Outsiders to love

This article describes key characteristics of psychopaths. Their dangerousness stems not only from the unexpected deceit in a world that generally runs on trust, but also from the psychopath’s ability to tap into and intermesh with people’s dissociated need, greed, fears, and sadism. Psychopathic character is understood in terms of a dissociative structure of interlocking self-states in which a ruthless instrumentality is dominant and in which there is a severe dissociation of attachment need. The character problem and dilemma originates in the experience of being an outsider to love, outside the fabric of the social order and emotional world shared by others. The envy of the emotional bonding that others have drives them to seek to destroy it in others. It is argued that although it is human to have some characteristics of evil, sadism, and psychopathy, psychopaths themselves fit into a taxon, a category. The dangerous possibility of psychopathy as an incipient social ego ideal is discussed.