Who is the psychopath? Psychopathy: symptoms, treatment, types

The most controversial issue in modern psychology is who the psychopath is. In the qualification of mental illness, such a diagnosis does not exist. Often, this term is understood as a sociopath. Disputes on this topic and research are ongoing, and opinions are expressed diametrically opposed. From the complete denial of such a thing as psychopathy, to advanced tomographic studies with the establishment of typical brain activities in sociopaths. You can see what kind of brain a psychopath has. The photo below demonstrates this.

Psycho's brain

The psychopath's brain is characterized by reduced functionality in the frontal and temporal areas. These areas are responsible for control and empathy. Empathy is defined as the ability to feel the emotions of others. Psychopaths can be figuratively defined as intraspecific predators hunting their own kind and using their resources and energy for their own well-being.

For many people who live with psychopaths and are unaware of this, just understanding that a loved one is sick brings relief. They understand that they are not to blame for anything, and emotional exhaustion and neurosis are not their personal problem. A psychopath is a person who, due to illness, can bring the whole family to nervous breakdowns.

Who is this?

Who is the psychopath? In a nutshell, it’s difficult to answer. Symptoms should manifest themselves acutely, collectively and over a long period of time. Each person has certain inclinations and weaknesses in character, all people who are not necessarily ill face neurosis and nervous breakdowns, especially if there are reasons that cause emotional outbursts. It is important to realize that such drastic changes in life, which are accompanied by the death of a loved one, loss of work, change of companion and naturally imply a certain reaction of a person to stress, should not be mistaken for pathology. Often, it is precisely such reactions that can be mistaken for a personality disorder. But if all the features of the deviation from the norm are present in a complex and systematic manner for no apparent external reasons, it is already possible to draw some conclusions.

The presence of signs of psychopathy does not give us the right to hang labels on a person, especially in public. This information should only help us personally to decide on the continuation of communication with the person.

How to recognize a psychopath

How to find out who a psychopath is? Symptoms and signs are below:

• Talkativeness and superficial charm. Often these are friendly, talkative people using gestures, artistic. People around consider such people to be sweet and charming. If you listen to what such a person says, it turns out that all the information given is very superficial, this is a conversation for the sake of conversation.
• The need for mental arousal. These people often get bored when nothing happens, when everything is quiet and calm. They cannot occupy themselves and entertain themselves, so they definitely need to arrange something - a feast, a scandal, some kind of trip, to call people home. They are adrenaline-dependent, and if everything is calm, they become uncomfortable.
• Even if they work, they are looking for a job where you can do nothing. Ideally, he does nothing at all, lives at the expense of the husband, wife, children, parents, etc. The psychopath.
• This disease involves poor behavioral control. They can not control themselves, easily explode, annoyed.
• Erratic sexual intercourse, but not always.

Psychopaths

What type of personality does a psychopath have ? It is important to know in order to protect your emotional health.

• Emotional superficiality. They have no deep feelings, no deep fear, anxiety, love, affection. All emotions are formal and superficial. They never think about anything for long, they are indifferent to difficulties, whatever they may be - financial, social, emotional, physical, etc. The feeling of love is not characteristic of them. They can experience sexual feelings, an obsessive thought about controlling a person or manipulating his life, and this is perceived by them as love.
• Ability to manipulate. Such people will bring loved ones to tears, force them to do as they need. Everyone in the family will walk along the line. Psychopaths manipulate with screams, bad moods, poor health, blackmail, and threats (disinherit).
• Deceit. Sociopaths tell a variety of stories that did not exist, posing as truth. When they are convicted of lies, they rebel, claim that they did not say that.
• Lack of compassion and empathy, heartlessness. Nothing can cause them any kind of sympathetic reaction - neither the illness of loved ones, nor death, nor poverty, nor abandoned animals or homeless children.
• Failure to regret and regret. Even if the fault is obvious, these people will shift it to another. They are not ashamed, they will never say: "What a pity that I did this." They do not feel remorse. You won’t get any words of apology from them.
• Self-centeredness.

Caution - Psycho!

A psychopath is a person who, due to his own inadequacy, is able to humiliate others, endanger them, cause pain and suffering, more than once or twice, but systematically. Sociopaths are extremely false, and given their effective abilities (flat effect), their lies are very difficult to determine. Even experienced verifiers and profilers often make mistakes when working with them. When determining a lie, experts at the very beginning often ask themselves whether a person is healthy in front of me or not.

You don’t understand right away who a psychopath is, these people have superficial charm and are perfectly disguised, causing Stockholm syndrome to others (justification for the actions of a person who causes suffering).

Varieties of psychopathy

Is the interpretation of the term organized by sociopathy? What could be a psychopath? Varieties are described in the book of P. B. Ganushkin. He offers such a classification.

• Cycloids - the life regime changes dramatically, intervals of complete inactivity - to hyperefficiency. Characterized by cyclical ups and downs of mood for no reason.
• Asthenics are people who are characterized by anxiety, suspiciousness and the possibility of developing nervous obsessive states. The main thing of experience is “what if something happens”, “I said something correctly or not”, “what if I get sick”. Create predictable security spaces around you, avoid unpredictable situations.
• Schizoids - they leave the world, do nothing, close in shell and refuse to interact with people, limiting the circle of contacts.
• Hysterical characters - do not refuse contact with the world, but rather try to demonstrate themselves, surprise everyone, throw up tantrums.
• Paranoids are super-suspicious people without any sense of humor. They believe in their delusional speculation and ideas, they don’t need to convince such a person - it won’t work out.
• Epileptoids (they do not suffer from epilepsy) - structure the reality around them, they know where it lies, the house is always perfect clean. Everything should lie strictly in its place, everything should happen at a strictly appointed time and in a certain order. Vindictive, everyone can remember. They can be identified by handwriting or signature. They usually have a very beautiful, complex signature, very clear and unchanging. They need work that requires accuracy, stereotyping, accuracy, they enjoy it.
• Unstable psychopaths - they can’t strain in terms of study, work or stressful situations, they tend to live under someone’s guardianship. They do not deny themselves anything, so there may be problems with alcohol, drugs, a promiscuous sex life.
• An antisocial psychopath is a complete lack of interest in others, including the family. They have no friends, they do not know how to empathize. They shamelessly lie, are prone to fraud, act impulsively and do not plan far. Often criticize others, but not themselves.
• Constitutionally stupid - cute, companionable personalities, good interlocutors. Messy, extremely sloppy and lazy. They feel good only thanks to a strong hand and leadership.

Varieties of personalities

The following disorders may also be psychopathic.

• Narcissistic personalities - they like attention, and they do anything to get it. Everything for me and all attention to me. And if this does not happen, the person becomes aggressive. The usual behavior is the extraction of both material and emotional resources from the family for their personal goals, to maintain their external position in society. Half of the salary of such a person goes to expensive suits, ties and watches, and he does not see anything unusual in this, although the family saves on the nutrition of children, hoping that her husband will climb the career ladder and will bring more money. But the family won’t get anything, even if the narcissist psychopath gets rich. This is a disease, but this does not make it any easier. The absolute egocentricity of such psychopaths seems somewhat childish and infantile. In fact, it is: this is a big narcissistic child who plays toys and never stops. When deciding to establish a relationship with such a person, you need to understand that if you don’t put him on a pedestal, he will behave aggressively, and in the opposite case, he will draw all resources from his close ones. For him there is no word “no” in sexual relations, he does not stop, but continues to harass. In the company of such a person there is a high risk of rape, he sees the other as a thing to maintain his own ego.
• Emotionally unstable - they jump over all spectra of feelings, from an extremely positive to an extremely negative mood. At work or in some public place they can be charming, being on an emotional upsurge, and at home the tiniest difficulty, any unpleasant information will bring them to the very bottom of the negative emotional spectrum. Domestic will have to pull them out, playing the role of a lifeguard. Those who communicate closely with such people pay an emotional tribute for life, so tired that they are completely exhausted, depriving themselves of the opportunity to lead a normal life. Sometimes such psychopaths are figuratively called energy vampires. Such people can move from one person to another, and then back, waiting for the old partner to rest, forget the emotional fatigue from their relationship and it can be used again. Such multiple connections are one of the characteristics of such psychopaths. In attempts to get emotional support, they are extremely manipulative; their typical threat is suicide. It is necessary to relate to it realistically, it is best to persuade a person to visit a psychotherapist. But still you need to leave, these relationships are destructive by definition. Interestingly, one of the signs of such a disorder is self-harm, for example, multiple healed skin cuts. Having seen such scars, you can prepare your strength for emotional support or leave immediately.
• Paranoid. The motto of such people is: "Do not trust anyone, and they will not offend you." They view the whole world through the prism of threat. The first sign is a lack of confidence in the relationship, constant monitoring, surveillance, checking the phone and email. If there is no evidence of infidelity, the tension only grows. Paranoid psychopaths consider themselves very logical and are able to convince everyone of the correctness of their picture of the world. As soon as the words about the conspiracy, the world government, flying saucers or just about work colleagues who make cunning plans for his dismissal are heard, it’s worth considering, even if everything looks logical and truthful. Paranoids are absorbed in irrational distrust and fear, tend to collect threats, and if they do not see support, they attribute the person to the category of “enemies”.

Predators are people in whose presence many experience a literal physical malaise, the so-called social discomfort. This applies not only to ordinary people, but also to trained specialists, psychotherapists, polygraph examiners. Often it takes several hours, or even days, to come to life after talking with such a person. This is not always the case, predators often have to deceive people, for a very long time they may seem pretty enough. This category includes pedophiles, rapists, brutal robbers, human traffickers. A typical situation: the mother is in love and lives with a charming male predator who systematically intimidates and rapes her adopted daughter, while the mother closes her eyes and does not believe her daughter. It is difficult for a predator to express emotions, he literally peers into the facial expression of a person and tries to understand how to react and how to adapt.

Is the disease treated?

Can a psychopath be healed? The symptoms and treatment of this disease is in many ways a mystery even to doctors. Such violations are not amenable to adjustment. If the psychopath himself is aware of his own problem and wants to treat it, he has a chance to adjust his behavior. Unfortunately, this awareness is not available to many, and the possibility of pushing the psychopath to treatment seems unlikely.

Before treatment, you need to make a diagnosis with a specialist psychotherapist. For this, a conversation is held with a person, his behavior is observed, tomography may be needed.

Usually medications are not prescribed, you can only maintain a stable state with antidepressants. To begin with, they are prescribed in small doses, gradually increasing, but convincing a person to take something is extremely difficult. They mainly try to treat the side effects of psychopathy - drug addiction, alcoholism and other types of addictions.

Also, they conduct a course of psychotherapy with such people, conducting conversations and directing the patient's behavior in the right direction, eliminating negative painful stereotypes of thinking.

How can diagnoses sound?

What is a psychopath? The symptoms in women and men are almost identical. The diagnosis may include:

• Paranoia.
• Hysteria.
• Schizoid psychopathy.
• Psychoasthenia.
• Excitable psychopathy.
• Unstable psychopathy.
• Sociopathy.

So we found out who a psychopath is. The symptoms in men and women are very similar, but men are more susceptible to such diseases and are more likely to show aggression. Maybe that's why alcoholism is a problem, rather, of the stronger sex.

In old age, dementia is added to personality disorders, especially if a pensioner stops social and social activities and does not use his brain actively. A sedentary lifestyle, TV shows from morning to evening, a narrow circle of friends - all this exacerbates the situation.

How common are mental illnesses?

According to reports from the United States National Institute of Mental Health, 26% of Americans over the age of 18 suffer from a diagnosed personality disorder. Perhaps in Russia the numbers are different, but there are no prerequisites to expect a significant decrease in this percentage.

Over 30% of the subjects felt something like a mental disorder throughout the year. About 50% suffered with this kind of dysfunction during their adult life. According to a deeper analysis of research materials, mental disorders account for 23% of all years lost due to disability. Almost a quarter of people who have lost legal capacity for a year, lose it due to mental illness. These diseases easily compete with neurological diseases and injuries of the musculoskeletal system in terms of prevalence.

And perhaps Viktor Tsoi was right: “And I don’t know what percentage of people are crazy at this hour, but if you believe the eyes and ears, it’s several times more.”