Can A Psychopath Fall In Love?

Can a psychopath fall in love?

It has been proven over time that people considered psychopaths develop an antisocial personality. These people have been seen to have lesions in the orbitofrontal lobe, which induces them to act in a characteristic way. As a result of this injury, psychopaths have a reduced ability to use internal stimuli as guides for their behavior. That is why they are characterized by:

  • Failing in interpersonal relationships.
  • Having work problems due to irresponsibility.
  • Present childish behavior.
  • Being easily irritable, aggressive and very tactless.
  • Frequently resort to utilization and imitation behaviors.

One of the questions that has been most sought to be answered over the years is related to the emotional capacity of psychopaths. It is wanted know if psychopaths are capable of falling in love. Therefore, in PsychologyFor, using psychological studies as a basis, we want to clarify a little more what type of emotions a psychopath can feel.

What does a psychopath feel?

According to multiple studies (Hare, 1978; Siddle and Trasler, 1981; Kiehl, Hare, McDonald, and Brink, 1999; Patrick, 1994) it has been demonstrated that Psychopaths do not have the necessary abilities to experience emotions.

These people, faced with situations that should create an emotion, can only produce facial and verbal responses consistent with what is expected; however, if their autonomic activity is analyzed, it is incongruent with said responses. That is, your bodily sensations differ from your actions.

A psychopath has a great lack of empathy because of the pain that others feel, which is why they are often not able to realize that their actions are causing anguish and pain in other people. Besides, they do not accept responsibilities of their own actions and have no remorse or guilt.

Contrary to what you may think, a psychopathic person is usually very attractive on a social level, always showing a superficial character which results in other people liking them very much. However, he does this in order to take advantage of others, since they tend to be manipulative people by nature, with a tendency to deceive and with a great sense of grandiosity towards themselves.

His emotional capacity is superficial Therefore, they will value and maintain a relationship with a person to the extent that it is useful to achieve their purposes.

Does a psychopath feel love?

A psychopath does not have the capacity to love as we properly understand. Although for each person the word love has a different definition, usually, it is linked to three key qualities: intimacy, passion and commitment.

For a psychopathic person, this concept of love is, let’s say, one-sided. That is, your goal is for the other person to fall in love with him or her. For this reason, he will resort to all the strategies at his disposal, whether through deception, manipulation modifications of your personality.

A psychopath sees seduction as a game and aims to “get” his partner through an expert level of seduction. To do this, the psychopathic person, as a result of their narcissistic personality, is able to see the other person’s weaknesses and act appropriately so that they feel that they will be protected by their side.

Can a psychopath fall in love and love?

As we have said before, a psychopath is not capable of love. However, yes can establish romantic relationships which will be based mainly on convenience. For them, a relationship is based on satisfaction, self-indulgence, and a boost to their own ego.

A psychopathic person rather develops an attachment relationship with the other person, which will be characterized by an avoidant attachment, and they will not be able to establish any type of intimate relationship.

Can you have a relationship with a psychopath?

The lack of empathy and inability to express emotions of psychopaths is going to be one of the greatest difficulties that there will be when maintaining a relationship with them, since they will not be able to see the needs of their partner, nor will they be able to adapt their actions to the feelings of others. .

Furthermore, it is very likely that one of the basic points of any relationship, such as commitment, will not be fulfilled. This is because they are very impulsive people who always want to satisfy their desires, without caring about emotionally harming others. Therefore, if despite being in a relationship, they want to have sexual relations and be unfaithful to their partner, they will not hesitate for a second, because They don’t consider how other people might feel against said deception.

On the other hand, it must be taken into account that this type of relationship usually become toxic, where the psychopath wants by all means for his partner to develop a dependency on him. In the following article you will find How to get out of a toxic relationship.

In turn, the trait that characterizes aggressiveness can lead to cases of gender violence, where the psychopath abuses his partner both physically and verbally if he does not comply with his demands or if he feels that he is going to abandon him. .

This article is merely informative, at PsychologyFor we do not have the power to make a diagnosis or recommend a treatment. We invite you to go to a psychologist to treat your particular case.

If you want to read more articles similar to Can a psychopath fall in love? we recommend that you enter our Clinical Psychology category.

References

Bibliography

  • Cooke, DJ, Forth, AE, & Hare, R.D. (Eds.). (2012). Psychopathy: Theory, research and implications for society (Vol. 88). Springer Science & Business Media.
  • Hare, R. D. (1999). Psychopathy as a risk factor for violence. Psychiatric Quarterly, 70(3), 181-197.
  • Hare, R.D., & Neumann, C.S. (2009). Psychopathy.
  • Villa, E. Psychopathology. Jaume I University. 2016.
  • Psychopaths.es. Characteristics of a Psychopath in love. Recovered from: https://www.psicopatas.es/caracteristicas-en-el-amor/

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