oh god, this douche. entx.
I have seen it and have read his website.** He believed that he was a narcissist as opposed to a psychopath.
He gets tested positive for [high] psychopathy near the end of the documentary via brain scan.
EDIT: ** hist website is mostly the standard regurgitated fare characterizing psychopaths as lacking empathy, interspersed with his own experiences. I was better off reading Robert Hare's books, as he's one of the leading researchers on the topic.
Fun fact: one of Hare's colleagues didn't believe that his first viewing of a psychopath's brain scan had come from a human.
Last edited by xerx; 08-30-2014 at 05:34 AM.
It's not everyday a psychopath makes a thread about itself.
The mind is restless and difficult to restrain, but it is subdued by practice
-Krishna
I wouldn't be surprised if psychopathy is (at least partially) bullshit.
The way to tell a psychpath from a narcissist is to call them a narcissist. A psychopath will shrug it off, because they dont care. A narcissist is invested in their identity, so if you try to harm the identity they craft for themselves they will go to lengths to reinforce the pefception they want others to have.
See how he reacts to criticism of his supposed psychopathy, that will answer the question definitively 100% of the time.
Projection is ordinary. Person A projects at person B, hoping tovalidate something about person A by the response of person B. However, person B, not wanting to be an obejct of someone elses ego and guarding against existential terror constructs a personality which protects his ego and maintain a certain sense of a robust and real self that is different and separate from person A. Sadly, this robust and real self, cut off by defenses of character from the rest of the world, is quite vulnerable and fragile given that it is imaginary and propped up through external feed back. Person B is dimly aware of this and defends against it all the more, even desperately projecting his anxieties back onto person A, with the hope of shoring up his ego with salubrious validation. All of this happens without A or B acknowledging it, of course. Because to face up to it consciously is shocking, in that this is all anybody is doing or can do and it seems absurd when you realize how pathetic it is.
"bloated egos or self-esteem" is grandiosity, which is often confused with narcissism, probably as it allows narcissists to not have to own up with being a narcissist. Thus, allowing the narcissist to create their own identity as they are apt to do.
Projection is ordinary. Person A projects at person B, hoping tovalidate something about person A by the response of person B. However, person B, not wanting to be an obejct of someone elses ego and guarding against existential terror constructs a personality which protects his ego and maintain a certain sense of a robust and real self that is different and separate from person A. Sadly, this robust and real self, cut off by defenses of character from the rest of the world, is quite vulnerable and fragile given that it is imaginary and propped up through external feed back. Person B is dimly aware of this and defends against it all the more, even desperately projecting his anxieties back onto person A, with the hope of shoring up his ego with salubrious validation. All of this happens without A or B acknowledging it, of course. Because to face up to it consciously is shocking, in that this is all anybody is doing or can do and it seems absurd when you realize how pathetic it is.
He doesn't particularly care what she thinks about him.He does have high opinion of himself(mildly speaking). Hence the reaction when she fairly abruptly suggested that he could be wrong about all that, and the practitioner basically face-palming/covering his smile - "Now that is how you antagonize a psychopath".
He's not a psychopath. He seems like an extreme LIE. In this case, empathy would be low but valued, in contrast to say, an SLE, where empathy is both low and not valued.
A more pronunced version of @mfckr comes to my mind. I like Ashton but I can see how other people might find him abrasive at times.
[] | NP | 3[6w5]8 so/sp | Type thread | My typing of forum members | Johari (Strengths) | Nohari (Weaknesses)
You know what? You're an individual, and that makes people nervous. And it's gonna keep making people nervous for the rest of your life. - Ole Golly from Harriet, the spy.
Normally I would just leave it alone, but this time I saw this post and thought: pure GARBAGE. Sorry, I mean no offence what-so-ever.
Empathy is an unconscious phenomenon, regardless of typology. No type can lay claim to empathy and to say that some types lack empathy and do not value it as a whole is just so ludicris and wrong.
Empathy is a combination of feelings and resulting actions that it happen to us; it is indirectly given to us. When empathy occurs, we find ourselves experiencing it, rather than directly causing it to happen. This is the characteristic that makes the act of empathy unteachable. Instead, promoting attitudes and behaviors such as self-awareness, nonjudgmental positive regard for others, good listening skills, and self-confidence are suggested as important in the development of an empathetic willingness.
I think a persons upbringing and instilled values are the foundation on which an empathetic person is built from. All types, including SLE's can come from good homes, situations, or even self taught awareness.
......no dude bro, SLE have no soul there are just jerks who don't care about others! Feelings? What feelings? They do not have feelings? Feelings are for girls. They don't care about other people or animals.....
But I guess blindly applying theory is your method. My question is why exactly is empathy both low and not valued by a sensing logical extrovert?
Last edited by wacey; 11-19-2014 at 07:27 PM.
Sam Vaknin was extremely helpful in making sense of my marriage, as my ex was Narcisist. I'd read self-help, psychology, personality and marraige books my whole marraige to make sense of it, and I learned a lot, and they all left questions. Then at the end I stumbled upon Vaknin and only Vaknin made sense of it all. The more I read the more I got answers to long-unanswerable questions. Narcissists often fit well in life in general, particularly in groups, and the workplace (where they always place themselves in a position to be seen and admired, and are skilled at fetching admiration). My ex was charming and successful. And paranoid, and controlling, and a Narcissist... So glad that's over. I am married to a normal guy now and I am so happy. Its night and day.
Thank you. (says Mom of SLE).
This isn't true. My son has shown great considerations for other's feelings. He sometimes seems awkward in this consideration, like he doesn't totally get how they feel that way, but he sees they feel something and he is considerate.
Since he was young, littler kids really liked him. Because he showed them genuine interest, I think. In a group a new little person would discover him and follow him everywhere, and show him everything, and he didn't love it when they got to be pests, but he did not want to hurt their feelings and continued to answer politely and agreeable to "Look at me!" and "Do this for me!" and woudl laugh at their cute things.
When he was a teen a 4 year old girl next door to where his Dads family beach vacation took a liking to him and they did kinds of things together, playing on the beach, kayaking, and they did stuff together each summer. I saw the pictures and I was pleased.
Later when a girlfriend got justifiably mad at him and was screaming and crying outside, he stuck with her for a couple of hours while she vented all her feelings. Eventually they were both laughing a bit. (and the whole things was a good lesson for him. I am sure he will avoid that action in the future).
So while is SLE like in not being real emo, and plenty of times his response to my emotional stress was quite lacking, and he has said the words, "Feelings don't matter!!"* he was not a total failure at it.
*(In spite of the conviction he said this with at the time, I feel he meant "Id like them not to matter!" and that he secretly liked humor of it).
Thanks Eliza. If you did not catch the tone in that one paragraph I was being a little tongue and cheek smart ass. : p
This is true, even the SLE I hate most in the world isn't actually a terrible person. Sometimes I call him up to shout at him, and he just listens. It's really surprising I wouldn't even put up with myself when I'm like that, and from him I would expect hanging up the phone or not even picking up.
And it's so cute that your son sat with his girlfriend and let her vent
"A man with a definite belief always appears bizarre, because he does not change with the world; he has climbed into a fixed star, and the earth whizzes below him like a zoetrope."
........ G. ........... K. ............... C ........ H ........ E ...... S ........ T ...... E ........ R ........ T ........ O ........ N ........
"Having a clear faith, based on the creed of the Church, is often labeled today as fundamentalism... Whereas relativism, which is letting oneself be tossed and swept along
by every wind of teaching, looks like the only
attitude acceptable to today's standards." - Pope Benedict the XVI, "The Dictatorship of Relativism"
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i've read articles and watched a few things about him and i'll go through and watch things in this thread too eventually as i'm rather curious... i can't help but notice (although i could be wrong) that he seems to like the attention and like being a narcissist or psychopath... not that this discredits him, it's just that i don't entirely trust his motives.
i remember i was struck by a story i read in some article about how he took his brother into this cave that someone had contracted marburg in from the bat droppings. he'd intially been planning to go alone but when his brother got involved he neglected to tell him the significance of this cave (how you can contract a potentially lethal virus in there). it seemed he had deliberately withheld this information and that he thought nothing of it. his brother was freaked out as they spent the night in the cave because he could hear various predators outside and he was afraid they would be killed. james fallon meanwhile was apparently not affected at all and totally unempathetic to his brother's plight and feelings. it was only later that his brother discovered what cave he'd been led into and was of course horrified to learn that africa's predators had been the least of his worries. james fallon gave this as an example of his psychopathic behavior in some interview i read the transcript of (and my memory may have distorted some things, but you can probably find the interview with a simple google search).
also it's not that someone had contracted marburg in this cave long ago... fallon had went there because he knew someone had just recently contracted marburg there (it was exciting to him and he impulsively launched himself into danger as a result for the thrill of it, dragging his brother along with him without even telling him of the danger he faced). i found this story (if true) rather convincing of fallon possibly having a screw loose. because the first thing i wouldn't do (other than NOT go in that damn cave myself) is ask someone i love (or really anyone) to go in it, while neglecting to mention how dangerous it is. i thought that perhaps as much as fallon might like the attention and his shocking claims of being a psychopath, that he might also be right about himself... that he didn't consider these things does suggest that his brain works rather differently. he also claimed to not even get his brother's reaction after the fact... he apparently simply didn't feel anything about it at all. (and of course there are the brain scans themselves... i just don't know much about neurology... and i don't find fallon particularly trustworthy from what i've encountered so i don't know if i can give him the benefit of the doubt that he conducts good science)
also, though, some people are psychopaths... so it's not that extraordinary if he is one. supposedly though from what i've read, most psychopaths are unlikely to understand what they are and even more unlikely to admit to being that way even if they did understand. and i probably don't need to say that not all psychopaths/sociopaths are criminals or killers. many are not, from what i've read.
Last edited by marooned; 11-25-2014 at 05:49 AM.