ENERGY
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GAIN ENERGY
APPRENTICE
LEVEL1
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THE
ENERGY BLOCKAGE REMOVAL
PROCESS
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THE
KARMA CLEARING
PROCESS
APPRENTICE
LEVEL3
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MASTERY
OF RELATIONSHIPS
TANTRA
APPRENTICE
LEVEL4
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2005 AND 2006 |
THE MASK OF SANITYSection 3: Cataloging the MaterialPart 3: A clinical profile53. Pathologic egocentricity and incapacity for love
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53. Pathologic egocentricity and incapacity for love The psychopath is always distinguished by egocentricity. This is usually of a degree not seen in ordinary people and often is little short of astonishing. How obviously this quality will be expressed in vanity or self-esteem will vary with the shrewdness of the subject and with his other complexities. Deeper probing will always reveal a selfcenteredness that is apparently unmodifiable and all but complete. This can perhaps be best expressed by stating that it is an incapacity for object love and that this incapacity (in my experience with well-marked psychopaths) appears to be absolute. Terms in use for what we experience as "emotion" contain much ambiguity, and their referential accuracy is limited. This contributes to confusion CATALOGING THE MATERIAL 347 and paradox which are difficult to avoid in attempts to convey concepts about such a matter. In a sense, it is absurd to maintain that the psychopath's incapacity for object love is absolute, that is, to say he is capable of affection for another ill literally no degree. He is plainly capable of casual fondness, of likes and dislikes, and of reactions that, one might say, cause others to matter to him. These affective reactions are, however, always strictly limited in degree. In durability they also vary greatly from what is normal in mankind. The term absolute is, I believe, appropriate if we apply it to any affective attitude strong and meaningful enough to be called love, that is, anything that prevails in sufficient degree and over sufficient periods to exert a major influence on behavior. True enough, psychopaths are sometimes skillful in pretending a love for women or simulating parental devotion to their children. What part of this is not pure (and perhaps in an important sense unconscious) simulation has always impressed this observer as that other type of pseudolove sometimes seen in very self-centered people who are not psychopaths, which consists in concern for the other person only (or primarily) insofar as he enhances or seems to enhance the self. Even this latter imitation of adult affectivity has been seldom seen in the full-blown psychopath, although it is seen frequently in those called here partial psychopaths. In nonpsychopaths a familiar example is that of the parent who lavishes money and attention on a child chiefly to bask in the child's success and consciously or unconsciously to feel what an important person he is because of the child's triumphs. Although it is true that with ordinary people such motives are seldom, if ever, unmixed, and usually some object love and some self-love are integrated into such attitudes, in even the partial psychopath anything that could honestly be called object love approaches the imperceptible. What positive feelings appear during the psychopath's interpersonal relations give a strong impression of being self-love. Some cynical psychologists and philosophers have, of course, challenged the existence of any love which is not on final analysis selfish, saying that the mother who gives up her own life for her child really does so because it would be more painful to her to see the child perish. Without attempting to take up the cudgels in this interesting dispute, it will suffice to say that whatever normal and highly developed and sincere object love may actually be, it is, whether judged behaviorally or intuitively, something that impresses the ordinary observer as definitely unlike anything found in the psychopath. The psychopath seldom shows anything that, if the chief facts were known, would pass even in the eyes of lay observers as object love. His absolute indifference to the financial, social, emotional, physical, and other 348 THE MASK OF SANITY hardships which he brings upon those for whom he professes love confirms the appraisal during psychiatric studies of his true attitude. We must, let it never be forgotten, judge a man by his actions rather than by his words. This old saying is especially significant when it is the man's motivations and real feelings that we are to judge. This lack in the psychopath makes it all but impossible for an adequate emotional rapport to arise in his treatment and may be an important factor in the therapeutic failure that, in my experience, has been universal. |
Energy Enhancement Enlightened Texts Psychopath The Mask Of Sanity
Section 3, Part 3
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