This is for Learning Purposes.

I know nothing about the Subject..

Just Looking for different views.

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http://www.cassiopaea.com/cassiopaea/psychopath.htm

Imagine - if you can - not having a conscience, none at all, no feelings of guilt or remorse no matter what you do, no limiting sense of concern for the well-being of strangers, friends, or even family members. Imagine no struggles with shame, not a single one in your whole life, no matter what kind of selfish, lazy, harmful, or immoral action you had taken.

Psychopaths are also known for being cunning and manipulative, and they make for perilous interview subjects, according to Michael Woodworth, one of the authors and a psychologist who studies psychopathy at the University of British Columbia,

[Criminal Minds Are Different From Yours]

"It is unbelievable," Woodworth said.
"You can spend two or three hours and come out feeling like you are hypnotized."

While there are reasons to suspect that psychopaths' speech patterns might have distinctive characteristics, there has been little study of it, the team writes.

Oh this is a fascinating subject to me! How the criminal mind works. Psychopaths. Sociopaths. I find it extremely interesting.

This excerpt I find very interesting.....

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The psychopath is one of the most fascinating and distressing problems of human experience. For the most part, a psychopath never remains attached to anyone or anything. They live a "predatory" lifestyle. They feel little or no regret, and little or no remorse - except when they are caught. They need relationships, but see people as obstacles to overcome and be eliminated. If not, they see people in terms of how they can be used. They use people for stimulation, to build their self-esteem and they invariably value people in terms of their material value (money, property, etc..).

That is so freaking interesting. I bookmarked the page to check out the other articles.

I know an online personality from other sites that fits this description. He of course is blocked at all my social networking sites.

Because he IS a psychopath.

I would recommend Stanton Samenow's Inside the Criminal Mind. It is what I use in my work.

That sounds more like a sociopath to me.

Thank you! It's been years since I looked into this subject. I'd like to do it again.

I think they might be first cousins

Here is a list of ways to identify a sociopath. This list is from "Profile of a Sociopath." Is is a pretty good list of sociopathic indicators.
Glibness/superficial charm
Manipulative and conning
Grandiose sense of self
Pathological lying
Lack of remorse, shame or guilt
Shallow emotions
Incapacity for love
Need for stimulation
Callousness/lack of empathy
Poor behavioral controls/impulsive nature
Early behavior problems/juvenile delinquency
Irresponsibility/unreliability
Promiscuous sexual behavior/infidelity
Lack of realistic life plan/parasitic lifestyle
Criminal or entrepreneurial versatility
Contemptuous of those who seek to understand them
Does not perceive that anything is wrong with them
Authoritarian
Secretive
Paranoid
Only rarely in difficulty with the law, but seeks out situations where their tyrannical behavior will be tolerated, condoned, or admired
Conventional appearance
Goal of enslavement of their victim(s)
Exercises despotic control over every aspect of the victim's life
Has an emotional need to justify their crimes and therefore needs their victim's affirmation (respect, gratitude and love)
Ultimate goal is the creation of a willing victim
Incapable of real human attachment to another
Unable to feel remorse or guilt
Narcissism, grandiosity (self-importance not based on achievements)
May state readily that their goal is to rule the world

A brief google and it appears there are not many differences between the two.

Psychopaths are considered to be born this way whereas sociopaths are what they are due to childhood abuse/trauma.

Nature vs. nurture

It would seem that psychopaths are more dangerous than sociopaths simply because they are much better at fitting in and presenting themselves as normal. They know how to be charming and show appropriated emotions to others. They also form no attachments to others where a sociopath might form a few attachments (not to the same degree normal people do) and will not harm them.

Psychopaths are known to be wily and manipulative, but even so, they unconsciously betray themselves, according to scientists who have looked for patterns in convicted murderers' speech as they described their crimes.

Your Welcome

I read that entire article you posted. Interesting.

I was thinking about the television series "The Mentalist" and remembering that one of his bosses diagnosed him as a psychopath. When you watch that show you can get a good idea of what they are like.

Your description of a sociopath describes a man I went with for several years. He was incapable of love and he fit that description to a tea, and he was a great pretender. He seemed to be wise about people in a lot of ways but he was totally unable to feel guilty or to feel compassion for others and he just did not have any understanding of those emotions. He knew he was different. I often thought that he could be a psychopath or even a serial killer without my even knowing it.

Like a psychopath, he was irresponsible and chose the life of a homeless vagrant rather than get a job. Even a relationship was too much responsibility for him and he could not maintain one for long. He was dishonest always and could not be believed or trusted. Of course it took me a while to figure all of this out realize what he was like. He was not normal.

I don't know if he was a psychopath or a sociopath. As far as I know he never got real violent or killed anyone, although he would get a little abusive with me when he got drunk but nothing real violent.

The psychopath and the sociopath seem to have quite a lot in common. I haven't read much on this subject but what I have read so far is very interesting.

So is there a malfunction in the brain that causes psychopaths, or does the brain activity act differently because the "person" using it (whatever that is) has no soul OR is genetically predisposed via genes or DNA to be a psychopath?

Can a cold blooded unfeeling psychopath be considered human? Or is he or she simply a biological machine that can be trained or programmed?

Its chilling to think about a person with no conscience or morals at all.

There is evidence that the human brain can make a person do something that they can't control.
Example:Parkinsons disease,epilepsy,turrets,short tempered people,alzheimers,people who are dying of cancer when cancer hits their brains they can't control their actions.Unfortunately i have seen all of these.This to me is evidence that our brain can cause us to do things we can't control(kind of like our brains have a brain of it's own?).So there could be a disease that causes serial killers to do what they do,hell look at law abiding citizens that just get up one day and go into their place of employment and open fire.I just think they are crazy but there is something in the brain that sometimes makes our conscience go away temporarly or permanent.

As I said at the beginning I know little or nothing about this subject.
Psychopaths may have a brain malfunction but the brain is capable of almost anything.

I also believe that a person can be trained to kill.

But I agree with you regarding the person with no conscience or morals at all.

Conscience and Morals

If a person has an illness that leads them to commit an evil deed then they are not responsible as such. They will taken out of society and given treatment.

But lets take the seemingly accepted practice of waterboarding...what can we say about the people that carry out this practice on orders. This behaviour is inhuman and carried out by supposedly civilized people. What can we say about supposedly honorable soldiers who can shoot children without batting an eyelid????

This is very interesting..thank you for posting it.
I was reading the link you provided and this caught my eye:

One very interesting aspect of the psychopath is his "hidden life" that is sometimes not too well hidden. It seems that the psychopath has a regular need to take a "vacation into filth and degradation" the same way normal people may take a vacation to a resort where they enjoy beautiful surroundings and culture. To get a full feeling for this strange "need" of the psychopath - a need that seems to be evidence that "acting human" is very stressful to the psychopath - read more of The Mask of Sanity, chapters 25 and 26.


One of my sons is getting a divorce. While getting his discoveries together, he found a secret ( or she thought it was secret ) life his soon to be ex-wife was living, and had been living since before the marriage. Phone calls, text messages, explicit pictures she had posted on internet sites. The list goes on and on..it was sickening to realize what all she had been doing. He loved and had trusted her. Even when she was alienating him from his family and friends.