Women Who Love Psychopaths Inside the Relationships of Inevitable Harm with Psychopaths, Sociopaths, and Narcissists Sandra L. Brown, M.A. 2nd Edition Important Notice The purpose of this book is to provide accurate and authoritative information about the subject matter covered. The author (and any contributors) has made every effort to ensure the information is correct and complete. However, neither the publisher nor the author(s) is engaged in rendering professional advice or services to the individual reader. This book is not a substitute for mental health treatment. If you require such advice or treatment, you should seek the services of a competent mental health professional. The material in this book is intended to help women to identify dangerous and potentially dangerous relationships with disordered men. Every effort has been made to provide accurate and dependable information regarding his potential disorder and the relationship dynamics. The contents of the book have been compiled through professional research and by mental health professionals. However, the reader should be aware that professionals in the field have differing opinions. Therefore, the publisher, author, and editors, as well as the professionals quoted in the book, cannot be held responsible for any error, omission, professional disagreement, or dated material. The authors and publisher assume no responsibility for any outcome of applying the information in this book in a program of self-care or under the care of a licensed practitioner. If you have questions about the application of the information described in this book, consult a licensed therapist. If you are in a violent or potentially violent relationship, please call a domestic violence hotline or law enforcement. Published by Mask Publishing, Penrose, NC www.saferelationshipsmagazine.com Cover Design by: Barry Briggs Copyright © 2009 by Sandra L. Brown, M.A. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system without the written permission of the copyright owner of this book. Brief quotations may be used in reviews prepared for inclusion in a magazine, newspaper, or for broadcast. For further information, please contact: Sandra L. Brown, M.A. www.saferelationshipsmagazine.com Library of Congress Catalog Number 2008924208 ISBN 0-9841728-0-7 Printed in the United States of America by Book Printing Revolution 212 3rd Ave. North Suite 290 Minneapolis, MN 55401 1-866-797-4314 Dedication This book is dedicated to all the victims whose lives have been devastated by the psychopath’s pathology and to a great supporter of this work my mother, Joyce Brown, who died during the writing of this book. I love you Mom. Thank you for being such a pioneer in this work and for so bravely exposing your own pathological relationships. The huge part of my life that we shared will be forever empty… Many thanks to my family—Ken, Lindsay, Lauren and grandbabies, Aliyah, Bryce and ‘new baby’ who keep my life balanced in the midst of this work, and to my foster son, Cody who died shortly after the first printing of this book who so clearly has shown me what good and loving mental health looks like in a young man. Thank you Cody for having been previously and continuing to be today my teacher in this life. Many thanks to Dixie Lang for not only her support in the concepts of pathology, but her enormous effort in the help with this manuscript. I am very thankful for her help. Ordering: This book can be ordered from our websites at: www.SafeRelationshipsMagazine.com www.WomenWhoLovePsychopaths.com www.amazon.com Coming soon to bookstores near you! Sandra L. Brown, M.A Sandra L. Brown, M.A., CEO of The Institute for Relational Harm Reduction & Public Pathology Education is a clinician, program development specialist, psychopathologist, lecturer, and an award-winning author. Her books include Counseling Victims of Violence (1991, 2006), How to Spot a Dangerous Man Book and Workbook (2005) and The Moody Pews (2005). She is recognized for her pioneering work on women’s issues related to relational harm with Cluster B/Axis II disordered partners and specializes in the development and implementation of Pathological Love Relationship clinical training and services. Sandra’s work, numerous books, CD’s, DVD’s, other training materials and literature have been used as curriculum in drug rehabs, women’s organizations and shelters, women’s jail programs, women’s prisons, school-based programs, inner city projects, college campuses, various psychology and sociology programs worldwide, and utilized in almost every country of the world. Her collaborative research on Women Who Love Psychopaths was recently presented at the Society for the Scientific Study of Psychopathy. Her work has been presented in lectures across the country including the Ruth Ginsberg Lecture Series Women and the Law on Domestic Violence as well as programs related to Domestic Violence Provider and Batterer Intervention Training in which her unique focus on Pathological Love Relationships has been featured. In addition, her work at The Institute has included the development of a comprehensive online psychopathology magazine interviewing some of the country’s leading researchers on personality disorders and pathology, the establishment of a Therapist Certification Program in Pathological Love Relationships, a Peer-Support Coaching Program, and the development of a Model of Care Approach for Treatment Centers. Sandra’s previous work included the founding and directing of Bridgework Counseling Center, a Florida-based program from 1987-1997 which encompassed a multi-faceted mental health treatment center for Trauma Disorders, Personality Disorders, and one of the country’s first long-term residential programs for women with Dissociative Identity Disorder. She was also a pathologist on the Woman’s Trauma Inpatient Hospital Program for The Manors Psychiatric Hospital. She facilitated groups on PTSD and Dialectical Behavioral Therapy as well as individual treatment. Sandra holds a Master’s Degree in Counseling. Table of Contents Introduction - The Unexamined Victim 7 Chapter 1 - Understanding the Names Related to Psychopathy - 15 Pathology and the Psychopath Himself Chapter 2 - What Causes Pathology? Let’s Talk Nurture 33 Chapter 3 - He’s Flying Under the Radar - Why She Misses the 49 Clues Chapter 4 - The Neuroscience of His Pathology - Differences in 61 Brain Function Chapter 5 - She Says Potato, He Says Po-ta-to - A Guide to 71 Psychopath’s Language and Communication Barriers Chapter 6 - Her Psychopathic Man - Psychopathic Hook-ups - 87 Why it Happens and Who She’s Been With Chapter 7 - Her Temperament - The Temperament of Women 105 Who Love Psychopaths Chapter 8 - About Her - Her Character 129 Chapter 9 - The Intense Attraction, Attachment, and Bonding 153 Chapter 10 - The Use of Trance, Hypnosis, and Suggestibility 173 Chapter 11 - Deceive and Believe: the Luring and Honeymoon 187 Stage Chapter 12 - Grieve and Cleave - Mid-relationship Dynamics as 203 the Mask is Slipping Chapter 13 - Perceive and Leave - End Relationship Dynamics as 221 She and the Relationship are Disintegrated Chapter 14 - Reprieve and Achieve - Recovering from the 231 Aftermath Chapter 15 - What About Inevitable Harm to the Children? 245 The Women’s Stories 254 Appendix A – Comparison of Sociopathy vs. Psychopathy 263 Information and Resources 265 Introduction Page 7 Introduction The Unexamined Victim “If you’re going to care about the fall of a sparrow you can’t pick and choose who’s going to be the sparrow. It’s everybody.” — Madeline L’Engle We are all aware of one fact—countless hours and millions of dollars have been spent researching and writing about the psychopath. There are plenty of readers ready to devour whatever is written about this subject. That’s probably because for many people, the psychopath is a unique blend of the traits ‘dangerous + exciting’ in a way that sparks both ‘curiosity + fear.’ This multi-million-dollar research has produced dozens, if not hundreds, of articles each trying to explain the psyche of this mysterious and very disordered person. Despite all the research dollars spent, academics and researchers continue to debate endlessly over what to call psychopaths, how to assess them, how differing diagnosis compare, and what to do with the psychopaths among us. The intense interest seems to prompt more questions than answers. o ‘How did this person get this way?’ o ‘Is psychopathy really a sickness or something else?’ o ‘Can they be helped?’ o ‘Are they really that rare?’ Although the academics and researchers have produced an enormous body of knowledge about psychopaths, this knowledge does not seem to have helped the victims heal from the aftermath of encountering psychopaths. Current research, programs, and existing books skirt around a profound issue related to psychopathy—their victims. Very little attention has been paid to the survivors of relationships with psychopaths, despite the fact that the disorder harms almost everyone in the psychopath’s way and devastates the women and children who try to love him. Currently, what is being researched, written, and reported about psychopathy often has nothing to do with the victim’s healing. The focus, as a sort of cultural fascination, is always on the psychopath related to what is wrong with him and what he’s done. Sadly, people are attempting Page 8 Women Who Love Psychopaths to heal from the psychopath’s extraordinary damage, and do so without any real information about what the aftermath is or how to heal from it. The public’s appetite for Crime TV-like experiences about psychopaths seems unquenchable. Victim-oriented books still remain largely memoir types—e.g. My Life With a Psychopath—fueling more descriptions about the disorder through narrative storytelling, but not much in the way of help or recovery for his untreated victims. In the end, many victims have foregone true acknowledgment, understanding and treatment. One reason is that not all therapists know how to recognize victims of psychopathic relationships. Professionals in the general field of psychology don’t want to wrestle with psychopathy and psychopathology. Psychopathy remains one of the sub-categories (or sub-terrains!) within psychology that clinicians don’t flock to and mainstream mental health professionals are inadequately trained to handle. Without proper training, therapists are likely to miss his disorder and her resulting victimization. Historically, professionals have often lumped psychopath’s victims together with domestic violence survivors, codependency recoverers, sex or relationship addicts, and labeled them with dependent personality problems, none of which have helped the victim’s find specific treatment for the unique relationship dynamics for which psychopaths are known. Consequently, victims of psychopaths have yet another victimization scar due to a lack of knowledgeable and specialized treatment for their unique victimization exposure. My Involvement in the Field of Pathology I got involved in pathology 20 years ago as a counselor ‘treating’ personality-disordered men and women. Over decades of working with these relentless disorders, I came to a new appreciation for the depth of permanent devastation they bring. The devastation affects not only the person that has the disorder, but the people around them. Those people include family members, partners, friends, bosses, children, and even therapists. I came to recognize that this type of pathology, in many ways, really is a wasteland. The progress the disordered person makes is measured in millimeters, while the devastation he or she leaves behind is measured in miles. This lack of progress resulted in shifting my practice Introduction Page 9 from working with personality disordered people to working with their family and intimate-others. Additionally, I initiated psychopathy and pathology education for the community-at-large. Years later, I wrote the book How to Spot a Dangerous Man Before You Get Involved to help non-professionals learn to recognize signs and symptoms of pathological disorders, related mostly to personality disorders. After How to Spot a Dangerous Man was released, I realized the ‘dangerous man’ experiences they were trying to heal from were largely due to two types of pathologically disordered men—Narcissists and the whole ‘antisocial end of the pathology spectrum’ which includes Antisocial Personality Disorders, Sociopaths and Psychopaths. And no wonder! On a scale of 1-10, these two pathological disorders rate #1 and #2 in terms of ‘devastation to others.’ As I worked with these women, I noticed that they were remarkably similar in personality traits, the stories of their relationship dynamics were consistent and even the aftermath of their symptoms was identical! I wanted to develop treatment for this particular group of victims. When I searched for books and research, I found nothing written about women who loved psychopaths. Could there be something to the similarities I had found? I decided to test my theory by asking questions such as: 1. Do the women who love psychopaths share a common ‘profile’? 2. Did risk factors in women’s lives contribute to them having relationships with psychopaths? 3. Are all the relationship dynamics with psychopaths similar? 4. Is there a general and predictable aftermath of symptoms when the relationship ends? 5. If so, can we use this information to develop both a survivor treatment approach and Public Psychopathy Education for all people? Next, I ran ads asking women to contact me with their stories. The flood I received showed me that the disorders of narcissism, antisocial, sociopathy, and psychopathy are not that unusual. After reading my ads, Liane J. Leedom, M.D. contacted me. Dr. Leedom is a female psychiatrist who had her own personal experience with a psychopath whom she met on the Internet and married. While some issues in her case remain unresolved, the end result was the destruction of