Almost as if, if I just ignore it will go away or doesn't exist at all.

“I mean besides past behavior and character in general that align my circumstance is fairly unique in the way it's playing out right now where anyone with any sense would have knocked it on the head. I would go as far to say a psychopath would be able to see the situation makes no sense and wouldn't benefit them and would change their course. This instead has got to delusional levels of avoiding fault, accepting reality and the realistic outcome that I can only conclude to being NPD territory.”

Obviously I don’t know the ins and outs but yes, I would agree with this based on what you’ve said.

A Narcissist needs for people to believe them, they need other people to validate the image they have created of themselves. They are frightened of being caught out and of being thought badly of. While this wouldn’t hurt a psychopath, a narcissist would feel it as a deep wound to what is essentially a very vulnerable ego. Defence against this wont be logical, rather it’s led by emotion.

It won’t actually occur to a narcissist that they’re in any way in the wrong, and they likely absolutely believe what they’re claiming. Unlike a psychopath, a narcissist will delude themselves, not just those around them.

“whumpthereitis - it’s perfectly possibly to receive a clinical diagnosis for psychopathy and narcism in all its forms. Assessments by trained psychologists and psychiatrists that can tell the difference between a behaviour on a normal spectrum and those that differ.”

I’m referring to psychopathy not being recognised in the current DSM, or by the International Classification of Diseases 10.

But yes, psychiatrists and psychologists with experience in personality disorders have to be the ones to diagnose after thorough evaluation. AFAIK it requires more than one to make the diagnosis as well.

@whumpthereitis Oh absolutely, there doesn't always need to be a label some people are just selfish arseholes. Everyone is capable of exhibiting narcissistic traits at some point, we all have that in us, same I'm sure as psychopathic traits as well exist in most people to some degree.

Problem is now labels are everywhere, seemingly running from one to the other as a buzz word and that seems to be the case with narcissism, hot topic.

However, that makes it difficult when you are actually trying to figure out if it is say NPD because of all the overwhelming articles about it that say all sorts.

I mean besides past behavior and character in general that align my circumstance is fairly unique in the way it's playing out right now where anyone with any sense would have knocked it on the head. I would go as far to say a psychopath would be able to see the situation makes no sense and wouldn't benefit them and would change their course. This instead has got to delusional levels of avoiding fault, accepting reality and the realistic outcome that I can only conclude to being NPD territory.

whumpthereitis - it’s perfectly possibly to receive a clinical diagnosis for psychopathy and narcism in all its forms. Assessments by trained psychologists and psychiatrists that can tell the difference between a behaviour on a normal spectrum and those that differ.

My colleagues report particular difficulty with narcissistic clients due their inability to ‘see’ their own narcissistic traits, as a result they are very hard to treat. Many have tried and failed.

I saw a doc once that a high number of surgeons and CEOs are psychopaths.

Generally, to reach the top, you have to have some sort of lack of emotion because that's what seems to get in the way of fighting to be the best.

Aren't many surgeons and bankers psychopaths?

Just Googled it. Wikipedia has an entire page on it called Psychopathy in the workplace.

It says that the ten careers with the highest proportion of psychopaths are:

CEO
Lawyer
Media (TV/radio)
Salesperson
Surgeon
Journalist
Police officer
Clergy
Chef
Civil servant

Interestingly I also found that when there were several narcissists/ psychopaths in a work place instead of destroying each other they tended to band together and work as a team . I am also very wary of people who are overly friendly very quickly They usually want something from you , usually a lift to work or to swap days / departments with you . It's best to try and go under the radar, keep your personal life to yourself.

I do think there is a deeper issue with pathologising every unpleasant facet of human behaviour. One of the reasons why personality disorders are so hard to diagnose is because each symptom can also be found in those with a normal human psychology. Oftentimes, if not most times, an arsehole is just an arsehole, no personality disorder required.

I do think that is something humans struggle with on a number of levels, hence the desire to separate those aspects and make them ‘other’, as if humans would be otherwise incapable of the worst things they do. I also think that people feel they have to call someone that has done them wrong disordered, as if the wrongdoing isn’t serious or doesn’t count unless the wrongdoer can considered disordered.

In what way would you consider a narcissist worse than a psychopath? I am curious as to how you have come to that conclusion.

My mother is a covert narcissist, she was unable to fully understand the pain we were suffering, it was all about her and her terrible life.
My father would play his role with periods of adulation he didn’t feel or mean, she would play the victim - his victim - but it could be any victim role as long as it could elicit sympathy and attention. It was a toxic dynamic that meant that everything centred around them. They barely looked or noticed the outside world or their own children in the game of cat and poor helpless mouse.

However my mother never posed a direct and violent threat to us, she never had capacity to put us first and protect us, but she did not have the ability to cause real and lasting harm in the way by psychopathic father could. He didn’t care about anything, so of course he is more dangerous.

I don’t agree a narcissist is somehow worse, that is my personal experience, mainly because they do have some inkling of pain in all it’s forms and guilt but psychopaths in my experience generally do not have any genuine understanding of either.

@Rudderneck Have you found like me that there's something quite delusional and evil deep within a Narcissist, under all of the layers?

I personally think a narcissist is more of a threat myself but I may be biased.

@whumpthereitis Interesting, thanks.

Yes I'm finding intriguing while trying to make sense of my situation but it seems to be a massive rabbit hole with conflicting information.

Narcissist seems to be in at the moment as far as I can work out, it's everywhere but NPD itself aligns very much to what I have been dealing with all this time, everything matches but still I don't know as I can't diagnose it myself. Although, way things are going it may be ordered so may find out one way or the other.

That's something I have come across too, males and females exhibiting differently and as a result, a different diagnosis. Same as apparently female and male narcissists differ, along with malignant and convert narcissists.

Very hard to distinguish what's actually at play considering there's so many similarities, different labels and also stereotypes. Assuming ASPD was to remove that serial killer stigma associated with the name psychopath...

I don't want to evoke bad memories so thanks for the reply. I've come across one child who could be labelled as a psychopath, no moral compass and he acted in a way his peers were distraught over. He was dead behind the eyes in every situation though

When I join a new work place I sit back and work out who truly holds the power in the workplace. It's often not management but usually one or two individuals who have management twisted round their little fingers and are adept at running the place to suit them . They are usually very confident, charismatic , smiley people. I make it a point to get along with them . If you cross them you may as well sign your resignation because your life will be made a living hell until you do . I can't make up my mind if they are narcissistic or sociopathic.

Well, no, not necessarily.

It's a generalization for sure, but I've found the true narcissists I've met to be much worse to deal with than psychopaths.

This is where it gets really convoluted, because of the various subtypes of psychopath (and narcissist). There’s a number of different theories that abound in regards to how many subtypes there even are (usually goes from two up to ten), and then there’s confusion as to whether a sociopath is different to a psychopath, or if they’re different names for the same thing. However, the consensus seems to be that a Narcissistic Psychopath is a specific subtype. Although, all that said, while it’s generally understood that psychopathy exists and is distinct from antisocial personality, it’s not even a term that is officially used - the diagnosis is ASPD! It really is a clusterfuck to try and unravel, define, and comprehend.

Overall the understanding of psychopathy is poor, especially so in regards to understanding ‘successful psychopaths’, and female psychopaths. In regards to the latter, at one point, and quite possibly even now, sex could/can determine what diagnosis would be made. A psychopathic man would be diagnosed with ASPD, a psychopathic woman would be diagnosed as Borderline, despite that again being a different condition. Once again it shows how much of a clusterfuck it really is.

Yes there's a difference between someone who is narcissistic and someone who is actually a narcissist with NPD. Narcissists and psychopaths aren't the same at a deeper level and they vary from one person to another, just like everyone else. It's not as clear cut as saying, that person is narcissistic so they are an actual narcissist or a psychopath is inherently dangerous or a serial killer.

I can't say for sure as I'm no expert only what I have experienced but I've come across many people who would be deemed narcissistic but only one who I think does have NPD and there's a clear difference as far as I have seen.

It is all about protecting their image of themselves at all costs, they have to maintain that current version of themselves. When they do wrong or hurt others they do know what they are doing and they do care but not for the person, for themselves and their image, the shame and remorse they shove down and avoid at all costs because it's too much. They won't ever admit but I have seen it at times, a slight crack here and there and at times full on collapse and that is the saddest most broken person I've ever seen.

That was a rare occurrence, though and mostly everything and everyone was analyzed for some gain for themselves. Highly emotional reactions to everything perceived as a slight that hit their triggers and if they were hit, rage like I have never seen. The levels taken to create or maintain their image was full quite often delusional.

So yeah I think that's the opposite of a psychopath who would likely not give a damn what others thought about them or said, perhaps.

My only confusion in my case is, what if that person shows all the signs of NPD but then alongside this behind closed doors away from public, their more truer self, shows fairly strong psychopath traits as well that are quite disturbing, they have done some things before and you're not quite sure what they would be capable of.

Would that just be overlap or would that be something else entirely like a narcissist psychopath, if that is a thing....

I tried to commit suicide in my early teens, his controlling and aggressive temper clashed terribly with my biological development to start to move away from him/them. I was unsuccessful thankfully. He was thrown out by the hospital for shouting in my face as my stomach was pumped, that was I was a waste of time and he had lost a days work.
The nurses were much kinder to me after they met him.

I left home at seventeen, struggled terribly initially and finally moved overseas thousands of miles from him.
I built a successful and happy life, I no longer had anything to lose, as I felt I had already lost everything. I have trust issues sometimes, I had lots of therapy around still caring him and I worry about my mother every day. She never left him in the end, and says he has calmed down with age. He hasn’t but it’s a lie she has to tell to keep us all from prying too much. He is not too bad to her as she serves (many) purposes.

I have wished all of my life for a parent that actually feels something for me, he despised us as children, we were in his way. Now, he is simply totally indifferent. We have no relationship whatsoever.

I'm unhappy that somebody died because it causes issue for me. For me it's the inconvenience of it.
I feel sorry only for myself and society constantly tells us this is bad and selfish when the only people who come out as winners are the people who look out for themselves.
I can't stand children. I wouldn't go out of my way to hurt one but the sound of a baby crying makes me immediately think to smother it. I would easily and without guilt be able to take a baby outside to a shed and leave it there knowing it would die, simply because it was noisy or inconvenient. I don't see a point in many people so I feel they are irrelevant and their life, happiness, suffering etc pose no impact to me therefor aren't at all something I concern myself with. I do not experience regret, only again, self pity if perhaps I was caught doing something bad. I do not regret my actions only being caught. I could've wrote this whole paragraph. The only regret I've experienced was getting caught doing something deemed illegal/fraudulent by not planning better.
I am happily married I am also but my DH thinks I have a personality disorder. He's the one person who I find difficult to emotionally manipulate and in terms of conditions of worth, I think he's the closest thing to acceptance I'm ever going to get. He does try and discourage me from stealing and if the law didn't prevent me from doing other things I'd probably go further.

They can be co morbidities (same as with sadism), but there are big differences between narcissistic traits, and NPD, in both the source of them and how the narcissism is expressed.

A narcissist has an emotional need for external validation in order to reinforce a fragile sense of self - a psychopath does not. A narcissistic deeply fears any threat to said sense of self/the image they have created, a psychopath does not. A narcissist will feel shame and remorse and seek to justify their actions to themselves, a psychopath does not and will not.

There are also difference types of psychopaths, as well as different types of narcissistic. Again this is why an understanding that is based predominantly on criminal psychopaths, is a limited understanding.

But narcissism is a clinical feature of psychopathy, @Rudderneck, and many psychopaths are sadistic.

I don't quite understand what you are getting at.

I think it's pretty clear, but there are also clearly people on the thread who see psychopaths as being sadistic people, for example, or incapable of any emotion, or incapable of moral reasoning, none of which is necessarily the case.

I think you are making that confusion, it's clear what the differences are.

Yes. I married one. He’s had five wives, and we don’t know how many kids. He just lies through life. He’s broken many women.