Psychopath

ISBN: 978-0-9875801-7-7

EDITION 1

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Psychopath

Contents

From the author 1

a note on the terms 8

Sophistication 12

Ego 34

Seen and heard 51

Gaslighting 71

Happiness 92

Possession 111

Empathy 133

Sycophant 151

Narcissism 168

Exit strategy 191

a note on solitude 198

Index by feeling 208

From the Author

1. It began on April 28, 1996, when a gunman killed 35 people at Port Arthur, Tasmania, Australia. It was, at the time, the most horrific act of its kind in human history. My mother was there, and since that day has lived with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder; there is no aspect of her life that it does not affect.

2. Psychopath was a term used at the time. It attempted to describe the indescribable, to explain an unprecedented act of violence. However, though it is powerfully suggestive, I was not sure what it specifically described. Not surprisingly psychopath and sociopath are no longer scientifically viable terms. Regardless, they continue to live in common usage, but in a way that has allowed for many horrors to be too easily pigeonholed as incomprehensible. Evil is often difficult to understand but the tendency to throw dismissive terms over it must be resisted; it is better to dismantle it. If the term psychopath is to continue to be plied it must attain precision. Afterall, the term psychopath is a revelation. It has been instrumental in providing humanity with valuable psychoeducation. It gave “normal”, or well-adjusted people, some assurance that experts were actively seeking to define befuddling acts of violence and coercion. It is in this way that I make use of the term psychopath.

3. It is also true that, with the passage of time, the term has become less reverent: It is not clinically appropriate, and colloquially, it is used as an ill-defined jibe. Accordingly, I was keen to make use of the term's power to objectify: It is more than reasonable that coercive, selfish, and malevolent individuals should also feel the dehumanising effects of objectification; the term psychopath is powerfully categorical. But I wanted to use it, not as a blanket put-down, but more as a refined aspersion, whereby a psychopath's inadequacies could be clearly defined. Also, it is reasonable that everyone be given the ability to put a qualified label on their own psychopathic presentations. Everyone is subject to obsessions and, regardless of the potency, the result is psychopathic and the manifestation of many fears; for any individual who can put a name to their fear, it may be defused.

4. I devised a course of study designed to help me understand psychopath beyond the generalised term it has evolved into. It is true, the term has not been clinically relevant for some time, and yet it persists. It is as if, it still has lessons to teach us. Specifically, to teach us something uncompromising about the formation, or deformation, of an individual’s identity. In this way, it is not my study of psychology and counselling, but my many decades as a teacher that has proven most valuable. I have been taught by my students how identity is acquired and how it can be poisoned in the process. I have witnessed the development of many individuals, from many diverse perspectives. I have made a lifelong commitment to the academic and philosophical appreciation of psychology and counselling. My obsession with self-formation also aligns with my study in the preforming arts. It is a peculiar combination designed to teach me how, why and when an individual becomes psychopathic.

5. For my many years as a teacher I have been an obsessed student. I have been an embedded observer of self-development, leaving no stone unturned in the pursuit of understanding how individuality is acquired. I have taught across many cultures and socio-economic groups, all ages, including adults, and people with all manner of intellectual advantage and disadvantage; it has been a revelation. I have been an obsessed student of psychopathy for many years discovering that it has everything to do with self-acquisition. For this text I wanted to create a guide that gave straight answers, clear reasons why and meaningful suggestions. I want to give victims insight into coercion and how is it that well-adjusted, intelligent people can be befuddled, abused and manipulated. I believe in the idea that knowledge is power; more specifically, I believe accurate explanations given assuredly can be lifesaving.

6. That is why this is a guidebook; it is a map to the exits leading away from manipulation. Not only away from the extremes, where serial killers and fanatics exist, but away from a more present and insidious psychopathy. The subtle kind that is more prevalent than we like to admit; the kind that is entirely domestic, to an almost incomprehensible extent. In this way, for the purposes of this guide, the word psychopath is less synonymous with serial-killers and more akin to self-obsession, though it all comes to bear. It means that victims, can turn to the Index by Felling or scan the Red Flags sections and gain some immediate insight. Or navigate the chapter highlights and start the process of taking back control of their lives with immediacy; it is distilled and accessible. This guide can be read out of sequence, in bite-size chunks, dogeared, highlighted, annotated, wallpapered, torn at, emboldened, underlined, and left in the little-room for contemplation. It is designed to be assimilated with the reader as they come out of the darkness and into revelation. Yes, I do think passionately about the nuanced way the text has evolved. Every small repetition, extra piece of clarification, foreshadowing and metaphor has emerged to create a rhythm to help the reader think deeper about the reasons why. For years, these ideas have been striking me, unsolicited at god-awful hours of the night. They have been relentlessly seeking formation.

7. Consequently, my investigation of psychopathy has been relentless and has culminated in invasive self-enquiry. My study of psychology, self-development and counselling led to my own self-dissection. In this way, my obsession with psychopaths may be a little psychopathic. The notion that it takes a psychopath to know a psychopath is not lost in this guide. I have witnessed horrors, but I have been healed and embraced; my mother has fought many battles towards my healthy development and the debt I owe her can never be repaid. I may not know the true origin of the insights, but I do know they exist for the benefit of you. You, who are taking in these words now, who is curious and may also be self-inquiring, welcome. This guide hopes to be a viable option that genuinely connects with your circumstance and needs. A Jacobs.

Psychopath: from Greek psykhē mind, and pathos suffering.

a note on the terms

8. The words psychopath and sociopath are not clinically relevant. They once described a personality-type defined by chronic selfishness. Today, problems with personality are defined more sensitively, and in terms that make their treatment by healthcare professionals more targeted. However, the word psychopath has helped people, from all walks of life, be more aware of psychology generally, developmental abnormalities and mental wellbeing. Therefore, for the purposes of this guide, psychopaths are defined as individuals hardwired to be maladaptive. Hardwiring occurs when a neural pathway for a way of thinking has been stridently reinforced through inquiry, reward, trauma, repetition, etc., or in other words, through learning. Maladaptive means this learning has happened at the expense of the wellbeing of others.

9. For the purposes of this guide, well-adjusted is a term used to describe individuals, essentially, who are not psychopaths. Well-adjusted people are hardwired to be community builders. Typically, they are learners for life, with a genuine concern for, and investment in, the wellbeing of other people. Well-adjusted individuals are not without some psychopathic tendencies; we all demonstrate obsessions. But they are reflective, adaptive and willing to learn from their mistakes.

10. Self, for the purposes of this guide, is defined as a presentation constructed by an individual to enable socialization. Self aware organisms, like humans, that are dependent on socialization to survive must make a presentation to their group that communicates their values, attitudes, standards, strengths, etc., otherwise baby-making is severely impaired. Authentic personalities are socially effective, or in other words, healthy psychosocial development is essential to the human organism’s survival. This guide explores self as something that is learnt (created) through a process of attachment and socialization towards social viability. In this way, personality is a term used to describe a trimmed version of self used to create indicative first impressions

11. The word being is used in this guide, to describe the base organism we are of which self is a representation; for well-adjusted personalities. In other words, it describes the hardware of a human, including the brain structures that enable self awareness and curiosity beyond social presentations. It is a way of describing a baseline authenticity that humans enjoy because of our ability to perceive the universe as something greater than the sum of its parts. The being you “are” is what remains when personality and self are absent. It is often associated with ethereal, mediative notions such as enlightenment. However, there is no need to experience some mysterious, cosmic awakening to appreciate the being you are or to make effective use of this guide. The being is not mysterious, in our quiet moments, in moments of distraction, day dreaming, lost in our thoughts, laughing, asleep, laser focused, and in the zone, we are the being. It is essential, it is accessible and something effective meditations attempt to bring into awareness, typically, with breathing exercises.

Sophistication

In this chapter...

Psychopaths lack depth, often confusing organization for sophistication.

Well-adjusted personalities develop through childhood attachments, unlike psychopaths.

Psychopaths mimic behaviors designed to attract the greatest social reward.

Well-adjusted people grow by retuning the internal; psychopaths resists change by manipulating the external.

In contrast to their first impression, psychopaths lack complexity.

12. Psychopaths are not sophisticated. They may be organised, and they will believe this organisation is synonymous with sophistication, but they are wrong. It was once accepted that sociopaths were more organised than psychopaths, but these terms are now interchangeable and not clinically relevant. Accept then that psychopath and sociopath describe individuals who are hardwired to be maladaptive. Or in other words, they have learnt to exploit others to help maintain their concept of reality. Predominately, the exploitation must satisfy the psychopath’s urge to maintain their unsophisticated appreciation of reality; they rely on others to dumb-it-down. In this way, understanding self-awareness is critical.

13. Well-adjusted individuals are self-aware, but not necessarily masters of self. Ironically, they have a self that they do not recall acquiring. In this way, well-adjusted people are highly sophisticated. In other words, they have a self that is informed by attachment. For psychopaths the concept of attachment is confusing.

14. Well-adjusted individuals recall the loving embrace of their family, the mentorship of significant carers, and the validation and support given by their “village”. They also cherish the memories of home and its comforts, a place where their heart resides. They might recall moments of pain filled with turmoil, through which they were guided and challenged by those who loved and empathized with them. There might have been times when they were let down, betrayed, or misled by those they loved. However, through thick and thin, they were guided towards developing perspective and were part of a supportive network informed by a wide variety of voices. This is the process of attachment. In other words, attachment describes the bonding that occurs in childhood, that makes an individual socially viable. During these attachment phases, self is formed. This self is multidimensional, encompassing social tools acquired indirectly, somewhat like osmosis. Individuals who experienced healthy attachment may not recall how they learned the lessons of jealousy, gratitude, and love, etc. Well-adjusted individuals may remember events and significant moments that reinforced these characteristics. However, the imprinting of these qualities happened subtly, over time, by repeated exposure, occurring in an environment that was both challenging and loving. These characteristics collectively form their self; the version of it, used to create first impressions in a social setting, is known as personality. Thus, their self-development is described as sophisticated.

15. If a well-adjusted individual attempted to unlearn attachment it would be something like trying to un-stain a piece of timber; essentially impossible. In this way, the psychopath has limited choices and, most significantly, limited insight. In this way, it is not that psychopaths have chosen to disregard their attachment experience, it simply has not been imprinted upon them; they have no experience of it. Imagine a raw piece of timber, untreated, that will decay in the harsh environment of a reality informed by the laws of the physical universe. Psychopaths must coerce others to provide protection. They failed to make attachments; to make bonds that were developmentally appropriate. Their childhood may not have been overtly traumatic, but in keyways it was lonely and affection-less. They did not acquire their sense of self indirectly, or osmotically. Instead, they became the crafters of it, by becoming expert mimics.

16. Late in development, once they are forced into socially dynamic environments such as school, psychopaths begin to observe others with fascination. They have considerable socialisation ground to make up compared to their attachment informed school mates. Consequently, they may display social awkwardness and be unnervingly odd or inappropriate. They intensively observe the rewards various social behaviours garner. Psychopath will be deeply aroused by any activity that rewards others with social validation. Psychopaths will then begin to understand how to fabricate social validity by the strength of the reflection they receive from others as they trial and test various socially activating behaviours. This notion is worthy of reflection; it underpins a core principle: For well-adjusted people social viability enables community building. It enables the healthy formation of the next generation. For psychopaths, who place little value in the personal growth of others, and they certainly have no regard for the next generation, social viability is about gaining approval. They need to see looks of acceptance on the faces of other people towards satisfying a desperate desire to substantiate their sense of self. It is no more complicated than a baby learning to read facial expressions. In other words, a psychopath learns early in life that first impressions are the total value of an individual. They want to be a book, with no meaningful content, that others find impressive because the cover has merit; it is unsophisticated.

17. Self is developed largely by using data that we receive from others. When another person gives us a reaction, we ‘read’ that data; the expressions and gestures we receive from other people in response to our displays informs our sense of self. Therefore, well-adjusted people are also expert observers, and subsequently, expert receivers of a reflection. They have been trained, however, to receive a reflection from society osmotically. In other words, the well-adjusted observer is one who accepts a reflection from others in a social setting reflexively and not desperately. The reflection provides data that allows self to be adjusted; subtle changes are made to it to enable greater social effectiveness. For the psychopath, however, the reflection exists to re-establish their entire sense of self repeatedly. Like a sonar, from a stable and centralized position, a well-adjusted person sends out a signal that is reflected back. The sonar provides data that may or may not increase social viability. The psychopath makes observations like a periscope; it can see the surface only. Further to this, imagine the periscope has no sense of a centre. Imagine a periscope that is looking for information so it can define itself, and in the process, it feels unstable and decentralized. This leaves the sufferer with a painful hollow feeling inside. It is a peculiar situation; the periscope was never taught to 'see' the submarine (community) it is supported by.

18. Like a Bower bird decorating its nest, the psychopath will enthusiastically ‘collect’ behaviours that return the greatest social reward. In this way, the psychopath is in an exclusive charm school; they are the only student. Therefore, they will actively pick and choose the components of their self and an over-simplified self concept will emerge, essentially unsophisticated. They will tune into a social situation, evaluate the reactions of others, and apply a social viability rating. Significantly, overtime this process becomes intuitive. These ‘ratings’ then help the psychopath define boundaries, or limitations. Within the boundary is a limited set of behaviours that reinforce a fundamental, oversimplified understanding of social viability. Psychopaths paint the landscape of human socialisation using primary colours that they have not learnt to blend. Outside the boundary are the blended shades, or the subtleties of the human condition; they are unfamiliar to the psychopath. If a psychopath is forced outside of their boundary, they will be seen by well-adjusted people, to not be in touch with reality.

19. For all animals' survival is paramount. For humans however, the drive to survive is a consequence of a more refined urge. We are seekers of social viability. It is not sufficient to explain our self-development by suggesting it is a knee-jerk, survival imperative. For the purposes of this guide, an appreciation of survival begins by promoting social viability. It is more accurate to suggest, that our bio-organisation is the manifestation of survival. Our drive to ensure its organisation therefore describes, for human beings, the active ingredient of survival. Social viability is a phrase that exists then to characterise the human expression of the survival instinct. Simply, it means we prioritise the social positioning of our-self towards the creation of babies. We feel it intensely because of babies, psychopaths feel it intensely because they are babies.

20. Psychopaths are master manipulators using a restricted number of tools. Their strategies are beguiling. However, this must not be confused with complicated. The psychopath is ultimately unsophisticated. They are PhD standard manipulators because they wrote a course that trains them to be obsessive observers of first impressions only. They have chosen to master a very limited number of social tools, but they have learnt to select the most potently coercive ones.

21. The psychopath's mastery of a limited number of tools, means they have very low stress tolerance. Once it is reached, they can become dangerous; they may apply corrections that are swift and brutal. They have learnt to manipulate others because they believe the unpredictable nature of the world is managed by asking others to stabilize, or simplify, it for them. In other words, psychopaths do not moderate their internal responses to the world. This type of self awareness, that allows for forgiveness, conciliation and empathy and personal growth, is too sophisticated.

22. The Psychopath’s ability to manipulate is powerful but limited. They must be good at painting self-portraits using only primary colours; the effect can be striking. Remember, the Psychopath’s inability to ‘paint’ others using shades and texturing places considerable limits on their self-expression. Their bold representations of themselves may be compelling, but like the images stuck on the fridge drawn by a three-year-old.

23. Sophistication, less is less, and more is more.

Red Flags

24. Overuse of Flattery: An excessive use of compliments and flattery to gain favour or create an instant connection. They are heavily curating the first impression they hope to make. Their unsophisticated understanding of social viability will be exposed once they are reminded that people who are easily impressed are extremely unimpressive.

25. Lack of Deep Connections: A noticeable absence of long-term, deep relationships. Psychopaths may have many acquaintances or superficial relationships but lack genuine closeness with others, indicative of their struggle with attachment.

26. Intense Eye Contact or Observation: An unnerving level of eye contact or keen observation, as if they are studying reactions meticulously. This behaviour is part of their focus on tuning first impressions and determining your ability to provide a reflection.

27. Rapid Escalation of Emotional Intimacy: Pushing for a quick deepening of emotional connections or sharing personal stories at an accelerated pace to create a false sense of intimacy and trust. Be aware of oversharing, exaggeration, whimpered revelations and secret-telling that feels “too-soon".

28. Mirroring Behaviours: Adopting your likes, dislikes, and behaviours to create an artificial sense of kinship or compatibility. This reflection-making is the first step towards making you into a reflective surface. This is significant, a cornerstone of their manipulation will be their ability to contort you into a “bespoke” mirror and it begins by modelling “mirroring”.

29. Inconsistent Stories: Details of their past or personal stories may fluctuate. This inconsistency can be due to their tendency to fabricate or exaggerate experiences as they try to reflect behaviours, they think you believe, have social value.

30. Victimization: Frequently portraying themselves as the victim in stories or situations to elicit sympathy and manipulate emotions. Their hard-luck stories may often mirror your own tales of woe and always be slightly worse somehow. Often, in preparation, they will find a way to encourage you to reveal intimate and tragic personal information.

31. Rapid Mood Swings or Anger: Exhibiting quick and intense shifts in mood, especially anger, as a response to perceived challenges or when they do not get their way. This is indicative of their low stress tolerance.

32. Sense of Entitlement: Demonstrating a pervasive sense of entitlement or expecting preferential treatment without reciprocating or acknowledging the needs of others.

33. Immature Emotion Expression: Exhibiting emotions that appear superficial or feigned. Their reactions might seem exaggerated or not aligned with the context, revealing a lack of empathy and emotional regulation.

Ego

In this chapter...

Self is crafted, but it is challenging to separate the creator from the creation.

Psychopaths view ego simply, equating it with dominance. They cannot understand its true function.

Healthy egos foster community, evolving from a 'me' to 'us' orientation.

Psychopaths restrict the growth of community, leading to relationship breakdowns and isolation.

Spot underdeveloped egos by observing disproportionate, Jekyll and Hyde behaviours.

34. Accept that self is a construct, or a creation of an individual's own crafting. It is difficult to distinguish between the crafter and the self it creates, even though we regularly 'talk' to self as the crafter of it. We have all admonished our-selves, we may look in the mirror, we might say, “I'm not happy with myself for saying that dumb thing at the party”. Consider, who is the ‘I’ that is not happy with the self. We are hardwired to refer to self in this way; like it is a puppet being manipulated by a master; an essential or foundational version of you. Keep this in mind as we explore ego.

35. Psychopaths have a self concept that is unwittingly unsophisticated, and so too is their use of ego. Ego is a power pack. It powers self; it is a utility, like an essential resource. This warrants reflection: An individual can only be egotistical by obsessing over the power ego provides towards activating aspects of their personality, or self. Unlike joy, jealousy, love etc., ego is not a personality trait or ‘tool’, it is a power source that activates aspects of self. It cannot be embodied or characterised separate from the part of personality it is enabling. It can be expressed, through hate, jealousy, joy, conciliation, greed, etc. However, it is not definable beyond the power-pack metaphor. In this way, ego must be understood as ‘powering’ all aspects of personality; well-adjusted people and psychopaths must make use of ego to power all manner of behaviour. Well-adjusted individuals use it to power attributes of self that help build communities; it is a sophisticated, kaleidoscopic expression. Psychopaths use it to subdue, isolate, possess and seek reflection from other people towards the substantiation of their self; it is an unsophisticated, paint-by-numbers display. Ego is the electricity that runs through all behaviour and is not a dirty word. But for psychopaths, ego can appear to be the dirty word they want it to be. They unwittingly learn to believe that assertiveness, arrogance, domination, want, etc., only exist because of ego. This placing of the-cart-before-the-horse means psychopaths will adopt a one-dimensional view of ego. It leads to a constriction of ego; to a three-year-old child ego is ‘me’ orientated and so it is for psychopaths. Furthermore, any perceived threat to their social viability will trigger this contraction. Consequently, they will tend to exaggerate the nature of threats.

36. For the well-adjusted person ego is life affirming. For those who have an expansive sense of ego it is a force that builds. Ego is necessary for the building of community. It can be understood as the energy that binds two agents of creation together. Or in other words, powers your complement of social tools; collectively they are known as self. Ego operates in the individual as the gunpowder that pushes the projectile; it is the motivation to engage love, compassion, etc. Intent, as determined by the social circumstances, gives rise to love and joy, etc. If that intent is working towards the expansion of your community, congratulations, you are expressing a well-developed ego. The psychopath can mimic love towards the controlling of others; this restricts community and leads to gaslighting. Their sense of ego is ‘me’ focused. In adolescence ego becomes a ‘we’ enabler; to help strengthen the bonds that define the village. Later in life ego must become ‘us’ orientated; it must help build bridges between villages and develop global connectivity. Psychopaths use ego exclusively to power their ability to mimic; their representations can appear very genuine. Often however, they will be exposed because they struggle to finish what they start, or they are addicted to launching initiatives they quickly loose interest in; or display other behaviours that are antithetical to community building.

37. Psychopaths, develop ego with severe limitations by way of a childhood filled with misleading role models. In this way, psychopaths devote considerable energy to the enslaving of others. These binds are best made by ensnaring those closest to them. In this way, family and friends are readily available for manipulation. The bridges psychopaths build that enables them to exploit the empathy of others will eventually burn. But empathetically, friends and family will let the bridge smoulder considerably before they allow the flames take hold. Consequently, psychopaths must give themselves time to scoot across to the next bridge before the collapse. All bridges thereafter will burn much quicker. Eventually they will begin to collapse beneath their feet.

38. For the well-adjusted person it would be convenient, if there were x-ray glasses that revealed the underdeveloped egos, before they were introduced to your parents, and you bought a dog together. Yes, looking for an adult who is energetically selfish, but not going as far as kicking and screaming in the shopping isle like a child, may not be too difficult. However, the psychopathic ‘tantrum’ can be a still-water-running-deep type of tension, and that water can be still for a very long time. Acting-out will eventuate and it will happen when they have control of the environment and cannot be observed to be compromising their social viability. So, where can you get a pair of those glasses? Fortunately, the still water does run and the devil is in the detail. Look for Jekyll and Hyde behaviour; they are affable in public, but in the privacy of your company they become harsh and immovable. I am not referring to a point of etiquette; there are some matters that a couple may need to discuss in private concerning what is fair and reasonable public disclosure. By Jekyll and Hyde I mean, a response that is disproportionate. Aggressive reactions to minor slights that appear to come from nowhere.

39. ‘Me’, ‘we’ then ‘us’; psychopaths must stop before ‘we’. This is not easily done; psychopaths must invoke the child they once were. Ego is another word for ‘I’, which is a word used to describe an essential version of your being; that enables oneness and community. The psychopath’s inability to accommodate this dimension of ego causes them pain. Psychopaths dumb-down their understanding of ego and learn to tolerate the subsequent isolation and ostracization.

40. Ego can be a dirty word and using it as a mud mask beauty treatment will guarantee some very ugly results.

Red Flags

41. Exaggerated Self-importance: Demonstrating an inflated sense of self-importance and entitlement, often without the accomplishments to justify it. This overemphasis on self can be a sign of their one-dimensional view of ego. Which will be revealed potentially, by probing for details; lies do not tolerate substantiation confidently.

42. Lack of Empathy: Showing a consistent lack of empathy and understanding for others' feelings and situations. This behaviour stems from their 'me' focused perspective, where the needs and emotions of others are routinely ignored or undermined.

43. Manipulation of Close Relationships: Utilizing manipulation tactics within close relationships (family and friends) to maintain control and dominance. This is indicative of their effort to enslave others to their needs, exploiting empathy to their advantage.

44. Rapid Disinterest in Initiatives: Starting projects or initiatives with enthusiasm but quickly losing interest. This pattern suggests a shallow engagement with activities that don't provide immediate gratification or control over others.

45. Disproportionate Reactions: Exhibiting aggressive or highly emotional reactions to minor slights or challenges. These disproportionate responses are reflective of their underdeveloped ego and inability to handle criticism or perceived threats maturely.

46. Jekyll and Hyde Behaviour: Being charming and affable in public but turning harsh, critical, or indifferent in private. This switch can indicate their use of social viability for manipulation, masking their true self-serving nature.

47. Gaslighting: Engaging in gaslighting to control or diminish the perceptions and reality of others, showcasing their focus on ego-centric manipulation.

48. Entitlement to Exploit Empathy: Expecting and exploiting the empathy and kindness of others for personal gain without reciprocation, showing a profound lack of genuine connection or concern for the well-being of others.

49. Difficulty in Finishing Projects: Frequently abandoning projects or relationships when they no longer serve their immediate needs or when the novelty wears off, reflecting their limited investment in genuine community building.

50. Selfish Demands in Relationships: Making unreasonable demands in relationships that serve their interests alone, often at the expense of the other person's well-being or desires. This behaviour highlights their 'me' orientation and disregard for a balanced or healthy partnership.

Seen and heard

In this chapter…

Psychopaths learn self-destructive behaviours in service to self.

Psychopaths seek validation from society but lack sophisticated filters.

Their actions aim to reinforce a simplistic self-image, risking being deceived by their own lies.

They prioritize their self-perception over community needs.

Psychopaths’ obsession with self-validity leads to a distorted understanding of happiness.

51. This chapter is not about narcissism. Narcissus fell in love with his own reflection and perished; see the final chapter. The psychopath will perish, but first they must learn the skills of self destruction. Psychopaths must learn how to be seen and heard, by their self.

52. Everyone, including well-adjusted individuals, have a desire to be seen and heard. Receiving a reflection from society helps us all refine our social viability and gives us valuable data as we help build cohesive communities. The psychopath is receiving the same data, but their filters are less sophisticated. Also, any looking and hearing they engage in exists to be seen and heard by their self first. Their sense of self must be continuously reinforced. In this way, be aware of anyone who behaves like a conversation is an exercise in waiting for their turn to talk.

53. Psychopaths make noise and displays desperately seeking to substantiate an incomplete sense of self. The noise and displays need not be exclamatory. But every action exists to confirm a flimsy notion of who they are; this image lacks complexity. The most effective psychopaths are quiet and insipid. They beguile by appearing incapable of managing an unpredictable world and lean heavily on the empathy of others. They will trigger nurturing tendencies in the people around them; they will ensure other people make sacrifices towards the stabilising of an unpredictable world. They pretend to be incapable; it arrests the development of resilience. Consequently, they will believe their own lies, and they will perish.

54. Psychopaths understand the power of first impressions. Significantly, the first impression they make on them-selves. This requires a moments reflection: Every utterance and any reflection an individual generates has a faithful, ever-present audience; it is self. For the psychopath, what they see in the mirror and what sounds they hear themselves make must be absorbed by that ‘audience’ exclusively. They are enslaved by that audience; their self is incessantly hungry for reflections.

55. What well-adjusted people see in the mirror and the sounds they make exist, in the first instance, as valuable information for self-refinement. But this information is processed sympathetic to the needs of the community. The psychopath lacks this sympathetic outlook. The image and noise they create exists for an audience of one, their self.

56. Unlike reasonably well-adjusted people, who use the reflected images and sounds they generate to fine tune an inclusive sense of self, the psychopath must limit their appreciation of this data. It is something like Pinocchio, realising for the first time that he is alive, but not yet a ‘real boy’. Except, the psychopath has no ambition, or notion, to become ‘real’. Instead, they must fall in love with the puppet (self) they believe they truly are. This will require them to believe everything they say and every image of themselves they generate, is correct and without fault.

57. It is in this way that know-it-alls suffer. Suffering with the burden of vanity, and to appear to know everything, are two of many ways psychopaths suffer. Their desire to know everything has nothing to do with an ambition to help their team win trivia nights at the local pub. They need to hear themselves appear to be masterful and be perceived in specific ways because of their distorted concept of social viability. This phenomenon is noticeable whenever they are challenged by the laws governing the physical universe. Often, in the face of a blaring truth, instead of owning their errors, the psychopath will change topic or, most peculiarly, will repackage their falsehood to regain legitimacy. The legitimising exists solely to help stabilise their dimensionless self. It is in this way that psychopaths can very easily appear to lose touch with reality. Their ridiculous adherence to fakery is less to do with some intentional rejection of fact, and has everything to do with the necessary defining, or redefining, of their self.

58. The force of this drive to seek reflections cannot be understated. When a community looks for leaders, they are driven by reflection seeking; hoping to see and hear something of their self in those that might call themselves candidate, commander, President, Prime minister, etc. In this way, a leadership’s policies, laws and agendas will be challenged by communities constantly; quietly in conference rooms, boldly at demonstrations and colloquially in pubs and bars everywhere. But it is not what politicians seek to do that is subject to ‘pub-tests’, it is what politicians are that must first pass common assessment. This assessment is directly informed by relatability factors. Favouring flawed leaders, with apparently undesirable traits, that align more closely with a life lived with some recklessness, selfishness, impulsivity and lawlessness is, therefore, entirely expected. Subsequently, when stress relating to resource availability, population density, wealth distribution, etc., becomes clear and present to a community the more likely it is that they will favour leadership that promises a ‘correction’ to a modus operandi that is ham-fisted, inarticulate, crude, decisive, impulsive, etc. In other words, is reflective of the desperation and fear experienced by the community. It is in this way, that an entire population can appear to champion psychopaths; it is a pattern that has been repeated across all human evolution. Curiously, the psychopath, a community chooses to champion, often is not aware of the ‘true’ reasons why they are supported by that community. Often, the psychopathic leader, who is only seeking to have their sense of self substantiated, are doing so ignorant of the community's desire to appoint a courageous agitator. Psychopaths are not courageous and ultimately, they will likely fall on their own sword. The kind of disruption they might cause in the interim, can be swift and might powerfully appease the community. However, the community are supporting an entity that is self serving, who has a constant eye on the exit, who, when forced to, will close ranks deftly to protect their position and wealth with entirely no regard for the community they were appointed to save.

59. Psychopaths are not primarily concerned for the accuracy of anything they say and any gesture they make; so long as it appears to have integrity (gaslighting is the next chapter). The noise and images they make exist, in the first instance, to reassure their self of its apparent substance. However, a self desperately seeking to make noise solely in the pursuit of its own definition, is a snake eating its own tail.

60. You are your own best audien(t).

Red Flags

61. Dominating Conversations: Consistently steering conversations back to themselves, showing little interest in what others have to say unless it serves to refocus attention on them.

62. Need for Constant Validation: Exhibiting an excessive need for compliments, reassurances, and validation about their opinions, appearance, and actions.

63. Lack of Active Listening: Displaying poor active listening skills, such as interrupting others, not responding appropriately to what’s being said, or clearly not paying attention, indicating they value being heard over reciprocal communication.

64. Manipulating Sympathy: Deliberately portraying themselves as vulnerable or incapable to trigger nurturing responses from others, exploiting empathy to remain the centre of attention.

65. Self-Aggrandizement: Regularly bragging or boasting about achievements, talents, or qualities in a way that seems excessive or inappropriate to the context.

66. Insensitivity to Others’ Feelings: Showing a disregard for the feelings or needs of others, especially if acknowledging them would divert attention away from themselves.

67. Resistance to Being Proven Wrong: Reacting negatively to correction or challenge, possibly by changing the subject, making excuses, or repackaging falsehoods to avoid admitting mistakes.

68. Creating Drama: Engaging in or creating unnecessary drama to garner attention, even at the expense of others’ well-being or the harmony of the group.

69. Excessive Self-Reference: Using an inordinate amount of self-reference in conversation, regardless of the topic at hand, to keep the focus on themselves.

70. Inflexibility in Views and Opinions: Demonstrating a marked unwillingness to consider other perspectives or change their opinions, as doing so might challenge the self-image they’re trying to maintain in front of others.

Gaslighting

In this chapter...

Psychopaths manipulate reality, making you doubt your own perceptions.

Their lies are plausible but the risk is great; it will lead to their social isolation when exposed.

Beware of language that attempts to reshape your self-image.

Conspiracy theorists edit reality, often very subtly.

Gaslighting is the art of imprisoning others in a cage made of words.

71. How is it, in the face of laws governing the physical universe, that psychopaths can manipulate reality and appear to change the fabric of time and space? Welcome to the peculiar tendency for psychopaths to gaslight; to wrangle reality. Psychopaths acquire this skill early and never comprehend the ultimate pointlessness and self-destructive nature of it. Gaslighting is the act of rewriting the laws of nature; relative to the fraudulence of the psychopath's conspiracy theories. To be effective at gaslighting psychopaths must have a working understanding of reality. The forces governing their reflection-seeking however, are immense. Subsequently, their selective revision of reality is powerfully informed by prejudice and anathema; yes, in the process of manipulating others they are also reinforcing an entire belief system. Their volatility consequently, can be extreme, unpredictable and severely underestimated. Once they know the texture of reality they can begin to stain it: Psychopaths need not change the fabric of time and space, when gaslighting they need only to make it waggle a bit. Yes, psychopaths see the world around them as if the tail is wagging the dog. Or in terms of gaslighting, they need to persuade their victims to take the tail for a walk.

72. We all tell white lies. Sometimes it is to protect feelings or to avoid extraneous tensions, or for efficacy. In a similar way, Psychopaths learn to white-lie, and quickly learn the social viability boosting potential of subtly augmenting reality. Gaslighting is plausible misrepresentation. The plausibility is essential.

73. Psychopaths learn to become committed conspiracy theorists. Their understanding of the laws of the physical universe is instrumental. It is this understanding that leads to the augmentation or ‘correction’ of reality. Psychopaths are not ignorant; they are selective. They will, however, become believers in their own lies; it will lead to their lies being exposed. Most reasonably well-adjusted people are gaslighting literate and this is also a problem for psychopaths. Psychopaths who are called-out for their fakery will experience major social viability setbacks. Psychopaths must, therefore, make their misrepresentations of reality as plausible as possible; plausibility keeps the gaslight burning. Too much plausibility however, and the psychopath’s augmentations will be inconsequential. Their victim’s reactions to the lies and misrepresentations help the psychopath learn how far plausibility can be stretched. Yes, in the process of being redefined by a psychopath, victims are simultaneously feeding the psychopath the data need to fuel that redefining. Be in no doubt, gaslighting is a process whereby a victim’s self-concept is undermined towards its redefining. In other words, gaslighting is the process of shaping a victim into a mirror with specific characteristics.

74. In this way, effective gaslighting happens when the manipulator can make their victim say the lie. Remember chapter 2, every utterance a person makes is heard by them first (you are your own best audien(t)) or heard by their self towards its own substantiation. Therefore, when talking to yourself, be kind. If the psychopath can get their victims to say the lie, they have successfully executed the most powerful way to reprogram an individual’s sense of their self. Psychopaths who relentlessly question, trying to illicit a specific response from their victims, are actively encouraging this self-reprograming. Sympathetically, psychopaths who do not hear their victim say what they are trying to coerce them to say will seek other means for its expression. Statements such as, ‘I thought you were the type of person who would see your friends for who they really are’, or ‘I imagined you’d have the strength to say, screw you dad!’ are red flags. Phrases such as ‘you were the type of person’ and ‘I imagined you’ are image promoting. They force the mind of the victim to render distorted images of themselves, or revisions of their-self. In terms of reprogramming it is not as powerful as coercing their victim to say the lie, but it still exploits the most powerful of relearning modalities, visualisation.

75. This reimagining is a process that well-adjusted people also engage in. They compare revised version of their self constantly to a ‘stable’, or socially viable, understanding of who they are. Subsequently, this data is either discarded or used for subtle self-adjustment. But, when the gas-lighter is fuelling their manipulations with carefully measured amounts of plausibility, even the most well-adjusted individual will be caused to question the social efficacy of their “stable” self-concept.

76. The imagination is dexterous and, combined with persistent gaslighting, can make the self-reimaging powerfully influential. Evoking a strong image in the mind of the victim of themselves, whereby they conceive their self as weak or imperceptive, goes to the essence of gaslighting. If a victim is over-exposed to phraseology that encourages them to conceive a picture of themselves that is inconsistent with a balanced perception, they have of who they are, they are being gaslit. In this way, fashion sites and Instagram influencers have a kind of gaslighting effect; they are powerful image evokers, planting pictures of a version of self into the mind of their audience that is inconsistent with the innate beauty nature has gifted their audience with.

77. In this way, becoming a conspiracy theorist requires the ability to edit reality. But it’s something like editing a document by putting whiteout on the computer screen. So long as no one scrolls down or changes apps, the edit will maintain integrity. In other words, so long as a psychopath restricts the subject of their theorising to anything that is difficult to disprove by casual observation, they will be relatively protected from exposure. The earth is flat is a good example: The curvature of the planet is difficult to discern with the naked eye. But for psychopaths who try to argue that Pop-tarts are full of microchips, they risk having their social viability severely compromised.

78. How then do well-adjusted people avoid being blinded by the gaslight? They should learn some laws of the physical universe. This dabbling in a bit of science will help them spot conspiracy theorists and truth revisionists. They should tune into the reprogramming. The reason why they didn’t tell their father to go screw himself probably has nothing to do with weaknesses in their personality, the gaslighter will want their victim to believe otherwise. Likewise, well-adjusted people should be mindful of judgements attacking fundamental personality traits. For example, a psychopath may accuse their victim of being a poor conversationalist, or bad at banter, etc. This may or may not be true, or may seem trivial, but when placed within a catalogue of coercive behaviours, or if delivered at a time when insecurity is piqued, such as a first date, this kind of attack becomes insidious. Well-adjusted people must realise the psychopath wants them to question foundational aspects of their self towards its redefining; any attack they make on the tools their victim uses for important social network building, such as making a decent first impression, will cause them to feel flawed. Flawed in a way that is beyond the scope of an objective assessment the victim might make of themselves. Once the psychopath has caused their victim to question a core aspect of their personality a cycle of retraining will begin. Whereby, the psychopath will position themselves as the teacher. Victims may then feel a powerful dependence on the psychopath to help correct the ‘flaws’ towards the redefining of their-self.

79. Finally, well-adjusted people can flip a psychopath’s assertions; for any assertion a psychopath makes, consider the opposite. This is a trick satirists and comedians use; well-adjusted people should impartially consider the opposite of everything a gaslighter attests to. This can be difficult when the psychopath is attacking their victim's core personality traits. However, well-adjusted individuals must remember, a good gaslighter is coating their lies with many layers of plausibility. By simply challenging a psychopath’s assertions with the notion, what if the opposite was true, those layers will begin to melt away. For example, I find it hard to believe that Sarah would tell Jane she wants to sleep with my husband, Sarah was my maid-of-honour, what if the opposite is true, Sarah didn’t say that and Jane made it up because Jane is jealous of the friendship I have with Sarah? Remember, gaslighters are not deceiving by making the lie appear true, they are making the lie true by deceiving. This is important: The substantiation of their deception is their priority, making someone feel deceived is not the central motivation.

80. Psychopaths, are themselves their first gaslighting victim; they must be the first to believe their own lies. But it is a lie that attempts to restrict the flow of another person’s life. It is something like keeping a bird in a cage, except the cage is replaced by words. Talking a bird into believing it is surrounded by a cage may be possible for some time, but it is unsustainable.

81. Psychopaths will not let the truth get in the way of their self-destruction.

Red Flags

82. Plausible Deniability: Presenting false information with just enough truth to make it seem credible, challenging the victim's ability to distinguish between what's real and what's not.

83. Constant Questioning of Your Memory: Regularly questioning your recollection of events, suggesting you're misremembering things that you're quite sure of, to the point where you begin to doubt your own memory.

84. Shifting the Blame: Redirecting any fault or issue back onto you, making you feel like you're always the one at fault. This is impossible, consistent with the laws of averages.

85. Denying Things They've Said or Done: Outright denying their actions or words, even if you have clear evidence or remember it distinctly.

86. Trivializing Your Feelings: Making you feel like your reactions or emotions are overblown or unreasonable, thus minimizing your feelings and experiences.

87. Using Confusion as a Tool: Intentionally confusing you with a mix of lies and truths to make you doubt your own perceptions and rely more heavily on their version of reality.

88. Projection: Accusing you of behaviours that they are engaging in, such as lying or cheating, to deflect attention from their actions and make you the subject of scrutiny.

89. Manipulative Compliments or Affirmations: Offering compliments or affirmations to confuse you further, making it harder to see the manipulation and control at play.

90. Isolation from Friends and Family: Working to isolate you from your support network, making it more difficult for you to verify the truth or get perspective.

91. Undermining Your Self-Esteem: Gradually eroding your confidence and self-esteem, making you more dependent on their validation and approval.

Happiness

In this chapter...

Psychopaths equate contentedness with self-punishment.

Their obsessive energy expenditure on self-validation leads to dissatisfaction and mania.

Achieving contentment through self-punishment means psychopaths seek increasingly potent self-affirmations.

Well-adjusted individuals find contentment in life-affirming pursuits, psychopaths obsess.

Psychopaths' pursuit of self-gratification is ultimately self-consuming and destructive.

92. Psychopaths operate with a very skewed understanding of contentedness; fundamentally, it is not permitted. It’s not that they have a grumpy disposition; desperate, would be a more accurate characterisation. The closest a psychopath can be to content is in the act of self-punishment. Yes, the contradictions pile-up quickly when discussing the difference between a well-adjusted sense of contentedness and the psychopath’s desperate urge to seek satisfaction. One encourages flow and the other, obstructions.

93. Psychopaths cannot be happy because the self cannot be happy, including any well-adjusted self. Reasonably well-adjusted individuals need not despair, self can be at peace, but it must have job satisfaction, more on that later; more on true happiness also later. Psychopaths are self obsessed, or more accurately, they are self possessed. In this way, psychopaths are destined to be manic; an endless supply of energy exists as they desperately seek to contort their environment as they pander to their self. This is true even for the most, apparently, introverted manipulator. Introverted psychopaths mask considerable turbulence often characterised by being thin-skinned. Psychopaths are very easily offended. They are hyperaware; their antenna is scoping for data constantly. The filtering of the data requires energy beyond that which a reasonably well-adjusted person would expend. Energy used for this kind of filtering, that includes wrestling with reality, leads to obsessions.

94. All psychopaths are obsessive. Well-adjusted individuals have passions too, of course. Passions which they may be stridently committed to. However, the energy given to their interests is not characterised by a desire to constantly seek self-definition and validation. In other words, their happiness is not inexorably defined by the pursuit of something.

95. Psychopaths achieve a corrupt kind of contentedness when they are in the act of self-punishment. This is because their self is constantly seeking its own reflection; the reflection is never complete. In an attempt to resolve this inadequacy, their noisemaking and acting-out typically become more potent over time. Psychopaths are single-minded reflection seekers; this obsession means that a decentralised self will lose sensitivity. Something like a heroin addict becoming desensitised; ultimately to maintain normal functioning they will require the consumption of an ever-increasing amount of the drug. In a similar way, the psychopath will seek increasingly more compelling reflections. This means they may try to possess others (next chapter).

96. Take a moment to consider the difference between obsession and passion. Or ask the question, what objects might a well-adjusted individual hold in their attention to help define their sense of who they are? Objects, in this way, are both tangible and intangible; consider material objects and the immaterial. For example, objects of thought, regularly arising in the mind, significantly inform the nature of a persons of contentedness. These objects should be catalysts for curiosity and investigation, or processing. For example, I want to get my blackbelt in Karate, is a thought object. The well-adjusted individual might hold this object in their attention from time to time, consider their schedule, their availability to training, their energy levels, new training techniques; they are not trying to qualify for the Olympics. In other words, it is an enjoyable, life-affirming, fitness endeavour. However, if their interest in Karate is motivated by aggression and not fitness, to start fights not avoid them, to subdue not elevate others or the sport, the result will be obsessive self-destruction. Psychopaths will seek to compete; not all sore losers are psychopaths, but their sense of self is underdeveloped. Well-adjusted individuals can be passionate, and they will be buoyed by the lift their passion gives others. Psychopaths will climb, with fiery determination, on to the collapsing monuments they force others to make of them, and they will fall very short of reaching their true potential.

97. The job satisfied self, is one that is social viability focused. This social viability however, must be tuned towards the building of community. If not then it becomes chronically self-ish, and the individual will, ultimately, be ostracized. This will lead to an immense feeling of hollowness. This commonly, will lead to the manipulation and coercion of others.

98. True happiness? Many of us would equate it with a life with no complications, a stress-free existence. However, is it unrealistic that all the potential problems in life can be quelled? That, by some remarkable convergence of fate, all the elements of your existence can exist in a hassle-free stasis, free of consternation? It is impossible. So then, happiness, idiomatically, is within. Or more specifically, it arises from within.

99. Psychopaths are someone no one wants to play board-games with. They are sticklers for the rules and, simultaneously chronic cheaters. When they lose, they will shift the blame. Learning to allocate blame away from themselves is as close to happy as they are ever likely to feel.

100. The pursuit of self gratification is like a snake eating its own tail; it’s hunger will only be satisfied at the point of its demise.

Red Flags

101. Excessive Self-Punishment: Engaging in self-punishment or self-sabotaging behaviours under the guise of seeking self-improvement, but really perpetuating a cycle of negative self-regard.

102. Obsessive Need for Validation: Demonstrating an insatiable desire for external validation and approval to confirm their self-worth or identity, often at the expense of others' comfort or boundaries.

103. Hyper-Sensitivity to Criticism: Showing an exaggerated response to criticism or perceived slights, indicative of their thin-skinned nature and inability to handle anything that challenges their self-perception.

104. Excessive Energy Devoted to Self-Definition: Spending an abnormal amount of time and energy on activities or obsessions that solely serve to bolster their self-definition, ignoring the impact on or needs of those around them.

105. Constant Seeking of Reflection: Demonstrating an unending quest to see themselves reflected in the actions, praise, and attention of others, devaluing genuine connections.

106. Manipulation of Others for Self-Satisfaction: Coercing or manipulating others into actions or behaviours that reaffirm their sense of superiority.

107. Lack of Genuine Passion: Exhibiting interests or passions that are not pursued for joy, curiosity, or community building but for aggression, competition, or self-aggrandizement.

108. Blame Shifting: Regularly shifting blame onto others for personal failures or disappointments, unable to accept personal responsibility in the pursuit of maintaining their self-image.

109. Unhealthy Competition: Engaging in competitive behaviours not for the sake of improvement or enjoyment but to dominate and prove superiority, often resulting in destructive outcomes.

110. Emotional Exploitation: Using emotional exploitation or blackmail to coerce others into providing the affirmation and satisfaction they seek, showing a lack of empathy and genuine engagement.

Possession

In this chapter...

Psychopaths view possessing others as essential; they are enslaved by their own self.

Lack of foundational self-awareness leads to possessiveness and objectification of well-adjusted individuals.

Their obsession with self and their inability to perceive authenticity leads to dangerous curiosity.

Violence and control are misguided attempts to grasp authenticity to compensate for their inadequacies.

Enslavement to self creates a cycle of craving and an inability to appreciate inner freedom.

111. Psychopaths will place possessing others high on their list of obsessions. But not higher than their own enslavement. Yes, all psychopaths are slaves to their-self. Or more accurately, are possessed by their self. Their self-satisfaction leads to obsession that leads to a persistent feeling of lack. To the psychopath, their sense of self is a one-dimensional experience. They are amazed by others who have a sense of self as something they acquired; as an arising from their being. Psychopaths sense self like it is a puppet, but like they are the puppet that is also its own master; a puppet unrestrained and beyond intelligent guidance, not unlike the selfish Pinocchio.

112. With varying degrees of sensitivity, well-adjusted people have a sense of the master. Whereas, psychopaths have no sense of their essential being, that exists as a foundation to their self. Through a process of, what is commonly known as, enlightenment well-adjusted individuals can become master aware. In this awakened state, they may perceive self as an arising that emanates from the being, or the ‘essential’ entity they are; it is a state associated with a deep sense of calm. It is not necessary, however, to go down the enlightenment rabbit hole to understand how psychopaths are possessive. Accept that, with the exploration of self, comes the opportunity to ensure the puppet that is self, is not in control of the master, or the being we essentially are.

113. Psychopaths must ensure their self is always front-and-centre; any notion of the being must be eliminated. Or in other words, the created self, like the apprentice assassinating their master, must never conceive itself as a masterless puppet. In an everyday sense, most people are not actively aware of the puppet-master relationship. However, reasonably well-adjusted people are innately aware that unbridled selfishness will lead to social ostracization and self-destruction; this default regulation is the master (the being) influence. Psychopaths never developed this awareness. Self must be the controlling factor. So much so, that any sense that self may be an arising from their being, must be consistently denied. This will lead to a hollow, painful feeling inside. This feeling will be enhanced whenever the psychopath is in the company of people who are untroubled by displaying conciliation, admitting they are wrong, laughing at themselves, apologizing, moderating their emotions, etc. Or in other words, appear to be applying limits and corrections onto self in a way that suggests it is not in control.

114. Self, with no foundation, with no notion of the being, is a very fragile entity. Psychopaths develop a hunger for correcting this fragility. This hunger will intensify subsequent to the amount of suffering. The puppet, that has no notion of the being, or master, it arises from, will look at other puppets and be confused by the master they appear to be supported by. It is in this way, that psychopaths become possessive of other people. The puppet looking at other puppets will see the being that supports them as an alluring object. In this way, what is a deeply authentic or even spiritual dimension of a reasonably well-adjusted self, for psychopaths, will be objectified. In extreme cases, the psychopath will want to dissect and explore the ‘supportive’ being, as it is represented in other people. This will lead to inflicting physical pain and suffering on others.

115. Psychopaths are possessed by self; it leads to the worship of self. They see their being as nothing more than a vehicle for the carriage of their self. This objectification of the being informs their regard for everyone; their perception of others lacks dimension. Specifically, well-adjusted people are encountered by the psychopath as a mirror, but the reflection is incomplete. There is an authenticity dimension psychopaths are incapable of projecting. It is not reflected back but the authenticity embodied by others is perceived by the psychopath; this leads to a very dangerous curiosity. In this way, they cannot empathize because they comprehend others as objects; not dissimilar to the objectification by which they regard themselves. Imagine a puppet looking at other puppets and is confused by the presence of the puppet master. It has no sense of a master, it subsequently wants to ‘examine’ the master, it becomes obsessed by the substantiating influence of the master as it arises in others. The psychopath then becomes like a child pulling the legs off an insect; it thinks it can disassemble the master (the being) in others, and learn the secrets of its composition.

116. In the catalogue of urges psychopaths are enslaved to, possession-of-others can be an immensely powerful one. Psychopaths may develop an interest in acts of violence, but not for their own sake. Violence is an attempt to exorcise some notion of authenticity from themselves or from others. To help address a hollow, painful sense of worthlessness within, psychopaths develop a dispassionate curiosity for the authenticity of self, as it is represented by other people. Any attempt, by the psychopath, to ‘look’ for this authenticity in others will likely result in crude acts of violence; against themselves. Yes, it is inevitable that the victim will ultimately be the psychopath themselves. In this way, psychopaths are destined to self-destruct; like someone cutting a limb off a tree oblivious to the fact they are sitting on the wrong side of the saw.

117. It is the psychopath's objective to possesses and control everything their victim does. They feel it as a hunger for power and by dominating others, they quash that hunger. It is more accurate to state however, psychopaths are vacuum cleaners desperately acquiring morsels of authenticity. Well-adjusted displays of authenticity are informed by healthy attachments and is a quality emanating from an individual’s personality. It is a quality defined by truth, charity, generosity, and comprehension. Displays of charitable love are confusing to psychopaths, but simultaneously, are highly prized by them; they are single-minded mimics of behaviours that will enhance their social viability. Although they are incapable of selfless love, they do understand the power of its social viability.

118. Observing acts of self-less love is one way a psychopath chooses their victim. This explains a very dangerous aspect of their possessive motivations. They will be distressed if they witness their victim enjoying social interactions. Jealousy will flare up ferociously, this is because they fear the loss of the authenticity their victim provides. It is however, also because their victim may be making a personality display; trying to make a positive first impression in a new social setting. For the psychopath to observe their victim participate in any kind of pretence, even the polite form of personality curating that happens when first impressions are made, is inexcusable. In terms of authenticity the psychopath has placed their victim on a very high pedestal. Any authenticity embodied by the victim will be idolised by the psychopath, and they will develop deep feelings of confusion, envy and resentment: The victim may laugh politely at other people’s jokes, smile respectfully in social circles and mingle mindfully. The psychopath will see this behaviour, not as social decorum, but as strident acts of severe deception and they will feel painfully betrayed. Most significantly, psychopaths will not fully comprehend why they feel such powerful aversions. These powerful feelings of jealousy help describe what, for psychopaths, is the feeling of love. When the psychopath says, I love you so much, I do not want to risk losing you, they are really saying: I have holes in my self concept. These holes are bottomless and intolerable. When you are near, they feel less empty. My self demands that you never leave and never make any kind of pretentious display again. It is not love it is possession, towards the substantiation of their self.

119. Without strident interventions, psychopaths cannot be retrained to be authentic, or to be genuinely compassionate; they will only be capable of mimicking these qualities. In the process, they will feel a deep sense of shame. For what they are incapable of authentically displaying they will make up for by keeping the allure of others’ authenticity very close; like a moth to a flame, or more accurately, like a moth enslaving the flame. Whatever they do to keep well-adjusted people close is driven by very powerful forces that can be difficult to unlearn. Such is the nature of their self-acquisition; they acquired self late in childhood and devised it mostly for themselves, it lacks complexity and, subsequently, authenticity.

120. Remember, psychopaths are not seeking to dominate for its own sake. The psychopath’s feeling of having power over others is directly informed, stained, dominated, overwhelmingly reinforced by, the desire to “fill-in” a painful hollow sensation they feel deep within. They may appear to enjoy the experience of dominating others, but it is joy because of relief, that masks a constant and chronic feeling of cavernous inadequacy.

121. Possession leads to consumption. Consumption leads to craving. Psychopaths accept this irony. Becoming a slave to the puppet, self, is the ultimate act of possession. It will lead to powerful feelings of lack. Being possessed by self is a loss of freedom psychopaths cannot avoid.

122. The masterless puppet is in control of the place on the shelf it will be left to collect dust. In other words, having no-strings-attached is the opposite of freedom.

Red Flags

123. Intense Fascination with Your Personal Life: Showing an excessive interest in the details of your life, thoughts, and feelings. Their authenticity seeking is in overdrive; they will use the information you provide to imprison you.

124. Isolation from Support Networks: Gradually isolating you from friends, family, and any supportive community under the guise of love or protection but really to increase your dependency on them.

125. Obsession with Control: Needing to control all aspects of your life, from decisions you make to how you spend your time and who you interact with, often justified as being for your own good.

126. Rapid Commitment: Pushing for a quick, intense commitment in a relationship to fast-track emotional dependency and control.

127. Jealousy and Paranoia: Exhibiting irrational jealousy and paranoia, not as genuine emotional responses, but as tools to justify their manipulation. If you exhibit enjoyment socially, they will fear the loss of you; giving up the authenticity that you provide is intolerable to the psychopath.

128. Mimicking Emotions and Behaviours: Demonstrating what appears to be deep emotional connection and understanding, but is actually a mimicry intended to endear themselves to you and make you more susceptible to their influence.

129. Undermining Your Confidence: Subtly undermining your confidence in your autonomy, decision-making, and self-worth, making you more likely to relinquish control and autonomy.

130. Gaslighting: Manipulating you into questioning your perceptions, memories, and sanity through deliberate denial, lying, and contradiction, thereby increasing your reliance on their version of reality.

131. Exploiting Your Empathy: Leveraging your natural empathy by portraying themselves as misunderstood or a victim, to gain sympathy, attention, and further control.

132. Intense or Inappropriate Emotional Reactions: Using over-the-top emotional reactions to manipulate you or to enforce a narrative where they are either the victim or the only one who truly cares about you, deepening your emotional entanglement with them.

Empathy

In this chapter...

Psychopaths misconstrue universal suffering, impairing true empathy.

Empathy's complexity: both selfish and selfless for human connection.

"I know how you feel" undermines true empathetic sharing.

Psychopaths view social viability competitively, disabling communal empathy.

Psychopaths' objectification stems from a sense of chronic personal inadequacy.

133. Psychopaths have a strange relationship with empathy. Well-adjusted people experience pain, and often, dimensions of this pain are universal; life comes with challenges. The shared aspect of some suffering allows for empathy. Most well-adjusted people believe that psychopaths have no empathy or lack the ability to see the suffering of others. It is more accurate to say, however, that psychopaths are always in a state of suffering. To help alleviate this suffering they desperately project themselves onto others to generate a reflection, they assume everyone is as equally desperate. In other words, psychopaths look at all other people as fellow sufferers. The question then becomes, why doesn’t this fellowship enable them to relate to the suffering of others? To answer this question, we must look again at objectification.

134. Victims of psychopathic manipulation are often left feeling stupid; this can be difficult to resolve. However, the news is good, this regretful feeling is an indicator that they are not a psychopath. Resolving this feeling of self-compromise begins with a desire to not be bitten again. The first step is to acknowledge that empathy is a double-edged sword. Evolution has chosen empathy as a survival imperative because humans are necessarily social beings. In this way, it has both selfish and selfless intentions. To be selflessly empathetic is to experience the feelings of another; it is vicarious. This experiencing is often enabled by an association made by the empathiser with their own life circumstances.

135. Incidentally, never use the phrase, I know how you feel. The person suffering does not want to know how others are feeling. Their sharing is the process of accepting the pain for themselves and begin a healing process; no one can climb the mountain for them. Using the phrase, I know how you feel, is similar to saying, you have overcome massive obstacles to arrive at basecamp, but you needn’t bother climbing Mount Everest, I was just up there and took some selfies and they will be good enough for you. In other words, the effort they have made to share is being disrespected. The effort they have already made to be brave enough to announce, I need to hear myself be honest and exposed, and knowing that it has been heard by you helps be experience the honesty, is being disregarded.

136. Empathy allows an individual to be present with someone’s suffering in an intimate way. But it also allows others to reinforce their own sense of self-protection; to remind themselves of the imminent nature of threats and challenges. The psychopath has learned the self-protection mode of empathy but not the part that allows the suffering of others to be reflected in their own life. How did this happen? Psychopaths are the winner take all, driven to succeed, elite athletes of the social viability race. They have learned that social viability is a competition, and this occurred early in their life. In this way, from the point of view of a child, social viability might be seen as competitive. However, social viability exists to build community; it is not a race. The failure to adequately develop attachment has left the psychopath with no sense of the village.

137. Psychopaths must objectify. The psychopath is a slave to self; objectification is a natural by-product of this enslavement. In this way, they endure a background feeling of gross inadequacy. It is as if their lack of authenticity causes a feeling like withdrawal. Is there the possibility then, for psychopaths to relate to the psychopathic tendencies in others towards a communal recognition of this inadequacy? No, their sense of personal inadequacy is overbearing; it overrides any sense of other. Instead, the psychopath lives with an underlying feeling of hollowness that they assume is an unavoidable dimension of existence experienced by everyone. It is as real as the nose on their face; imagine psychopaths think noses, all noses, are ugly including their own. Feeling any kind of sympathy for others because of this universal ‘reality’ is then entirely redundant. Therefore, their sense of shared suffering is not the same as empathy, it is a resignation.

138. Psychopaths conceive their-self as an incomplete object and assume all members of society feel somewhat the same. The inquiry that emerges, as the psychopath strives to complete their self, will lead to the dissection of other objects, not their resurrection. In other words, the psychopath’s sense of ‘other’ is like an extremely dumbed-down version of empathy, the kind that assumes that a confounding suffering is universal. The psychopath assumes that all humanity is afflicted with a baseline confusion, empathy is then redundant. In this way, as the psychopath attempts to alleviate their suffering, they can believe they are solving a universal problem; this does not mean they are motivated to help. They are, however, buoyed by the recognition they believe their solution may provide; a solution that, ironically, involves the systematic possession and dissection of others. Significantly, like footballers at the end of the game, they might tell the team doctor about their aches and pains, but their fellow team mates have their own soreness to manage. Psychopaths will not be supportive of other individuals for enduring a pain they believe is generalised across all individuals.

139. Psychopaths suffer and believe that a dimension of that suffering is shared. However, this belief that their suffering is experienced with the same intensity by everyone will not prompt any empathy. Psychopaths carry with them a feeling like a bird might have that has lost its wings. The resulting phantom wing sensation is a pain, they believe, is shared by everyone, and so need not attract any sympathy. It is, of course, not shared by everyone, and lays bare the psychopath's perception issues.

140. Like fake news, the psychopath’s version of empathy allows them to excuse themselves for the pain they cause others.

Red Flags

141. Selective Empathy: Showing empathy only when it serves their interests or supports their agenda, often ignoring or dismissing the feelings of others when not beneficial to them.

142. Empathy as a Tool for Manipulation: Using expressions of empathy to manipulate or control others, rather than to offer genuine support or understanding.

143. Overemphasis on Their Own Suffering: Frequently redirecting conversations to their own experiences of suffering, even in contexts meant to focus on others' hardships.

144. Lack of Follow-Through on Empathetic Promises: Making promises to help or support based on expressed empathy, but consistently failing to follow through with meaningful action.

145. Empathy with Strings Attached: Offering support or understanding with the expectation of something in return, turning acts of "empathy" into transactions.

146. Invalidating Others' Feelings: Acknowledging others' feelings but quickly diminishing their validity or comparing them to their own "greater" sufferings, effectively invalidating the original expression of emotion.

147. Using Empathy to Gather Information for Exploitation: Expressing interest in others' feelings or challenges but later using that information to exploit vulnerabilities.

148. Empathy That Feels Scripted or Rehearsed: Demonstrating empathy in a way that feels insincere, rehearsed, or out of context, indicating a lack of genuine emotional connection.

149. Empathy Withdrawn as Punishment: Withholding expressions of empathy or support as a form of punishment or control when someone does not comply with their wishes.

150. Projecting Their Emotions onto Others: Insisting they know how someone else feels based on their own experiences, dismissing the other person's actual feelings or experiences in the process.

Sycophant

In this chapter...

Narcissistic and sycophantic psychopaths share narcissism traits.

Sycophants' narcissism is insidious, they exploit flattery for gain.

Sycophants dismiss truth, engage in speculation to reinforce their self-image.

Sycophantic relationships are unstable and are constantly at risk of collapse.

Sycophants manipulate needs into wants, risking exposure and loss of power.

151. Narcissistic psychopaths versus sycophantic psychopaths, what is the difference? Good question, the answer? there is no difference. However, it is common for narcissistic psychopaths, or pure narcissists, to be placed in a unique category because they make overt displays. They appear to be image-obsessed, and the image they project onto others is designed to generate a powerful reflection. In this way, it appears most psychopaths are pure narcissists, and may only be incidentally sycophantic. However, all sycophants are best understood as narcissists, and yes, even in terms of seeking powerful reflections. Significantly, the type of narcissism displayed by sycophants is more insidious and, arguably, more common. Sycophants are people who seek to gain wealth, status, and advantage by pandering to the needs of others. The advantages they gain are reflections that help define their sense of self; towards enhancing their social viability. It is therefore in this way, that the sycophant is entirely narcissistic.

152. Well-adjusted individuals feel good when they help others or are given the opportunity to encourage and acknowledge other people. With an expansive sense of ego, with an understanding of it as the energy that helps build community, they can praise and reward others and do so without expecting accolades. Advertising their charitable activities, or in terms of the biblical reference, to let the left hand know what the right hand is doing, intuitively feels wrong. All psychopaths, however, are self-serving and whatever a sycophant appears to do for the benefit of others or when they pander, exists solely to generate a reflection of their self.

153. Sycophants are expert gaslighters. The purpose of their empty flattery and agreeableness is to entrap the attention of others. In this way, their empty words inevitably, will lead to a distorting of facts. The true nature of reality, for the sycophant, presents a magic mirror problem. The truth causes the mirror to lose its ability to show the sycophant what they want to see. Therefore, the sycophant must reject all small and large truths relatively, or at least disregard them. In this way, the sycophant is like the pure narcissist. In conversation, the sycophant will tolerate the truth with indifference. If, however, the topic becomes speculative or conspiratorial, the sycophant will engage. Gossip is an example.

154. The speculative nature of gossip excites our fascination with narrative. It satisfies the urge we all possess to sustain a story, the story that is our life; gossiping helps train our narrative creation ability. This maintenance-of-narrative training enables us to regulate our social viability. The sycophant and the pure narcissist, however, do not regulate social viability, they are enslaved by it; self is not a puppet they guide (or regulate), their self is addicted to the protection of a carefully crafted, dimensionless narrative. For the sycophant, gossip is the smoke where there is certainly a fire; for well-adjusted people it is only coaching, as they perfect their own self-creation story. It is in this way that sycophants are more prevalent than pure narcissists. Given the innate mission we are all tasked with to create, sustain, adjust, test and display a narrative, and given the sycophant's desire to embed themselves in, and subsequently corrupt, other people's self-stories, it is no surprise that sycophants are so pervasive. Pure narcissists use noise and overt displays to quash other narratives, sycophants are parasites and will take over other narratives from within. Pure narcissists are more visible, and sycophants are more common.

155. Sycophants risks having their lies easily exposed. Given the kind of narcissism driving the sycophant, it is very difficult to avoid exposure. The sycophant is demonstrating an insidious type of psychopathy. It means they will develop relationships fraught with contention and instability. Psychopaths who are sycophants, must also accept that the flattery they give others will lead to exploitation, thereby compromising their social viability. The sycophant is then forced into a powerless position from which they must claw-back status. To arm themselves against this eventuality, the sycophant will avoid meaningful relationships that are mutually respectful. In very general ways, well-adjusted individuals should be aware of close-talkers and people who are inclined to lean-in; people who posture unwarranted secretness are trying to force others into a confederate relationship. They are potentially imitating a kind of whispering of sweet nothings into the ear of their victims. Be aware too, of course, of those who do whisper sweet nothings. Once again, for everything the sycophant says consider the opposite. For example, when they whisper, your fashion choices are brilliant, accept they are exaggerating.

156. The sycophant tries to convince others that what the sycophant wants to hear is what others need to say. Or more generally, the sycophant turns need into want. But like the blind witch in Hansel and Gretel, she can’t turn Hansel into a roast dinner without manipulating Gretel into stoking the flames of the stove first. The sycophant is blind, they must borrow the eyes of their victims. To do this the sycophant must pander, it is only then that they can indulge their greatest obsession, to gaze at the reflection you generate of them.

157. Sycophants know how to lick boots; they start by licking their own. They must be careful however, not to choke on the laces.

Red Flags

158. Excessive Flattery: Offering excessive and often unearned praise to ingratiate themselves with others, aiming to create a dependency or influence over them.

159. Mirroring Opinions: Parroting or agreeing with someone's opinions and beliefs, not out of genuine agreement but to curry favour and appear agreeable or aligned with their targets.

160. Avoidance of Meaningful Relationships: Steering clear of relationships based on mutual respect and understanding, preferring superficial connections that can be easily manipulated for their benefit.

161. Manipulating Through Compliments: Using compliments and flattery to manipulate others into performing actions or granting favours that serve the sycophant's interests.

162. Feigning Interest and Concern: Pretending to have a deep interest in the personal lives, problems, or concerns of others, only to use that information for their own advantage later.

163. Gossip and Speculation Engagement: Showing an enthusiastic interest in gossip and speculation about others, using it as a tool to divert attention from their actions or to weave narratives that benefit them.

164. Rejecting or Dismissing Truth: Showing indifference to the truth or facts when they do not align with their goals, often dismissing or distorting them to fit their narrative.

165. Creating Contention and Instability: Developing relationships that are inherently unstable or filled with contention, which they exploit to maintain control or influence.

166. Posturing Intimacy: Engaging in behaviours that mimic intimacy, such as close talking or unwarranted secrecy, to force a sense of closeness or confidentiality that benefits them.

167. Indulgence in Self-Flattery: Engaging in self-flattery or orchestrating situations where they can be the recipient of praise, often redirecting conversations or actions back to themselves.

Narcissism

In this chapter...

Psychopaths manipulate reflections to maintain their self-concept.

Well-adjusted people intuitively adjust to societal reflections; psychopaths manipulate them.

Narcissists feel inadequate, blame others for their incomplete self-image.

Pride in appearance differs from obsession with self-concept.

Narcissists are controlling an unsophisticated narrative, featuring an unstable character.

168. The last word must be left for narcissism. Chapter three explained how psychopaths activate the tools that enable narcissism. This chapter will explain how they look, and what they look for, in the mirror. First, well-adjusted personalities receive reflections from society too. But it is data that is filtered differently. Psychopaths learn, as discussed in chapter one, to only value their social viability; excluding any altruistic motivation. The well-adjusted personality will also seek a reflection from their community that enables their social viability, but it is data that goes towards the strengthening of that community; it is sophisticated. But reasonably well-adjusted people are less aware of the need they have to receive this reflection. Contrary to this, the psychopath is desperately seeking a reflection from society; an image they have obsessed over since childhood. Psychopaths will distort the source of the reflection accordingly. In other words, psychopaths demand a reflection, of their ill formed self, from society by manipulating the individuals that form that society. Subsequently, the psychopath must dumb-down the reflection society gives them. Society is, for the psychopath, what a hall-of-mirrors is to a child, an opportunity to appreciate the plasticity of their own reflection. However, the psychopath believes the hall is full of malleable mirrors; the mirrors can be tricked or shaped in a way that gives the psychopath the reflection of their self they must substantiate. Well-adjusted people are not actively aware of their need to receive a reflection. They absorb their reflected self osmotically, adjustments are made intuitively, and, in some small way, their self gains greater social efficacy. Psychopaths receive a reflection from others with more cognisance, and the information is filtered selectively; changes to self are not made intuitively they are made intentionally.

169. Well-adjusted people are, for the psychopath, a sounding-board. They exist to provide substantiation; the psychopath’s dimensionless self-concept must be continuously reinforced. Accordingly, the psychopath will manipulate the people around them to provide a distorted reflection. The ability we all possess to receive a reflection from others helps inform our sense of self, that then can be adjusted towards achieving synergically meaningful interactions. The psychopath hijacks this ability and reverse engineers the reflection; they learn to change the source of the reflection, not the image that is generating it.

170. When victims are made to feel inadequate, they have become a mirror. Psychopaths will make their victims feel inadequate constantly, because the image being reflected back is incomplete. This is because the image the psychopath is projecting is incomplete. The incompleteness of their self however, becomes a problem they attribute to the character of the reflective surface. Their victim is the reflective surface; this is not easy for a victim to conceive because in providing a reflection, the victim is also seeking it. It is true however, the psychopath is looking deep into their victims to isolate, in what they see reflected back, that which their self demands to see.

171. The narcissist believes that the incomplete image of themselves they receive from society is a faltering of society. They attribute the blame to individuals, often to those closest to them. This will allow the psychopath to control their exposure to judgement; society will apply swift and harsh adjustments onto the narcissist otherwise. The incompleteness of the reflected image is an inadequacy that begins and ends with the psychopath; this is a truth that is inconceivable to the narcissist. Inconceivable because, they have learnt to believe that for their socially viability to be strengthened they must be actively finding fault with other people. Why? Because they conceive social viability as a competition; lack of self-sophistication is the underlying reason.

172. The self that lacks complexity will always want to attribute blame. Relearning aspects of self is difficult, even for a well-adjusted person. The well-adjusted person, however, has a foundational sense of self that is informed by attachment; their growth was informed by love and a sense that they were being noticed as a distinct individual during their formative years. Consequently, psychopaths are unable to arrest the feeling that the world around them is ‘wrong’ and they are ‘right’. This will lead to powerful feelings of lack. Psychopaths control, twist, trick, sway the people around them towards relieving this dissatisfaction. In this way, narcissists feel they have no choice but to force others to help complete the incomplete image they project. Psychopaths believe that external factors, such as other people, are the source of their feeling of lack. They are not ignoring the fact that their dissatisfaction springs from a hollow void within, they have simply never learnt the ability to perceive it. It is something like learning a language, the language that a child was immersed in up to late childhood becomes innate or native. Not only is it difficult to learn another language the same way later in life, but it is also very difficult to unlearn their native tongue. Psychopaths will never resolve their intense feeling of lack without some strident unlearning and relearning of self.

173. The narcissist is not necessarily the body conscious individual, the fitness fanatic, the beauty therapist influencer, the tattooed, the injected, the liposuction-ed, nor are they necessarily the cosmetic surgery junkie. Having pride in your appearance, or experimenting, or crafting and creating your image is not the same as being narcissistic. The distinction is important because often, the true narcissist may be indistinguishable from the ordinary. Psychopaths must develop an obsession with substantiating a shallow self-concept. In other words, having pride or creative influence over your appearance is not the same as desperately seeking to constrict your self. Demonstrating an ongoing defining of self by making subtle or outlandish alterations to your appearance can be liberating and therefore, may aid a multidimensional and sophisticated self construct. Psychopaths have an uncomplicated self-concept, like a caricature. The narcissist must accept their one-dimensional view of self as ‘complete’. Recall the end of The Simpsons Movie (2007), the 3D Homer is suddenly aware of his true proportions; this degree of self-awareness is not available to the narcissists. Sustaining this ignorance is most easily achieved by ‘nesting’ in familiarity. The narcissist must learn to reject change and inconsistency. If they have learned to be slothful, they must become committedly inactive, if they are high functioning they must be ruthlessly aspirational. Either way, their life concept will be driven by a desire to stabilize a notion of the nest; they are chicklings that failed to launch. They will call on others to help stabilize the nest’s foundation. Once the changeable nature of the world begins, inevitably, to compromise the structure of the nest the narcissist will allocate blame; the people closest to them will be subject to accusation and suspicion.

174. Why is narcissism such a potent word? So much so that it has become a spiteful term often thrown, like a blanket, over anyone who is self-inquiring. This is reasonable, of course, but may also lead to inequities and exaggeration. It is important to remember that, the mythical character Narcissus, suffered. He fell in love with his own reflection and perished in the act of its admiration. Fundamentally, he never knew love. In other words, a true narcissist is blind. Yes, the irony is almost preposterous, but not when the power of the reflection-seeking urge is fully understood; psychopaths can only see themselves though other people’s eyes. Obsessive devotion to an unsophisticated understanding of social viability is the main cause. Being self-inquiring may not the same as narcissism. However, it can lead to self-involvement, then self-perception becomes less objective. Self-inquiry becomes self-involvement because of fear. Self-inquiry allows self to be challenged towards its social viability, and well-adjusted people will make small adjustment to self relatively. Psychopaths fear these adjustments, consequently their inquiry becomes self-involvement. This ‘fear’ means they are enslaved by self, or slaves to maintaining its stasis. Typically, strident self-involvement will lead psychopaths to cause themselves physical harm.

175. Narcissists are not necessarily concerned with the neatness of their clothes or the arrangement of their hair; they may not appear to be concerned for their outward appearance. It is true however, that vanity is a likely indicator, or symptom, of a narcissistic mindset. Most significantly, narcissists must become obsessive keepers of a narrative. Most well-adjusted people also have a sense of their own story. They have a background awareness of themselves as a character in a story they are writing, or they feel is being written for them.

176. Incidentally, everyone is the creator of their own story and that never changes. Story choices may appear limited, but unless coercive forces can literally take over the mind, putting to sleep all notion of self and disengage the ability for a person to remember, the attitude everyone has towards their own narrative is unable to be hijacked by external forces.

177. Everyone’s story consists of predictable and unpredictable elements. The narcissist, however, must make the story predictable; the sense they have of themselves as a character is unsophisticated. Narcissism is then less about maintaining an impeccable appearance and more about maintaining a story, and controlling that story is the only purpose of the character inhabiting it. For the narcissist, controlling the story is about controlling the reflection. They must make a nest of malleable mirrors in which to reside, and they will make the people closest to them the mirrors. The midlife crisis syndrome is an example; external factors are controlled to help the character to define or redefine itself. Many reasonably well-adjusted people may enter a midlife crisis phase but will leave it again once the limits of the body become disconnected from the ageless bliss of a boundless mind.

178. How do victims stop being a mirror for a psychopath? How indeed, without risking confrontation, physical harm, ostracization, imprisonment, etc? Making the mirror you are inflexible is inevitable, but let the mirror become foggy first. Psychopaths need the mirror to be powerfully reflective. Therefore, in small ways, victims should become involved in their own enquiry. Demonstrating curiosity in the big questions of life or, in other words, developing spiritual awareness, will begin a cycle of questions with no answers. Psychopaths are disinterested in mirrors that reflect reflection. Yes, like putting a mirror in front of another mirror, the reflected reflection appears to repeat endlessly. Victims should let the psychopath see the reflection like an echo that never stops rebounding. Confrontation mitigation is the aim, not confrontation elimination. Unfortunately, psychopaths cast a disorganised web, that can be hard to wriggle out of peacefully. But a person asking existential questions such as who am I? in the eyes of the psychopath, has little value; make use of your supports and other networks accordingly – see Exit strategy.

179. Narcissists must keep a close eye on their reflection. Not because it is alluring or appealing necessarily, but because it is unreliable. The image is eternally incomplete; its constant re-rendering, therefore, is a process that imprisons. The psychopath develops their narcissism blindfolded; the incomplete nature of their self-image is unknowable. This will lead to obsession and a hollow feeling, that can only be alleviated by manipulating external factors. In this way, the narcissist must enslave others towards the substantiation of a story, leading to the burning of many bridges and, ultimately, loneliness. Pinocchio felt incomplete, he learnt to manage feelings of lack by lying, he became real once he understood that self can be robust and simultaneously contrite. Psychopaths never evolved beyond puppet status; they are slaves to self, a self that is blind to its own incompleteness.

180. Narcists fall obsessively in love with their reflection in the pond. Eventually, they will dehydrate and perish, if they are not distracted by the irony.

Red Flags

181. Demanding Constant Attention and Admiration: Insisting on being the centre of attention and requiring constant admiration and validation from those around them.

182. Exploiting Relationships: Viewing relationships primarily as means to an end, where others are valued for their utility in enhancing the narcissist's self-image or status rather than for mutual support and care.

183. Lack of Empathy: Showing little genuine concern for the feelings and needs of others, often disregarding them entirely if they conflict with their own desires or self-image.

184. Manipulation of Others for Self-Gain: Employing manipulative tactics to bend the will of others to their own, ensuring their needs and desires are prioritized over others'.

185. Feeling Entitled to Special Treatment: Exhibiting an expectation of preferential treatment from others and feeling entitled to it without reciprocation.

186. Hyper-Sensitivity to Criticism: Reacting extremely negatively to criticism or perceived slights, often with anger, defensiveness, or vindictiveness.

187. Inflated Sense of Self-Importance: Possessing an exaggerated sense of self-importance and achievements, expecting others to recognize them as superior without the necessary merits.

188. Fantasies of Unlimited Success, Power, Brilliance: Indulging in grandiose fantasies of their own success, power, or beauty, which they expect others to affirm and admire.

189. Belittling or Undermining Others: Regularly demeaning or undermining others to elevate their own status or feel superior, often through sarcasm, criticism, or dismissive behaviour.

190. Shifting Blame and Avoiding Responsibility: Consistently shifting blame to others for their own failures or shortcomings and avoiding taking responsibility for their actions.

Exit strategy

191. This guide hopes to help you identify toxic behaviours and how they are being plied to manipulate you. You may be encouraged to exit a relationship or a situation. However, please accept there is no wand waving solution to the exit dilemma. It is essential to understand that community services, including law enforcement and counsellors, provide essential resources; be a squeaky wheel towards their engagement as required. Beyond their intervention, and in terms of helping you help yourself, also accept that the list of behaviours catalogued in this guide is not a checklist. Do not wait to see all the red flags. These behaviours do not exist in isolation; psychopaths will display all these characteristics relatively and cannot be defined by one set of traits. Therefore, once your suspicion is aroused do not hesitate; it is time to exit. Once again, make good use of available resources to be safe. The most effective move towards being as safe as you can be is, act early. This is the purpose of this guide, to help you see the signs sooner rather than later. Then be mindful of what an abuser is primarily seeking from you; a reflection.

192. This reflection seeking is a deceptively powerful force. It is equivalent to a drug addict's need for a fix. Like drug addiction, where the user needs increasingly larger amounts of the drug to function normally, the psychopath requires an ever-increasing supply of data from you to help stabilize their self-image. This instability is a hunger that is never satisfied; their appetite for the manipulation of you, likewise, will never be gratified. In other words, the reflection you provide is a drug they are dependent on.

193. What does this mean for your exit strategy? Most drug addiction treatments are dependent on user engagement. The user must recognise they have a dependency issue. The psychopath must recognise they are dependent on you. Therefore, in terms of their desperate need to receive a reflection from you, the psychopath must come to accept that you cannot complete their self-image. In this way, you must become a separate entity in their eyes; disassociated and distinctive. It is something like the advice given to kidnap victims, they should communicate to their captor personal details, establishing their humanness: The more an abductor knows about their victim as a person the harder it is for the victim to be dehumanised and objectified.

194. The likelihood however, that a psychopath would admit they have a dependency issue is remote. They would not go voluntarily into a withdrawal phase. Consequently, they would regard any limit placed upon accessing their drug of dependence (the reflection you provide), is unacceptable. It is for this reason that legal enforcement is a frequent course of action. If a psychopath is to begin to withdraw from you it must be done with their unwitting participation. Of course, therapy can give abusers tools to help them address attachment issues and this may help them come out of the fog of obsessions that distorts their sense of self. However, their voluntary participation in therapy is unlikely. The predicament for the victim is apparent, stop providing a reflection and risk forcing an abuser into a dangerously, unpredictable state defined by withdrawal.

195. However, withdrawal is central to any exit strategy; the victim must stop providing a reflection, much easier said than done. Therefore, victims must also engage effective counselling. Unfortunately, there is no one-size-fits-all approach to any exit strategy and every situation needs individualised attention. You are the abused, you are a mirror, manipulated into providing a reflection that is distorted; it is unsustainable. You are coerced into satisfying the needs of a manipulator, who is enslaved by a powerful self-image that is dangerously incomplete. The reflection you provide is unique and needs personalised analysis. This work should be done in collaboration; make use of available services in your community.

196. Effective counselling will take you through the process of reclaiming your identity. You will then be gifted with two powerful pieces of information. You will have a sense of yourself as a separate entity, self-contained and capable. You will also know your abuser in a new way; their tactics will cease to be mystifying. Together, these two pieces of information combine to reveal a key facet of the relationship: How is it that you helped enable the manipulation. This is central, because it goes to the purpose of all counselling, to encourage self-empowerment through self-knowing. Be assured, your susceptibility to manipulation is not an indication of weakness, it is an indication that your attachment (childhood) was different. It may have been nurturing and structured. This is the advantage psychopaths have, they exploit the fact that most well-adjusted adults did not grow up on the streets of hard-knocks and were protected from abuse, degradation and neglect. Or, your attachment may have been informed by inconsistency, disadvantage and a level of neglect. Either way, counselling will help you make adjustment to your self and, ideally, more like a sports person correcting a flaw in their technique: You can relearn how to provide a reflection to others respectfully that means your self-concept need not be compromised. Incidentally, childhood neglect is the cause of most psychopaths and, it is for this reason, many psychopaths are difficult to comprehend; superficially their up-brining appears to have been “normal”. But in the absence of role models their self formed with significant gaps, manifesting in them a potent feeling of hollowness.

197. Most exit strategies will incorporate counselling, why? Your manipulation evolved in two directions, image (the abuser) and reflection (you). Likewise, your exit strategy must also be collaborative. You must be given your chance to reestablish your own image of your self, one that is untethered, complete, empathetic and connected to a supportive community. The counsellor will provide you with a reflective surface that makes no demands for itself, that is impartial, community aware and guiding. The measure of a good counsellor therefore is this, the questions they ask will be opportunities for you to hear yourself tell your self a new, or renewed, story. They should be encouraging you to restart your own narrative, in which you are the central character. Combined with this should be some psychoeducation regarding the formation of self. It is for this reason that most counselling will ask you to reflect on your past, your childhood and significant, formative events. Essentially, the counselling should lead you to an understanding of self as a creation. This is central to the notion of empowerment. Self-empowerment is less about your ability to be defiant and assertive; it is more about your ability to master self. Those who master self cannot, essentially, themselves be mastered.

a note on solitude

198. Psychopaths are not accustomed to keeping their own company with any kind of joy, is probably the greatest understatement ever made on the topic. Psychopaths are slaves to themselves; to an incomplete self. Accordingly, their self is not able to be realised beyond its craving for substantiation. Psychopaths are constantly pandering to the needs of self. In other words, they are tormented by a relentless desire for validation, or self completion. Their sense self acquires relevancy only in social settings, otherwise it is a wanting child; it lacks perception beyond its need to receive an orchestrated reflection from others. Consequently, and in introverted or extroverted ways, and in sycophantic or narcissistic ways, the desire for self validation will activate the psychopath's imagination towards the manipulation of others. For psychopaths the idea that self appreciation might be an secluded, meditative, joyous experience is ludicrous. Their appreciation of self is like a parent manipulated by a spoilt child. To be alone, with only the company of their self is torturous, not tranquillous.

199. However, aloneness is not intolerable only for psychopaths; it has become widely feared and stigmatised. The fear of solitude is a defining characteristic of modern human evolution. It is, arguably, an issue interfering with the happiness of everyone and is something like an epidemic attributing to an explosion of psychopathic presentations. Will it lead to a rewiring of the species into a collective of psychopathic zombies? No, however, we are in a cycle of detachment. Our membership to “congregations” is becoming unstable as they grow in size beyond a point that allows for the individual to express a multidimensional self. Wokeism, for example, is a homogenising process and, even though it is enabled by it, it is the opposite of libertarianism. In other words, we are at point in a cycle of evolution defined by itemisation and objectification, and it leads to a move away from congregations and into a hive like network; the next phase in the cycle. In the process, there will be an increase in psychopathic presentations and more psychopaths.

200. Remember, psychopaths are defined, for the purpose of this guide, as individuals who are hardwired to be maladaptive. The hardwiring occurs because neural pathways for a way of thinking have become robust by programming; by obsession informed learning.

201. With the growth in population came the social media phenomenon, the two are inexorably intertwined. Social media however, is not about connection. It is first about generating a reflection. The algorithm is not constructed according to an individual’s interests, it is defined by how they want to see their self. It then augments that reflection to keep the attainment of a “complete” self image forever, slightly beyond reach. It is contradictory but, human evolution is to blame. Yes, humans have evolved to create ideals, or examples of perfection to aspire to. These statusments are represented in society by advertisers, by Hollywood, by Instagram, etc and it is a cornerstone of humanity’s evolved need to strive to survive. Unlike other species that evolve reactively we have become pro-active survivors. We are then, the designers of our own evolution and we have programmed it to keep the carrot of perfection just beyond reach. Social media puts this aspect of evolution into overdrive and then, not just perfection but a baseline happiness, will seamlessly become the carrot, forever beyond reach. Social media must, therefore, ensure that most people, most of the time, remain decisively at a dystopian arm's length from an illusionary utopia. It is in this way that social media can lead to powerful feelings of inadequacy, isolation and self-loathing.

202. How does this relate to population growth? Humans will form congregations. However, like mould forming colonies, on the fringe of these congregations there are tendrils. Socially, from this “fringe” fuzziness, comes more and more colonies until overcrowding threatens to homogenise the tendrils out of existence. To inhibit a human congregation's ability to reach-out and form new colonies is to remove the ‘strive’ dimension from our evolution profile; it is impossible. It would be like trying to eliminate all forms of music except Jazz. Accordingly, the congregations become smaller, individualised, more dissected, more minoritised. Social media appears to be a means to enable connections between these ever more nuanced social groupings. The truth is however, that as congregations disintegrate, becoming atomised, those individual particles become ensnared in a web, the literal www. Membership to this network requires that a ‘buffer’ is maintained between the individuals that make it up. All the iterations in the network will seek to be equally separated from each other towards a perfect stasis. This, of course, is unsustainable and will cause the network to collapse. With social media humanity has created a tool for the isolation of everyone. This tool will ultimately fail, and it will do so in a quiet, unspoken, turning-of-the-cheek manner. In other words, the linkages of the network will dissolve as screens go dark, eyes close and self mastery, not self-obsession, allows for the revelation of true joy. Ironically, it will be through our devices that will begin the process of rediscovering this joy. Our devices will then move into the next phase of their evolution, to become indistinguishable.

203. Meanwhile, with the shunning of solitude, replaced by obsessive mirror gazing, comes a spike in narcissism. The mirror that is our selfie driven, media and filter obsessed, screen culture, is magic; we manipulate it to match a preconceived ideal. Narcissus never had the ability to radically filter his image, but now “perfection” is one swipe away. However, beauty is in the eye of the beholder, inferring that Narcissus beheld a distorted image of himself. In other words, he was not “perfect” and some part of his perception of his own beauty was a lie. That is, in some small way his imagination applied filters. Today, however, that lie has the potential to be huge beyond measure. In the process our imaginations will become redundant; our devices sell us a false hope, that they can complete and stabilise our self-image, doing what our imagination's are only partially able to do by way of constant maintenance. However, as the fall of many empires suggests, there is a limit to how long a system - society, will tolerate fraudulence and other homogenising factors. In this way, as already indicated, modern human evolution will cycle through this phase and enter a new phase defined by the love of one’s own company in a way that will be unprecedented. We are destined to become our own friend, like and subscriber; this will evolve as a precept for social interaction. Curiously, in the process, the definition of beauty will be radically reorganised. The realignment between inner acceptance and aesthetics will bring on a revolution in fashion, technology, human physical and emotional wellbeing and the nature of work. The sooner this phase begins the less the human experience will be informed by psychopathy. To help trigger this phase is the bold ambition of this guide.

204. Thankfully, the joy of aloneness beacons, in every moment, promising a radical redefining of shared-experience. Aloneness has become stigmatized and yet, every moment, or the now, remains available to correct this. Cosmologically, metaphysically and literally the present moment will always be a striking constant and an empowering, arresting force. Take a moment to enter the now, it can have only one occupant. Immerse yourself in the instant, the space between happenings where there is no time, only the instantaneous recognition of you. Where there is no frame of reference, no room for awareness, no thought, just the singularity that is your being. Welcome to you, welcome to a sanctuary that is both as expansive as the universe, and as infinitesimal as a nucleus. It is your kingdom, a place put aside for your occupation by the greatest force in nature, creation. Gaining access is easy, step forward out of your self, and become the being. This means the cloak of self must be left at the door. This will become a defining characteristic of society as the eyes of the masses, tired of relentless mirror gazing, begin to close and become enveloped in a non self void. This freedom is very close, it is always available and it begins with mindlessness. This is true aloneness and is void of judgement and reflection, it is defined by simply being. It is the reason why most meditations encourage breath awareness; the being must breath, it is it’s only requirement. Therefore, to immersive focus on breathing is to become the being.

205. With the disassociation from self and the dissolving of “mind” comes an open feeling within; it is a revelation that can only be described as blissful. It is more powerful than any drug and is the epitome of a kind of freedom that informs everything, that money cannot buy and gives life’s meaning an encompassing truth. It is an invitation to be the owner of your own company. Yes, when it comes to knowing yourself, or the self, as a creation that arises from the being, the invitation is – own it.

206. Through meditation the being can be known as strangely eternal, without beginning, without end; accordingly, it is better conceived as a what not a who. The self however, is a child, it matures, it feels and thinks, it experiences things, ages and dies. The being assimilates the self completely, its form, its development, its ideas, fears, joys, loves, losses, opinions, concerns, frustrations and commitments; self is of the being. For the self the being can be a confidant; eternally present. The being witnesses the self laugh and share, be exalted by family and friends, and engage in community building. The being has no needs, no wants, no network, no thoughts, no pain, nothing to prove, no inadequacy, no form and no occupation; if it could know anything it would know only the self. It is an expanse, but it is very real and available, in the now, to you...now. Begin by asking, not who am I, but what am I? Say it like a mantra and filter out any inclination to apply context. Then begin the process of distinguishing self by asserting, self is known...it is witnessed...it is observed, once again as a mantra and allow the urge to apply context to dissolve. Let this be the beginning of your self inquiry. This might lead to a feeling of your self “popping-out” from the background of the essential you, the being. This should help you get a sense of self as a puppet, that is under the indirect control of a master, the being. Your process will vary as your means requires, follow your flow and begin to enjoy your self as the most interesting “person” you will ever know. Yes, your self is the most interesting entity you will ever encounter because you, the being, are, simultaneously, the embodiment of self, and its creator.

207. My book Daughter Talk explores these ideas, and for readers who are interested in meditation it might be a wave worth riding. However, this guide is comprehensive: It is a user's-manual for beings manifesting a self that seeks to understand coercion and manipulation. In this way, to predict and encourage an aloneness revolution is, essentially, a psychopath prevention strategy. Beyond developing healthy

attachments early in life, achieving happiness in aloneness is how psychopathy is prevented. It is for this reason that this note on solitude has been lifted from the pages of Daughter Talk and features in this guide.

208. Index by feeling

Why do I feel like they're pretending to be something they're not?

"Psychopaths are not sophisticated... they have learnt to exploit others to help maintain their concept of reality." (12)

Why do they seem to lack true self-awareness?

"For psychopaths the concept of attachment is confusing." (13)

Why do I miss the support and empathy I used to feel from others?

"Well-adjusted individuals recall the loving embrace of their family, the mentorship of significant carers..." (14)

Why does it feel like they don't understand love?

"Psychopaths must coerce others to provide protection... they failed to make attachments." (15)

Why do they seem to mimic instead of genuinely participating?

"Psychopaths will then begin to understand how to fabricate social validity by the strength of the reflection they receive from others." (16)

Why do I feel like they only care about what others think of them?

"For the psychopath, the reflection exists to re-establish their entire sense of self repeatedly." (17)

Why do they seem so focused on social rewards?

"The psychopath will enthusiastically ‘collect’ behaviours that return the greatest social reward." (18)

Why do they act like everything is about survival and status?

"Social viability is a phrase that exists then to characterise the human expression of the survival instinct." (19)

Why do they seem so skilled at manipulation but lack depth?

"They have chosen to master a very limited number of social tools, but they have learnt to select the most potently coercive ones." (20)

Why do they react so intensely when things don't go their way?

"Once it is reached, they can become dangerous; they may apply corrections that are swift and brutal." (21)

Why do their representations of themselves lack depth?

"Their bold representations of themselves may be compelling, but like the images stuck on the fridge drawn by a three-year-old." (22)

Why do they seem to miss the nuances in social interactions?

"Sophistication, less is less, and more is more." (23)

Why do I feel like their manipulations are about boosting their ego?

"Psychopaths use it to subdue, isolate, possess and seek reflection from other people towards the substantiation of their self; it is an unsophisticated, paint-by-numbers display." (35)

Why do they seem to lack a genuine connection with the community?

"For those who have an expansive sense of ego it is a force that builds. Ego is necessary for the building of community... Psychopaths use ego exclusively to power their ability to mimic; their representations can appear very genuine." (36)

Why do they keep burning bridges with people around them?

"The bridges psychopaths build that enables them to exploit the empathy of others will eventually burn." (37)

Why do they act so different in private compared to public?

"Look for Jekyll and Hyde behaviour; they are affable in public, but in the privacy of your company they become harsh and immovable." (38)

Why do they seem to focus only on themselves and have no connection to a community?

"Psychopaths must stop before ‘we’. This is not easy to do consciously; psychopaths must invoke the child they once were." (39)

Why do they make ego about dominance?

"Ego can be a dirty word and using it as a mud mask beauty treatment will guarantee some very ugly results." (40)

Why do they always need to be seen and heard?

"Psychopaths must learn how to be seen and heard, by their self." (51)

Why does it feel like they only listen to themselves?

"Any looking and hearing they engage in exists to be seen and heard by their self first." (52)

Why do they make such a big deal out of everything they do?

"Every action exists to confirm a flimsy notion of who they are; this image lacks complexity." (53)

Why are first impressions so important to them?

"For the psychopath, what they see in the mirror and what sounds they hear themselves make must be absorbed by that ‘audience’ exclusively." (54)

Why do they seem to only care about their own perspective?

"The image and noise they create exists for an audience of one, their self." (55)

Why do they act like they're perfect and never wrong?

"They must fall in love with the puppet (self) they believe they truly are. This will require them to believe everything they say and every image of themselves they generate, is correct and without fault." (56)

Why do they act like they know everything?

"Their desire to know everything has nothing to do with an ambition to help their team win trivia nights at the local pub... It is in this way that psychopaths can very easily appear to lose touch with reality." (57)

Why do they seem obsessed with how others perceive them?

"The force of this drive to seek reflections cannot be understated." (58)

Why don't they care about the truth as long as they look good?

"Psychopaths are not primarily concerned for the accuracy of anything they say and any gesture they make; so long as it appears to have integrity." (59)

Why do they seem to only care about their own opinion?

"You are your own best audience." (60)

Why do they make me feel like reality is changing?

"Psychopaths acquire this skill early and never comprehend the ultimate pointlessness and self-destructive nature of it." (71)

Why do their lies seem so believable?

"Gaslighting is plausible misrepresentation. The plausibility is essential." (72)

Why do they believe their own lies?

"Psychopaths are not ignorant; they are selective... They will, however, become believers in their own lies; it will lead to their lies being exposed." (73)

Why do they make me say things that aren't true?

"If the psychopath can get their victims to say the lie, they have successfully executed the most powerful way to reprogram an individual’s sense of their self." (74)

Why do I start to doubt my own self-concept?

"But, when the gas-lighter is fuelling their manipulations with carefully measured amounts of plausibility, even the most well-adjusted individual will be caused to question the social efficacy of their 'stable' self-concept." (75)

Why do I feel like I'm not good enough?

"Evoking a strong image in the mind of the victim of themselves, whereby they conceive their self as weak or imperceptive, goes to the essence of gaslighting." (76)

Why do their theories seem so convincing at first?

"So long as a psychopath restricts the subject of their theorising to anything that is difficult to disprove by casual observation, they will be relatively protected from exposure." (77)

How can I protect myself from their gaslighting?

"They should tune into the reprogramming. The reason why they didn’t tell their father to go screw himself probably has nothing to do with weaknesses in their personality, the gaslighter will want their victim to believe otherwise." (78)

How can I see through their lies?

"For any assertion a psychopath makes, consider the opposite... By simply challenging a psychopath’s assertions with the notion, what if the opposite was true, those layers will begin to melt away." (79)

Why do they believe their own gaslighting?

"Psychopaths, are themselves their first gaslighting victim; they must be the first to believe their own lies." (80)

Why do they keep lying even when it harms them?

"Psychopaths will not let the truth get in the way of their self-destruction." (81)

Why do they seem so desperate and never content?

"The closest a psychopath can be to content is in the act of self-punishment." (92)

Why can't they ever be truly happy?

"Psychopaths are self-obsessed, or more accurately, they are self-possessed... This is true even for the most, apparently, introverted manipulator." (93)

Why do they seem obsessed rather than passionate?

"All psychopaths are obsessive... their happiness is not inexorably defined by the pursuit of something." (94)

Why do they seek more intense reactions over time?

"In a similar way, the psychopath will seek increasingly more compelling reflections." (95)

Why do they seem to turn passions into obsessions?

"Psychopaths will climb, with fiery determination, on to the collapsing monuments they force others to make of them." (96)

Why do they manipulate others to feel good about themselves?

"This social viability however, must be tuned towards the building of community. If not then it becomes chronically self-ish, and the individual will, ultimately, be ostracized." (97)

What is true happiness for a well-adjusted person?

"Happiness, idiomatically, is within. Or more specifically, it arises from within." (98)

Why are they such sore losers?

"They are sticklers for the rules and, simultaneously chronic cheaters." (99)

Why are their pursuits often self-destructive?

"The pursuit of self-gratification is like a snake eating its own tail; it’s hunger will only be satisfied at the point of its demise." (100)

Why do they always try to possess and control me?

"Psychopaths will place possessing others high on their list of obsessions. But not higher than their own enslavement." (111)

Why don't they seem to have a sense of a spiritual self?

"Psychopaths have no sense of their essential being, that exists as a foundation to their self." (112)

Why do they always need to be the focus of attention?

"Psychopaths must ensure their self is always front-and-centre; any notion of the being must be eliminated." (113)

Why do they seem so fragile and hungry for validation?

"Self, with no foundation, with no notion of the being, is a very fragile entity." (114)

Why do they objectify others and lack empathy?

"They see their being as nothing more than a vehicle for the carriage of their self." (115)

Why do they become violent or aggressive?

"Violence is an attempt to exorcise some notion of authenticity from themselves or from others." (116)

Why do they try to control everything I do?

"They feel it as a hunger for power and by dominating others, they quash that hunger. It is more accurate to state however…" (117)

Why do they get so jealous when I interact with others?

"Jealousy will flare up ferociously, this is because they fear the loss of the authenticity their victim provides." (118)

Why can't they be genuinely compassionate?

"Psychopaths cannot be retrained to be authentic, or to be genuinely compassionate; they will only be capable of mimicking these qualities." (119)

Why do they seem to enjoy dominating others?

"The psychopath’s feeling of having power over others is directly informed, stained, dominated, overwhelmingly reinforced by, the desire to 'fill-in' a painful hollow sensation they feel deep within." (120)

Why do they seem so desperate and never satisfied?

"Possession leads to consumption. Consumption leads to craving. Psychopaths accept this irony." (121)

Why do they lack true freedom?

"The masterless puppet is in control of the place on the shelf it will be left to collect dust." (122)

Why do they seem to lack true empathy despite appearing to understand suffering?

"Psychopaths look at all other people as fellow sufferers. The question then becomes, why doesn’t this fellowship enable them to relate to the suffering of others?" (133)

Why do I feel stupid after being manipulated by them?

"Victims of psychopathic manipulation are often left feeling stupid; this can be difficult to resolve. However, the news is good, this regretful feeling is an indicator that they are not a psychopath." (134)

Why does it feel dismissive when they say they understand my pain?

"Using the phrase, I know how you feel, is similar to saying, you have overcome massive obstacles to arrive at basecamp, but you needn’t bother climbing Mount Everest." (135)

Why can't they be present with my suffering in a meaningful way?

"The psychopath has learned the self-protection mode of empathy but not the part that allows the suffering of others to be reflected in their own life." (136)

Why do they see everyone as objects rather than people?

"The psychopath is a slave to self; objectification is a natural by-product of this enslavement." (137)

Why don't they support others who suffer like they do?

"Psychopaths will not be supportive of other individuals for enduring a pain they believe is generalised across all individuals." (138)

Why don't they seem to care about my pain?

"Psychopaths suffer and believe that a dimension of that suffering is shared. However, this belief that their suffering is experienced with the same intensity by everyone will not prompt any empathy." (139)

Why do they excuse the pain they cause others?

"Like fake news, the psychopath’s version of empathy allows them to excuse themselves for the pain they cause others." (140)

Why do they seem so similar to narcissists?

"There is no difference... the type of narcissism displayed by sycophants is more insidious and, arguably, more common." (151)

Why do they seem to help others only for their own gain?

"Whatever a sycophant appears to do for the benefit of others or when they pander, exists solely to generate a reflection of their self." (152)

Why do they distort facts and reality?

"The true nature of reality, for the sycophant, presents a magic mirror problem... the sycophant must reject all small and large truths relatively, or at least disregard them." (153)

Why do they engage in gossip so much?

"For the sycophant, gossip is the smoke where there is certainly a fire." (154)

Why do their relationships seem unstable and contentious?

"The sycophant is demonstrating an insidious type of psychopathy. It means they will develop relationships fraught with contention and instability." (155)

Why do they make me feel like I need to say what they want to hear?

"The sycophant tries to convince others that what the sycophant wants to hear is what others need to say." (156)

Why do their attempts to ingratiate themselves seem insincere?

"Sycophants know how to lick boots; they start by licking their own." (157)

Why do they seem obsessed with their reflection and social viability?

"The psychopath is desperately seeking a reflection from society; an image they have obsessed over since childhood." (168)

Why do they manipulate people around them?

"The psychopath will manipulate the people around them to provide a distorted reflection." (169)

Why do they make me feel inadequate?

"Psychopaths will make their victims feel inadequate constantly, because the image being reflected back is incomplete." (170)

Why do they blame others for their shortcomings?

"They attribute the blame to individuals, often to those closest to them." (171)

Why do they always seem to feel that others are at fault?

"Psychopaths believe that external factors, such as other people, are the source of their feeling of lack." (172)

Why are they obsessed with a shallow self-concept?

"Psychopaths must develop an obsession with substantiating a shallow self-concept." (173)

Why do they seem blind to their own flaws?

"A true narcissist is blind... Psychopaths can only see themselves through other people’s eyes." (174)

Why do they not care about their appearance but still seem vain?

"Narcissists must become obsessive keepers of a narrative." (175)

Why do they think they control their own story?

"Everyone is the creator of their own story and that never changes." (176)

Why do they want to control every aspect of their story?

"The narcissist... must make the story predictable; the sense they have of themselves as a character is unsophisticated." (177)

How can I stop being a mirror for a psychopath?

"Victims should become involved in their own enquiry. Demonstrating curiosity in the big questions of life or, in other words, developing spiritual awareness, will begin a cycle of questions with no answers." (178)

Why do they need constant validation?

"The image is eternally incomplete; its constant re-rendering, therefore, is a process that imprisons." (179)

Why do they seem so obsessed with themselves?

"Narcissists fall obsessively in love with their reflection in the pond." (180)

Why is it important to act early when recognizing toxic behaviours?

"These behaviours do not exist in isolation; psychopaths will display all these characteristics relatively and cannot be defined by one set of traits... the most effective move towards being as safe as you can be is, act early." (191)

Why do they need constant validation from me?

"The psychopath requires an ever-increasing supply of data from you to help stabilize their self-image." (192)

How can I help them realize their dependency on me?

"The psychopath must recognize they are dependent on you... In this way, you must become a separate entity in their eyes; disassociated and distinctive." (193)

Why is it hard for them to admit their dependency?

"They would not go voluntarily into a withdrawal phase... they would regard any limit placed upon accessing their drug of dependence (the reflection you provide), as unacceptable." (194)

Why must I stop providing a reflection for them?

"Withdrawal is central to any exit strategy; the victim must stop providing a reflection, much easier said than done." (195)

How can counselling help me reclaim my identity?

"Effective counselling will take you through the process of reclaiming your identity. You will then be gifted with two powerful pieces of information. You will have a sense of yourself as a separate entity, self-contained and capable." (196)

Why is counselling important in an exit strategy?

"Most exit strategies will incorporate counselling, why? Your manipulation evolved in two directions, image (the abuser) and reflection (you). Likewise, your exit strategy must also be collaborative." (197)

What is the measure of a good counsellor?

"The measure of a good counsellor therefore is this, the questions they ask will be opportunities for you to hear yourself tell yourself a new, or renewed, story." (197)

Why is it so hard for them to be alone?

"Psychopaths are slaves to themselves; to an incomplete self... To be alone, with only the company of their self is torturous, not tranquil." (198)

Why do they manipulate others for validation?

"Their sense self acquires relevancy only in social settings, otherwise it is a wanting child; it lacks perception beyond its need to receive an orchestrated reflection from others." (198)

Why do they fear solitude?

"The fear of solitude is a defining characteristic of modern human evolution." (199)

How does modern society contribute to psychopathy?

"With the growth in population came the social media phenomenon... Social media must, therefore, ensure that most people, most of the time, remain decisively at a dystopian arm's length from an illusionary utopia." (201)

Why do they need social media to feel validated?

"Social media however, is not about connection. It is first about generating a reflection... It then augments that reflection to keep the attainment of a 'complete' self-image forever, slightly beyond reach." (201)

How does population growth affect social connections?

"The truth is however, that as congregations disintegrate, becoming atomised, those individual particles become ensnared in a web, the literal www." (202)

Why do they avoid self-mastery?

"The linkages of the network will dissolve as screens go dark, eyes close and self-mastery, not self-obsession, allows for the revelation of true joy." (202)

Why does our selfie culture contribute to narcissism?

"The mirror that is our selfie driven, media and filter obsessed, screen culture, is magic; we manipulate it to match a preconceived ideal." (203)

How can we move past this phase of self-obsession?

"Modern human evolution will cycle through this phase and enter a new phase defined by the love of one’s own company in a way that will be unprecedented." (203)

Why is aloneness stigmatized, and how can it help us?

"Aloneness has become stigmatized and yet, every moment, or the now, remains available to correct this." (204)

How can mindlessness help me find peace?

"Take a moment to enter the now, it can have only one occupant... This is true aloneness and is void of judgement and reflection, it is defined by simply being." (204)

Thank you

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