Clinical variants of psychopathy. Hysterical psychopaths

Psychopathy is a characterological pathology that is not characteristic of healthy individuals.
Psychopathy is a marginal pathology located on the border of healthy mental functioning and pathological one. It is easy for these people to assert themselves in the aspect of their profession. But in interpersonal relationships they are despotic, it is not easy to live with them, because they are often unbearable. Many people have psychopathological tendencies that do not fully manifest themselves as full-blown psychopathy. It is impossible for psychopathic individuals to take root in human society; they manifest their own negativity to the extent to which they are allowed, depending on the environment. These individuals often commit crimes, which often brings them into contact with forensic psychiatrists. Psychopaths skillfully pretend to be innocent, willingly using their illness.

Definition of the concept

Psychopathy in women is a mental disorder in which certain personality traits are expressed too sharply, while others are not expressed at all. That is, personality development occurs chaotically, with a bias in one direction. This leads to maladaptation, frequent conflicts, problems at work and in personal life. The specifics of a person’s thinking and behavior, as well as the area in which the features are most noticeable, differ depending on the type of psychopathy.

This is interesting! Psychopathy is diagnosed in 2% of the world's population.

Diagnosis of histrionic personality disorder

Diagnosis of a personality disorder occurs on the basis of pronounced disharmony in personal positions and behavior, which involves various aspects of life: disturbances in emotional response to events, control of impulses, patterns of behavior and interaction with others, which reflects the inherent lifestyle of a given individual and the nature of his attitude towards himself and others.

The basic factors in diagnosing histrionic personality disorder are that the manifestations meet the basic criteria of a personality disorder and the presence of at least four signs:

• dramatization of ongoing events and phenomena, theatrical behavior, excessive affectation,
• emotionality and superficial feelings are too labile;
• excessive need for recognition;
• suggestibility (a person is extremely inclined to imitate the behavior of authoritative people or succumbs to the pressure of circumstances);
• behavior or engagement in activities that allow you to be in the focus of attention;
• overly seductive, flirtatious and eroticized behavior and manner of dressing;
• - excessive preoccupation with one's own physical attractiveness.

Self-centeredness, self-indulgence, touchiness, and the use of manipulation to achieve one's goals may also be observed.

Signs of female psychopathy

You can often hear unflattering comments about women from men: “hysterical”, “bitch”. And the stereotype about vulnerability and weakness is firmly entrenched in the entire female gender. However, not all girls are “roarers”, “hysterics”, “actresses”, etc. Probably, those men who think this way have encountered psychopathic women.

Peculiarities

By what symptoms and signs in behavior can one recognize and identify a female psychopath? The main difference between female and male psychopathy is that girls apply psychological pressure, not physical pressure. They masterfully manipulate people, especially men. They take it by cunning. These are smart, calculating people about whom other people say: “On their own minds.”

Women with psychopathy are often good leaders, but not for their subordinates. Female psychopaths make cruel and authoritarian rulers. The fate of the entire company also depends on the woman’s personal goals. If it is beneficial for her to destroy production, she will do so. And appealing to her conscience or compassion will be useless.

10 signs of a female psychopath:

• increased emotionality;
• rudeness and coldness;
• reluctance to have children;
• a pronounced desire to build a career;
• need for passions;
• tendency to create scandals and hysterics;
• inability to compromise;
• propensity for risk and adventure;
• inability to love;
• rancor and a tendency to offend others.

Other signs of psychopathy in women:

• intolerance to rules and restrictions;
• demanding of others;
• the habit of criticizing everyone and everything;
• jealousy;
• suspicion;
• isolation;
• lack of close friends.

All psychopaths are united by their denial of social norms. But if for some women this takes on shades of feminism, the rejection of stereotypes of femininity (heels, makeup, lightness and coquetry), then for others it takes the form of promiscuity. These features of psychopathy in women are also noticeable in external signs: a complete lack of makeup and discreet clothing or, conversely, bright makeup and provocative outfits. Representatives of the latter type know how to attract a man's attention. However, they are promiscuous and are not capable of close, long-term relationships.

Signs of psychopathy in women in behavior, examples:

• makes a scandal over an unwashed cup, and the next day, regarding the same thing, he says with a smile: “Okay, I’ll wash it myself”;
• in a shopping center he disdainfully tells the mother of a crying child: “Woman, shut up your offspring”;
• sees that a man has liked someone on a social network and starts a scandal (mega level: creates a fake page, lures the man in, and then starts a scandal).

Important! If a psychopathic woman needs to pretend to be tender, caring, feminine, then she will do it. She can even give birth to a child, but she will not take care of it - she will give it to her mother or nanny. If a child remains with a psychopathic mother, then he will inevitably develop mental disorders.

Mania

The following clinical signs are characteristic:

• excited state;
• constant, often completely inappropriate emotional upsurge;
• motor excitement;
• talkativeness;
• irritability and anger;
• sleep disturbances, and the patient does not experience fatigue even after a short rest;
• increased appetite;
• increased sexuality, promiscuity in sexual relations.

But against the background of a general physical and emotional upsurge, they pay attention to absent-mindedness and impatience. Patients are full of plans, but extremely rarely implement them to the end, being distracted by something else. Delicacy and tactfulness are lost in communication.

Due to inadequately high self-esteem, patients are very jealous of the results of their activities, cannot tolerate criticism at all, and react very aggressively to any comments.

Causes

Psychopathy can be congenital or acquired in early childhood. In the second case, their development is determined by the costs of family upbringing: authoritarianism, overprotection, permissiveness, connivance and neglect.

Other negative factors in the development of psychopathy in a girl:

• family dysfunction (alcoholism, tyranny, asociality, poverty);
• injuries and infections suffered during fetal development or in the first years of life;
• congenital abnormalities in brain function.

Symptoms

Symptoms of psychopathy in women:

• lack of empathy;
• tendency to conflict;
• the desire to shift responsibility for one’s actions;
• passion for pleasure and zealous desire to satisfy one's needs;
• inability to build constructive relationships;
• undeveloped instinct of self-preservation;
• denial of social norms and rules;
• aggression and outbursts of rage.

The destructive influence of a woman is not as noticeable as the influence of a psychopathic man. This is what makes it more dangerous. For many years, none of your loved ones or colleagues may even realize that they are dealing with a psychopath. Most female psychopaths, due to the natural plasticity of the brain, adapt well to society.

Types of psychopathy in women

The following types of psychopathy occur among women:

1. Hysterical. Such a woman turns life into a game and constantly attracts attention to her person. It doesn’t matter to her in what light and by what principle she will be remembered, the main thing is that they talk about her. A hysterical woman, like no one else, needs emotions, admiration, and constant nourishment from other people. If this is not the case, then she becomes furious.
2. Paranoid. An arrogant and stubborn woman who does not recognize other people's opinions. In order to achieve her goals, she is ready to go over her head. Has a keen sense of justice. A paranoid woman does not trust people and often finds herself at the center of scandals. Characterized by jealousy, rancor, suspiciousness, and vindictiveness. I'm sure there are many enemies around her.
3. Schizoid. The most reserved type. Nobody knows what's going on in her head. Unsociable, loves solitude and fantasy. She is prone to despotism, but she zealously defends her personal boundaries. If someone tries to invade her world, a schizoid woman reacts to this very painfully.
4. Excitable. Such a woman is prone to outbursts of aggression. Moreover, it is impossible to make a list of common irritating factors and predict her reactions and behavior. She gets excited for any reason, and if there are no real reasons, then she invents them. The outbursts quickly pass, the woman smiles, becomes affectionate and behaves as if nothing had happened. He's not going to apologize. He loves to argue for the sake of arguing; he defends his opinion by hook or by crook.
5. Asthenic. The most vulnerable, weak type. He cannot do anything without the help of strangers, pretends to be a victim, blames others for his troubles, does not know how to make decisions, and constantly asks for advice. This is an anxious type who does not take criticism well and is prone to passive aggression. Everyone around her suffers from chronic feelings of guilt and anxiety. Anyone who tries to help an asthenic woman always turns out to be wrong and guilty. And she will stubbornly remind you of this.
6. Affective. This type has two opposing subtypes: hypothymic and hyperthymic psychopathy. In the first case, a person is distinguished by isolation, silence, and a pessimistic vision of the world. A hypothymic woman constantly complains and infects others with her pessimism. A hyperthymic woman, on the contrary, is distinguished by nauseating, irrational optimism, excessive sociability, intrusiveness, hyperactivity and self-confidence. He often takes on things that he cannot handle, deceives, and does not keep promises.
7. Unstable. Such a woman has no opinion and is characterized by weak willpower. It is easy to convince her, lead her away, change her. She is always under someone's influence. Most often, we are talking about addictions, fraud, antisocial and illegal acts, etc. Likes to spend money and live to the fullest, but does not like to study, work, or make plans. Lives one day at a time. A woman with unstable psychopathy is like a poorly raised child.

Important! All types have a common feature - they spare no one on the path to personal happiness. If necessary, they will destroy and break even a loved one.

Institute of Clinical Psychiatry and Psychology

Psychopaths are the most unpopular and frightening patients a psychologist encounters. The essence of psychopathy is aptly captured by the diagnostic criterion that the organizing principle of the antisocial personality is to “make” everyone or to deliberately manipulate others. Experienced clinicians have observed that psychopaths—those who avoid incarceration—tend to burn out by middle age, often becoming surprisingly good citizens.

Antisocial individuals have innate tendencies toward aggressiveness and a higher than average threshold for pleasurable arousal. Instead of expressing (voicing) their emotions in words, psychopaths act. When these people do feel, they seem to be experiencing either blind hatred or manic joy. A psychopath needs a jarring, jolting experience to feel energized and good, which explains their constant desire for thrills and their apparent inability to learn through experience. The clinician cannot hope to establish a connection with such a patient through recognition of his feelings - the psychopath does not know how to determine what he is feeling.

The main psychological defense of psychopaths is omnipotent control. They also use projective identification, a variety of subtle dissociative processes, and acting out.

Psychopaths will openly brag about their victories, conquests, successful schemes and deceptions if they think that the listener will be impressed by their POWER. Such a criminal easily confesses to the murder, but at the same time hides taking a few dollars from the victim’s bag, regarding the insignificance of the amount as a sign of weakness.

An important diagnostic criterion for psychopathy is dissociation of personal responsibility. A remorseful cheater might say, “I thought badly about that,” but when asked to specify what he thought wrongly, the psychopath will regret being caught, not that he committed the scam.

When psychopaths are irritated or upset, they have an internal urge to act. Unlike healthy people, they do not control their own reactions. Taking control of one's own destructive impulses for psychopaths is NOT a manifestation of willpower that brings self-satisfaction and strengthens self-esteem. This is directly related to their early childhood experiences.

Childhood of a Psychopath

The childhood of psychopaths is often characterized by an abundance of dangers. They grow up in a chaos of harsh discipline and over-spoiling: the parental couple is a weak, depressed, masochistic mother and a hot-tempered, inconsistent, sadistic father. Patterns of moving, loss, and family breakups are common. This forces children to spend most of their lives searching for confirmation of their omnipotence.

The roots of this nature can be found in personal history, when parents or other important figures demonstrated power and enjoyed the fact that no one could limit it. Such parents tend to resent the actions of teachers, psychologists or law enforcement officers when they try to impose restrictions on the antisocial actions of their children.

Psychopaths cannot recognize the presence of ordinary emotions in themselves, since they associate feelings with weakness and vulnerability. An antisocial individual simply never experienced attachment to a normal degree, did not want to be the same as those who cared about him (did not identify himself with other people).

The potential psychopath has serious difficulty developing self-esteem by experiencing the love and pride of his parents. His parents either beat him severely or gave up helplessly, not knowing what to do with him. No one was proud of him, no one loved him. Anyone whose self-image reflects unrealistic ideas of superiority, one who avoids the obvious fact that he is only human, will try to restore self-respect through the exercise of power.

A congenitally hyperactive, demanding, absent-minded child needs much more active parental care than a calm and easily consoled child. The more helpless the parents were when faced with an aggressive child, the fewer clear restrictions there were in his childhood and the less he understands the consequences of his impulsive actions. From a social learning theory perspective, a child's grandiosity is an expected result of being raised without proper discipline.

Another feature of the self-experience of psychopathic patients is primitive envy - the desire to destroy everything that is most desired. Antisocial people of a psychotic level are known to kill those who attract them.

Psychopath at the reception

Antisocial individuals typically intend to defeat the therapist. Some psychopaths are so flawed, dangerous, and so intent on destroying the therapist's goals that their psychotherapy can only be an exercise in naivety.

The main transference of psychopaths towards the therapist is the projection of their inner animal self onto him - the assumption that the clinician intends to use the patient for his selfish purposes. Completely lacking the emotional experience of love and empathy, the antisocial patient tries to gauge the therapist's "interest." A naive therapist may not be able to resist the temptation and try to prove his intentions to help.

A common countertransference to the patient's desire to "not be fooled" and his desire to outsmart the therapist is shock. Sometimes the therapist becomes overwhelmed by the feeling that his identity as a “helper” is being destroyed. Common in such cases are countertransference feelings of hostility, contempt, and moralistic admonishment towards the psychopathic personality. Such reactions are called concordant, i.e. identical for both the therapist and the patient.

Another countertransference reaction is terrifying fear. This is complimentary, i.e. a complementary reaction to the patient's coldness and ruthlessness. In addition to fear, therapists report countertransference concerns that such a patient will subject them to his influence. Gloomy forebodings are common.

It is important that the clinician is able to tolerate these sensations rather than trying to deny or compensate for them.

The psychopath may be jealous of the therapist and cope with his envy through sadistic devaluation, which often produces intense hostility and feelings of helplessness in the clinician. Awareness of these psychodynamics helps to maintain some intellectual comfort in the face of the open contempt expressed by the patient.

Minimizing the threat posed by the psychopath is both realistically and dynamically unwise: it may encourage the patient to demonstrate his destructive power.

The most important feature of therapy is the consistency and integrity of the therapist. The patient may perceive empathy as weakness. The feeling of reciprocal gratitude is alien to him. The therapist who "gives in" gives the psychopath a feeling of sadistic triumph. It is unrealistic to expect love from antisocial people, but you can earn their respect by persistently confronting and demanding of them. When I work with these patients, I insist on payment being made at the BEGINNING of each session.

Associated with integrity is uncompromising honesty and keeping promises. Honesty does not mean self-disclosure or moralizing.

It simply means that the therapist must come to terms with his own antisocial tendencies in order to have a basis for identification with the patient's psychology. For example, when discussing payment with such a patient, you need to be willing to openly admit your selfishness and greed.

Any instance in which the patient restrains his own impulses and takes pride in exercising self-control should be considered a major milestone in the treatment of antisocial personality.

Unlike therapy for patients with other diagnoses, the therapist of a psychopathic client must adopt an attitude of “bordering on indifference of independent power.” You should not emotionally “invest” in the patient. Once the patient perceives the therapist's hopes and needs, he will immediately begin to sabotage the psychotherapy in order to defeat him and feel superior. It is better to let the patient understand that it is up to him whether or not to benefit from psychotherapy.

Source: https://rorschach-club.livejournal.com

Rules of conduct with a female psychopath

Psychopathy is not a character trait, but a serious problem. It is better not to have any relationship with such girls. However, some men choose them for affairs because psychopathic women behave provocatively and offer passionate relationships.

How should men behave with such women so as not to die? You must adhere to the following rules:

1. Do not go into details of your personal life. You can safely invent stories about yourself, the main thing is not to talk about your most precious and secret things, and not to introduce them to your loved ones.
2. Not only psychologically, but also legally protect yourself. This rule is especially true for wealthy men. Female psychopaths are often on the lookout for someone they can rip off.
3. Never argue, never try to appeal to conscience or rationalism. Psychopaths are okay with the latter, but only personal interests are important to them.

Important! Due to the abnormal functioning of the frontal lobes of the brain, a psychopathic woman cannot control her behavior or become more humane through an effort of will. Therefore, you should not expect much from this relationship, play the rescuer or hope that everything will work out on its own.

Sad statistics

We didn't talk much about female psychopaths. The exceptions are: Kathy Bates in Misery, Glenn Close in Fatal Attraction and Amy Dean in Gone Girl. In the literature, images of ladies of similar behavior are also rarely considered. However, according to research, more than 17% of women in prison meet the criteria for psychopathy (in contrast, men in this category are 30%). Agree that this is a fairly large number, equal to almost a fifth of all women imprisoned.

Diagnosis and treatment

Only a psychotherapist can cure psychopathy. Self-medication is not appropriate here. Moreover, no one and nothing will help a psychopathic woman if she herself does not want it. To heal the client, psychologists use sessions of individual and group psychotherapy and hypnosis. As an auxiliary treatment, medications (antidepressants, tranquilizers, antipsychotics) are prescribed for a short period.

Is it possible to get rid of this problem

Only a professional can treat a personality disorder; no self-medication is even suggested. It’s bad if a girl doesn’t recognize her condition and considers those around her, who are trying to help, to be her worst enemies.

Attention! Psychopathy is studied and treated by psychotherapists and psychiatrists. Sometimes, when the acquisition of a mental disorder is a consequence of a traumatic brain injury, the help of surgeons and neurologists is required.

Therapy is based on group or individual sessions to promote deep understanding of the diagnosis and self-acceptance in order to facilitate the healing process. In cases where a visit to a psychiatrist does not bring the desired result, or the case is particularly severe, medicinal effects on the body are used, using prescription drugs belonging to the group of antidepressants or psychotropic drugs.

Psychopathy is, first of all, a disease that the patient himself is not able to overcome. Often treatment does not bring any results. Although the percentage of such people is small, there is still a risk of encountering them in life. Don't feel obligated to help. In this situation, it is more rational to save yourself and your environment.