Narcissistic Personality Disorder: Subcriminal Psychopathy?

[christx11]

the difference between the two is this: Narcissists have no empathy whereas Psychopaths have no conscience.

Well, i do not know if i understand it properly but the way i understand that statement is the Narcissists have no empathy but have a conscience whereas the Psychopaths have no conscience but have empathy.

So far my understanding is if you do not have a conscience how can you have real empathy?

Always according to my undestanding, both do not have empathy and moreover the Psychopaths do not have conscience.

"both do not have empathy and moreover the Psychopaths do not have conscience"

That is kind of how I interpreted it also. The "what is conscience" and "what is empathy" questions kind of muck up the waters even with this though. Perhaps it is that the psychopath has only one set of rules he goes by, his own - no conscience, no empathy. Narcissism has a greater spectrum in the pathology and may include those whose condition is just environmental and so empathy may still reside in some.

What is really scary is that the best psychopaths are functional and seem to be able to project whatever human trait is needed as to obtain that which they want or want to do.

 

[mamadrama]

Namaste, while I can't answer your points precisely in terms of what my friend thinks as we were talking in general terms at the time, here is what I inferred him to mean based on our conversation:
The narcissist does not have empathy ( and I am using the definition of "empathy" from the C's Esoteric Glossary:

Empathy is being conscious of, or sensitive to, the emotions of another person or group of people. Empathy entails a direct understanding of what another is experiencing, and having the capability to participate in that feeling along with the other person.
Empathy is not to be confused with sympathy, which is more to do with being able to imagine oneself in another's position. A simple formula to distinguish the two could be that sympathy is ‘feeling for someone' whereas empathy is ‘feeling as someone'. (bold is mine)

From our conversation and other prevailing research that I have read on NPD, my understanding is that the narcissist is incapable of perceiving or feeling what another person is feeling as they do not receive the data. So their lack of response to others' feelings are not necessarily maliciously intended, frequently it is just a matter of them not receiving the information they need to respond. So as both you and christx11 pointed out, this does not mean that the narcissist is without conscience. The psychopath, on the other hand, is another story though both are on the spectrum of the antisocial personality disorder as christx11 pointed out where the psychopath is at the end exhibiting extreme traits and the narcissist is at the other end of the spectrum exhibiting less severe traits. What I think my psychiatrist friend was suggesting was that the psychopath may indeed be empathic in terms of knowing how or what another is feeling but they can and often do use that information in harmful ways rather than with the sympathy and compassion we usually associate with empathy. Here's what Wikipedia has to say about empathy and the psychopath:

A psychopath is defined as a person having no concerns for the feelings of others and a complete disregard for any sense of social obligation. They seem egocentric and lack insight of any sense of responsibility or consequence. Their emotions are thought to be superficial and shallow, if they exist at all. They are considered callous, manipulative, and incapable of forming lasting relationships, let alone show any kind of meaningful love. They typically never perform any action unless they determine it can be beneficial for themselves.

It is thought that any emotions which the primary psychopath exhibits are the fruits of watching and mimicking other people's emotions. They show poor impulse control and a low tolerance for frustration and aggression. They have no empathy, remorse, anxiety or guilt in relation to their behavior. In short, they truly are devoid of conscience. However, they understand that society expects them to behave in a conscientious manner, and therefore they mimic this behaviour when it suits their needs.

I think that is one reason why they are such an enigma and so confounding, their ability to deceive very knowledgable folks and pass themselves off as people of conscience is startling. As christx11 says:

What is really scary is that the best psychopaths are functional and seem to be able to project whatever human trait is needed as to obtain that which they want or want to do.

 

[Guest]

Your observations are very profound. I lived with a narcissistic man who also had borderline personality disorder. He began, after a few months to point out sexual observations that seemed innocuous at first but were all too frequent and became over time inappropriate or completly out of context to the true situation.. He acted as if I was reading something unreasonable into his comments but often times I would be stunned into silence , looking for an explanation on the beach and he would say "bet he is thinking about how he's going to get in her pants". These were kids about 11 years of age. When I had first met him, he was an epiphany of of adulthood. Very mature. It was like he went out of his way to shock me. It did. The gift giving section was exactly as you said except if you displeased him he would either destroy what he had given you as if by accident or take it back. On important occasions like my birthday, , he would give me things like a pin that had little blinking lights on it or a 2.00 pen with my name on it. When it was his occasion, he asked me for things that were outragously expensive. Things I would not buy for myself due to expense. He acted entitled to these things and if he didn't get them he became mean and acted dissapointed for weeks. I always felt inadequate around him and after a while, started to loose my self esteme. He didn't care and even seemed pleased when I was hurt. I didn't realize then that there were people incapable of feeling love . A lack of basic empathy..... Then he started stealing petty things from our supermarket. I had had enough and left him but do you think he left me alone. NOT.......He tried to act as if he had feelings suddenly to draw me back in. I fell for it...... Then he changed back into this monster. One day when he didn't like the way I folded his laundry, he had a tantrum and treated me like a dumb, incompetant. He told me to get out of my own room, throwing the folded clothes at me as I left. Well I came back in to get my purse and as I was leaving, I put my hand on the door jamb. He lunged up to slam me out of the room and took off my left index finger at the knuckle. He acted like he felt bad but I never spent another day with him. When I moved out to get away from him, he stayed in the empty house on a blanket on the floor until I listed it with a realtor who threw him out. I am still humiliated that I was so stupid. I thought I could tell a good guy from a bad one but I was wrong. Many months later I found out he had impregnated one of our good friends. He disgusted me by then and I could have cared less. He moved back to Colorado and is probably terrorizing his family now. He tried to send me music a few years after I parted ways with him but I tossed it in the circular file.... I was very naieve back then. I was 36. lol


Leslie k.

 

[Guest]

abby road, right on. this is the path to worthlesnes I started to travel on with my lover. He made me feel crazy in the head as if logic was illogic, good was bad right wrong. Supply huh.....supply of what.? Is it like the endorphine rush you feel when you first fall in love. That giddy sickness that makes everthing seem sureal? Perhaps we can find a feeling in there after all even if it is hormone induced.. is this as close to an empathy as this type gets. They at times seem to lack an aura. It's pitch black in there . cold and empty.... Like the shark as he rolls those heartless black beady eyes back in his head in extacy as he's tearing off another bloody peice of flesh....yours.

 

[Guest]

I suppose that the married ones mist be more of the mild variety of NPD. The more psycotic pathlogical type mixes are like the one I experienced. Like you said, he was the type that had a low boredom threshold . It seems mine would seek continually higher levels of excitement ie the shoplifting and petty theft that he started doing. After a while he started to tell me he hated me. This was said with no compassion. It nwould be very random. Also at times he would tell me (they're here again) They referred to little people he would see that of course I would not. He would block all of the door cracks with pillows and scare me into thinking "they were coming for him" all the whilst looking out the window and seeming very worried. It is crazy how he could almost get me to beleive this altered sense of his reality. The next day he would be OK again. This didn't happen too often but in the beginning he brought these brite flashbulb things into our home and I swear they would go off around our bedroom. Please someone tell me what this phenomina is....I concluded that he had a demon or demonic portal because of his weakend or missing soul. He eventually "let it all hang out around me , while keeping up his sexy, self assured, gentle and witty persona for everyone else. When I would try to confide this degenerate other side of him to any of our friends they trated me like I was the delusional one. His public side was caring, competant, self assured empathetic....It was all a big con job. He didn't care and thought it funny that he had me trapped in his world where his theater was so beleivable that our friends would never accept the eruth from me. He knew this and later I found him prideful in his ability to pull it off and thwart my efforts to seek nout advice from normal people. No one else could see through him except my mom. She loathed him. Crazymaking was his fortee' It is so sureal to talk of this. I am married to an amazing man with integrity and deep compassion now. I find it hard to believe I allowed myself to stand at the pit of hell and let the flames lick my toes. What is it about myself that wanted to live with evil. I am not evil. My heart is unable to understand this way of being.

 

[Guest]

Is it possible to have a NPD type with the destructive traits of the psycopath. To the person with these traits if they were mixed, life would be a nightmare. On one hand needing their victim while knowing that in the end they will destroy that necessity and have to find another. Their would be such internal conflict and self hatred it seems. A truly tortuous life I think. Like gondor in Lord of the Rings.

Of note...I am a published watercolor artist. He used to beg me to paint all the time. Not as I wanted but for him and then his family then mine. I did some emotional work then. But he became very jealous of my talent and sometimes would destroy my work. I soon started to give the finished peices to family and certain friends to protect them from him. One Christmas, he started to buy frames from garage sales and galleries. He comitted to our families 19 painting within a two month period and informed me of this after the fact. Not wanting to let anyone down I painted my brains out and slept very little to keep HIS commitments. He seemed to almost take credit for the finished peices. It was so strange . I know I seem like a whimp. You all would be shocked at how strong mentally I really am. I was a different person around him. It scared me.

 

[Laura]

Well, i do not know if i understand it properly but the way i understand that statement is the Narcissists have no empathy but have a conscience whereas the Psychopaths have no conscience but have empathy.

So far my understanding is if you do not have a conscience how can you have real empathy?

Well, that wasn't quite the way I understood it. What I got was that narcissists have no empathy (i.e. feeling for another) which is a manifestation of conscience, but that wasn't because the conscience was completely absent, but rather because it was asleep.

The psychopath, on the other hand, had no conscience, and consequently, also no empathy. To me, it was like saying one was deaf and dumb, and the other was deaf, dumb AND blind.

Another way of looking at it is that the narcissist is made, something shuts down very early; but at least it is there to shut down. But the psychopath, being born that way has nothing to shut down.

Now, MD has elaborated on the subject in a different way above, which wasn't at all what I was thinking, but it is interesting. I don't agree that a psychopath can "feel as another" because the evidence just doesn't support it. But that these terms were used by MD's friend to convey an idea, that psychopaths "have special knowledge of human psychology", struck me as interesting even if the words chosen didn't exactly go to the heart of the problem. Because, of course, that is kind of a mystery. How DO they know exactly what to say or do or how to act to fool people so completely? Their uncanny ability to project or mirror whatever traits they need in order to get what they want must come from somewhere.

If the psychopath could really experience real empathy, he wouldn't be a psychopath, I think. But again, there is that problem of "how do they do what they do???"

 

[noise]

Laura Wrote: "If the psychopath could really experience real empathy, he wouldn't be a psychopath, I think. But again, there is that problem of "how do they do what they do???"" -End Quote

I hope no one will even consider this as having much if any bearing here but looking at that question a few times and thinking of all the Lobaczewski quotes that I've read posted here and the C's material I've read something just keeps repeating in my mind. I can't quote the specific words but it's like ?you allow you enable?. It's not that, I'm certain, but a simliar play on words. What I understand of it is this for example:

The psycho salesman.

Bob goes to buy a car. Bill the salesmen keeps working between bob and his (bills) boss. Back and forth they go debating about what Bob can afford so far as monthly payments. Bob makes an occasional slip here and there, something about a tax return coming in the mail etc..

In the end Bob walks out with payments he can barely (say 300 a month for 60 months) manage and a promisary note that he will give (downpayment) 1,000 to the car place as soon as he gets his tax return. Initially the car Bob wanted had a sticker on it at whatever particular price point @250 a month for 48 many months. In the toss and shuffle scheme and the building of want, want, want; Bob forgot all that.

Though my C's quote is misworded, and my analogy kind of sucks to say the least, my point is: Bob allowed himself to be taken in by bill thereby enabling Bill (who has not the slightest care about Bob, just money money money) to manipulate him (Bob). I hope someone knows the particular words.. I don't believe words I am trying (desperately to remember) were not at all in reference to psychopaths but more about alien abduction or manipulation.. the quote IS in The High Strangeness and is a very simple play on words (which I should remember quite easily).

Edit: Well I can't remember and I don't have the book at hand but trying to make a simliar play on words; If your willing to conform (play their game) they're willing to contain (trap your energy). Kind of in my way of thinking that if your willing to go along with it, then you've already given yourself away. I hope someone gets the gist of my meaning here. =\

!!!Edit\Edit.. It was abridge/ablidge! And this is a reiteration of my take on it.

Quote Laura: How DO they know exactly what to say or do or how to act to fool people so completely? Their uncanny ability to project or mirror whatever traits they need in order to get what they want must come from somewhere.

I think it is first knowing they don't feel. Then in order to get what they want they have to train there machinery (just that, like a machine) to function like (what I imagine they would term) the feeling creatures do. Once they got that down then they watch for cues/clues as to gain info or react (emotionally etc..). Then when the person ablidges them (?creates a situation for possible manipulation?) they take that opportunity to see if they can abridge the persons freewill. I think whoever the man behind the curtain is, 9-11 and GWB would be a perfect example.

The nation is terrorized. They people want there protection to be ablidged and now their Civil liberties are being abridged.

My apologies if I am way off course on the discussion. I kinda jumped right in and didn't actually do the work of following the conversation to this point. =\

-noise

 

[Jacques]

How DO they know exactly what to say or do or how to act to fool people so completely? Their uncanny ability to project or mirror whatever traits they need in order to get what they want must come from somewhere.

Could it be like in the book "Blink". They are very good machine and they gather a lot of information in their computer and therefore they recognize in a blink how to fool someone???

 

[Keit]

Could it be like in the book "Blink". They are very good machine and they gather a lot of information in their computer and therefore they recognize in a blink how to fool someone???

And could it be that all the described stories in "Blink" talk about exactly this type of "mechanical only" ability that does not require "higher centers" what so ever? This is the impression I've got anyway. I have a feeling/hunch that in order to "blink" using higher centers, we need something additional.

 

[kenlee]

Could it be like in the book "Blink". They are very good machine and they gather a lot of information in their computer and therefore they recognize in a blink how to fool someone???

And could it be that all the described stories in "Blink" talk about exactly this type of "mechanical only" ability that does not require "higher centers" what so ever? This is the impression I've got anyway. I have a feeling/hunch that in order to "blink" using higher centers, we need something additional.

It might be a knowledge based on instinct and experience rather then "mechanical knowledge" much like the way a predator stalks it's prey and knows what it's moves will be in advance even before it makes it. It's possible that the psychopath has some kind of instinctual knowledge of what a normal person won't do and on this basis has the advantage of predicting their moves. Just a possibility.

 

[mamadrama]

Well, that wasn't quite the way I understood it. What I got was that narcissists have no empathy (i.e. feeling for another) which is a manifestation of conscience, but that wasn't because the conscience was completely absent, but rather because it was asleep.

The psychopath, on the other hand, had no conscience, and consequently, also no empathy. To me, it was like saying one was deaf and dumb, and the other was deaf, dumb AND blind.

Another way of looking at it is that the narcissist is made, something shuts down very early; but at least it is there to shut down. But the psychopath, being born that way has nothing to shut down.

Yes, this is what was meant by my orignal post. Sorry that I wasn't clear. The orignal statement that my friend made was something I'd been using as a quick way to reference and identify these two types of antisocial personalities. But then in my second post I elaborated further as I recalled more of our conversation. While I agree with Laura that I don't think psychopaths actually "feel" as another," there is some ability perhaps a kind of perversion of empathy that enables psychopaths to get this information. And I am just theorizing here. One thing that occurs to me is perhaps they actually "feel" the lower emotions for example: fear, anger, jealousy, greed, etc. and then they just mirror the higher emotions of love, devotion, gratitude, etc. I am not sure but it is a question that greatly interests me having shed myself and my family from our own psychopath over the past year and a half. Here is more on empathy from Wikipedia that I meant to include in my last post. Perhaps what the psychopath has is more in line with emotional contagion for the lower emotions and a kind of telepathy for the higher emotions:

One must be careful not to confuse empathy with either sympathy, emotional contagion or telepathy. Sympathy is the feeling of compassion for another, the wish to see them better off or happier, often described as "feeling sorry" for someone. Emotional contagion is when a person (especially an infant or a member of a mob) imitatively 'catches' the emotions that others are showing without necessarily recognising this is happening. Telepathy is a controversial paranormal phenomenon, whereby emotions or other mental states can be read directly, without needing to infer, or perceive expressive clues about the other person.

Sympathy is, "I'm sorry for your sadness, I wish to help."
Emotional Contagion is, "I feel sad."
Empathy is, "I feel your sadness."
Apathy is, " I don't care how you feel. "
Telepathy is, "I read your sadness without you expressing it to me in any normal way."


Some experts (psychologists, psychiatrists, and other scientists) believe that not all humans have an ability to feel empathy or perceive the emotions of others. For instance, Autism and related conditions such as Asperger's syndrome are often (but not always) characterized by an apparent reduced ability to empathize with others. The interaction between empathy and autism spectrum disorders is a complex and ongoing field of research, and is discussed in detail below.

According to Simon Baron-Cohen's ideas, this absence might be related to an absence of theory of mind (i.e., the ability to model another's world view using either a theory-like analogy between oneself and others, or the ability to simulate pretend mental states and then apply the consequences of these simulations to others). Again, not all autistics fit this pattern, and the theory remains controversial.

In contrast, psychopaths are seemingly able to demonstrate the appearance of sensing the emotions of others with such a theory of mind, often demonstrating care and friendship in a convincing manner, and can use this ability to charm or manipulate, but they crucially lack the sympathy or compassion that empathy often leads to. Empathy certainly does not guarantee benevolence. The same ability may underlie schadenfreude (taking pleasure in the pain of another entity) and sadism (being sexually gratified through the infliction of pain or humiliation on another person).

Moreover, some research suggests that people are more able and willing to empathize with those most similar to themselves. In particular, empathy increases with similarities in culture and living conditions. We are also more likely to empathize with those with which we interact more frequently (See Levenson and Reuf 1997 and Hoffman 2000: 62).

For Leslie: I have learned some invaluable lessons from my experience with my narcissistic ex-partner and they were painful and debilitating and they're not over yet... But as I've healed I've recognized I have been given knowledge that is vital and necessary for my own personal growth and if I am fortunate I can use this knowledge to help others. :)

 

[Charles]

How DO they know exactly what to say or do or how to act to fool people so completely? Their uncanny ability to project or mirror whatever traits they need in order to get what they want must come from somewhere.

Could it be like in the book "Blink". They are very good machine and they gather a lot of information in their computer and therefore they recognize in a blink how to fool someone???

Well, yes that is one way to try to answer this pertinent question. Let’s not forget that the downloading of information in their computer starts from a very early age onwards.

Children can at times be very hurtful to one another, all of them, but one more than the other of course. Still, normal, non-psychopatic children will show signs of growing empathy towards other children. At times, they will feel pain themselves when another child has been hurt, or is crying, and will try to comfort the other child. They might become angry, when they are confronted with lies, or injustice. They will feel remorse when they come to realize how much they just hurt another child.

I imagine that the situation must be entirely different for a psychopathic child. Maybe they will start laughing when another child will have hurt itself and will be reprimanded for that. If the reprimand is something they decide to avoid, next time they will run a different program. It’s as simple as that. Let’s not forget that those without empathy will never have moments of remorse, or guilt. They do not have to spend time and energy for such things. And is it not such that non-psychopatic children, and adults too actually, spend an enormous amount of time and energy to cope with guilt, remorse, and in developing a moral system that is fundamentally anchored within conscience? I guess that this vast amount of time and energy remains for a psychopathic person to be used differently. It becomes spare time and surplus energy that they can deploy to learn to mimic behaviour, or to fantasize on different scenarios, or to experiment with the reactions of normal people, ... This might explain why their mimicking is so precise.

Also, I don’t think that psychopathic individuals have dysfunctional mirror-cells. I think the dysfunction is to be found at a different location. One doesn’t need empathy to learn to mimic behaviour, and learn what it does to other people. But a psychopath by means of lack of empathy will be able to study a much wider spectrum of behaviours and the repercussions it has on other people, as he will not be confined by a frame of conscience that naturally develops in normal children. A psychopath will very much learn this by trial and error, very much like a machine, while a normal child will be guided and confined by this kernel of conscience and empathy that is fully growing. This might explain why their mimicking and downloaded behaviour programs can be so divergent and towards extremes.

There is also an entirely different way that could explain some of their "intelligence". It factors in the hyper-dimensional aspect. They are "possessed" so to say and most probably at one time more than at other times. Maybe most people are possessed but normal people are usually able to withstand the pressure of an STS possession as they prefer to be guided by conscience, while psychopaths are not able to withstand such possession as they simply don't have any conscience.

While I don’t think that this explains their uncanny capacity to mimic behaviour (the above explanation can do), it might explain why they are so good in picking the right behaviour from their spectrum of downloaded programs for one particular setting. More importantly, it might explain their seeming urge to steal energy at every turn, sign the wrong documents, forget things at the (for the predator) right timing, make the wrong decisions (from a normal person’s perspective), appear out of the blue to disturb an important communication between normal individuals and !!! at times seem to act in unison, against normal people from entirely different spots on our BBM.

As with that psychopathic serial killer for instance who claimed that he didn’t plan it and was just walking through nature, and that once he passed that window didn’t remember anything, thereby going for a not-premeditated murder. But he climbed through the window and slaughtered the girl with the scythe. When asked why he picked up the scythe three hours before, he did not know why he did that.

They are not only machines with downloaded behaviour programs. Maybe, at times the machines are remote controlled.

 

[Laura]

It might be a knowledge based on instinct and experience rather then "mechanical knowledge" much like the way a predator stalks it's prey and knows what it's moves will be in advance even before it makes it.

Well, that's an interesting remark. Hmmm... Any studies on animal stalking behavior that might give a clue? Is the way the cat stalks the mouse "hardwired" into the cat? What about other predators? How do they learn to do what they do?

 

[Z...]

Any studies on animal stalking behavior that might give a clue? Is the way the cat stalks the mouse "hardwired" into the cat? What about other predators? How do they learn to do what they do?

From what I know on the subject I'd say that it is indeed hard wired i.e. it is the behavior stored in animal genes. This can be observed in many predatory species not just feline.
-As soon as the offspring is ready to be weaned mother starts leaving slightly incapacitated but still very much alive prey for the offspring to perfect their hunting skills. The predatory reaction of youngsters is almost instantaneous as if this triggers the reflex. Even when they are still suckling which means that they are not driven by hunger they end the game by killing the victim.

One of the studies has proved that predatory behavior in cats can be elicited by stimulating amygdale part of the brain. The article is quite obscure and there are no details what methods they employed in this study.

Browsing on the net I managed to find many articles on the subject. They all provide ample evidence of aggression and predatory behavior being controlled by different chemicals in the brain which is again controlled by various genes. thought these might be interesting as an illustration:

Johns Hopkins University scientists have discovered a genetic basis for violent and excessive sexual behavior in male mice.

They found that male mice lacking one particular gene are unusually violent, attacking each other relentlessly and sometimes fatally. Equally surprising, the male mice without that gene display a dramatic sexual persistence toward females, refusing to back down even when rejected by females not receptive to mating. The gene that is missing in the specially bred mouse enables the brain to make the neurotransmitter nitric oxide, a substance that transmits impulses between cells in the brain and nervous system. Nitric oxide is the neurotransmitter found in a number of nerve pathways, or circuits, within brain regions that regulate emotional behavior. Disturbances in these brain cells may underlie the aggressive behavior of the mice.

In contrast to wild rats the percentage of animals showing predatory behavior is very low among laboratory rats. After single oral application of 200 to 3200 mg/kg DL-pCPA a dose-dependent stimulation of predatory behavior was found.

I found following to be very interesting. It seems there is evidence that predatory behavior is even finely tuned so as not to expose predator to unnecessary risks:

The predatory behavior of ferrets (Putorius putorius furo L.) consists mainly of instinctive behavioral patterns that are elicited by simple external stimuli.
For the ferret, the time needed to catch and kill rats depends on the size of the rats in relation to that of the ferret. Killing success decreases with a relative increase in prey size. Chlordiazepoxide hydrochloride injections (1 mg/kg, i. m.) modified this behavior. Drugged ferrets needed less time and less bites to kill relatively large rats; killing success was also increased.
Chlordiazepoxide seemed to disinhibit the ferrets when they were presented with large rats, which they normally attack more cautiously.