Edit: 6/12/08
This thread was started back in April. Because sociopathy is a current board topic I wanted to bring up this info yet not take away from the disscusion on Carolyn's thread on how to deal with sociopathy.
Lise
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Excerpts from 'The Emptied Soul' - by Adolf Guggenbuhl-Craig
"Another trait, important for everyone who deals with a psychopath, is their ability to evoke pity; the same kind of pity we feel towards invalids or experience for helpless and sick children. They seem completely helpless, lost in a world where they do not belong. Again and again they try to adjust and to cope, in a fashion that always falls a bit shy of the mark. They are eternal strangers, arousing in each of us a longing to help, a feeling we experience with helpless human beings.
Often this pity creates difficulties, and many is the person who falls prey to it. We often try to be kind to these "poor" people, and they are "poor" people - our pity is justifiable. However the problem is that
psychopaths readily manipulate those around them through just such pity. Women are often victimized: mothering instincts are aroused, or the Archetype of the Nurse is constellated. They want to protect and care for the poor, sick thing and understandably so, for psychopaths strike protective chords and speak to the desire to help and heal."
"[Therapists] who have to deal with psychopaths readily succumb to savior fantasies. Confronted by a phenomenon which simply should not be, which somehow must be changed, they set out to save these individuals.... We would like to believe that we can help anyone who comes, for whatever reasons, seeking our help. We would like to believe that no symptom, no complaint, no difficulty can withstand our talent, our ability, and our understanding. Here we get caught, as they say, between a rock and a hard place. Since psychopaths understand our weakness, our need to help them against our better judgment, they can use us, manipulating us to the point where we start defending them, writing letters of recommendation for them and the like. To take the situation one step further, we react to psychopaths as we react to all human beings. We feel pity and sympathy, savior fantasies are called forth, our feelings of mothering and fathering are awakened."
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"Everyone knows someone like this. The one I knew was a pretty, colleague who had a bit of a dishevelled appearance, a little-girl voice with a take-care-of-me helplessness which hid her self-serving goal."
member quote
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Question your tendency to pity too easily.Respect should be reserved for the kind and the morally courageous.[/b] Pity is another socially valuable response, and should be reserved for innocent people who are in genuine pain or who have fallen on misfortune. If, instead, you find yourself often pitying someone who consistently hurts you or other people, and who actively campaigns for your sympathy, the chances are close to one hundred percent that you are dealing with a sociopath.
Related to this-- I recommend that you severely challenge your need to be polite in absolutely all situations. For normal adults in our culture, being what we think of as "civilized" is like a reflex, and often we find ourselves being automatically decorous even when someone has enraged us, repeatedly lied to us, or figuratively stabbed us in the back.
Sociopaths take huge advantage of this automatic courtesy in exploitive situations.Thirteen Rules for Dealing with Sociopaths in Everyday Life Martha Stout - Interview
Author: The Sociopath Next Door
http://www.bookbrowse.com/author_interviews/full/index.cfm?author_number=1097From: Without Conscience, The Disturbing World of The Psychopaths Among Us by Dr. Robert Hare, Ph.D.
Set firm ground rules: Although power struggles with a psychopath are risky at best, you may be able to set up some clear ground rules, both for yourself and for the psychopath, to make your life easier and begin the difficult transition from victim to a person looking out for yourself. For example, this may mean that you will no longer bail him or her out of trouble, no matter what the circumstances.
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Playing the Victim RoleThis tactic involves portraying oneself as an innocent victim of circumstance or someone else's behavior in order to gain sympathy, evoke compassion and thereby get something from another.
One thing that cover-aggressive personalities count on is the fact that less calloused and hostile personalities usually can't stand to see anyone suffering. Therefore, the tactic is simple. Convince your victim you're suffering in some way, and they'll try to relieve your distress.
In Sheep's Clothing - Understanding and Dealing with Manipulative People
by George K. Simon
http://www.amazon.com/Sheeps-Clothing-Understanding-Dealing-Manipulative/dp/096516960X
