Woman calls 911, says she strangled autistic children

[NeonSamurai]

Originally Posted by August

How about?

Irresponsibility/Unreliability
Not concerned about wrecking others' lives and dreams. Oblivious or indifferent to the devastation they cause. Does not accept blame themselves, but blames others, even for acts they obviously committed.

Callousness/Lack of Empathy
Unable to empathize with the pain of their victims, having only contempt for others' feelings of distress and readily taking advantage of them.

Shallow Emotions
When they show what seems to be warmth, joy, love and compassion it is more feigned than experienced and serves an ulterior motive. Outraged by insignificant matters, yet remaining unmoved and cold by what would upset a normal person. Since they are not genuine, neither are their promises

Grandiose Sense of Self
Feels entitled to certain things as "their right."

For all of those things to apply, she has to show them at a constant level . That means she has to be that way all the time, not just over one episode.

Your first one would be out anyhow, "Does not accept blame themselves, but blames others, even for acts they obviously committed", she called and confessed what she did.

There is no evidence that she was callous or lacking empathy, that she put her kids on the bed suggests otherwise. Plus the fact that they had lived as long as they had. No evidence either of shallow emotions either, or grandiosity.

From what evidence there is suggests to me more of a psychotic break from reality, then the work of a sociopath.

She killed her kids because they didn't meet her standards. You're saying that's not a sign of sociopath?

If she really was a sociopath, it is highly unlikely the 5 year old would have lived that long. Also sociopaths are not criminally suicidal, and will go to great lengths to avoid being caught. A real sociopath would have killed the kids individually early on in life, made it look like an accident and then taken full advantage of the sympathy. Calling the cops and confessing is not a sign of a rational mind at work (rational people want to avoid getting into trouble). Your typical sociopath is perfectly rational, just in a very frighting and predatory way.

And BTW how do you know these kids were actually autistic?

That is what the news report said, and also what she said when she confessed over the phone.

Originally Posted by Aramike

Before you start with the typical condescending message board semantics retort, how bout you first read what was actually written?

I said she displayed sociopathic behavior - not that she was a sociopath. And if you read the article and the behaviors displayed by a sociopath you'd be able to make the connection yourself.

I did read what you wrote, and I disagree that she is displaying sociopathic behavior. To put it in layman terms I think she got overloaded with her life and her brain went crunch which caused her to lash out at the main source of her troubles, her disabled kids, then while still in this state of mind, she called the cops and confessed.

The problem I have is that lay people love to throw around psychological terms like depression and sociopathy with out having a clue what they mean. Woman kills her kids, oh she must be a sociopath/psychopath. There are many other forms of mental breakdown or illness that can prompt such events with out the person being one. You may notice that I am avoiding labeling her or putting her into a category. This is because she has not been properly examined or diagnosed and made available to the public. This is why I am getting on the case of people who try to label her.

Secondly, I am not a pshrink. Are you? And if you are one, how can you justify stating, as a fact, that this woman is not a sociopath?

My area of professional expertise falls in that area you could say. I never said she was definitely not a sociopath, just that from what evidence that is available to me, that she is not showing the hallmarks of being one. The biggest one being self preservation. Keep in mind your average sociopath thinks they are better than everyone else and put their lives and needs above everything else. No sociopath is likely to confess to committing a crime, even when presented with overwhelming evidence they will continue to try to lie their way out of it. Could she be the exception to the rule, sure its possible, but its not very probable.

Look over the items in the PCL-R (Psychopathy Checklist-Revised)
http://www.arkancide.com/psychopathy.htm

To be considered a psychopath, if memory serves me you need to score of around 25-30 or higher on the test (there is some debate as to where the cutoff should be). Now do you think a person having many of those traits would be likely to care for disabled children for very long? Would they be likely to confess to killing them?

I mean, surely you know that MANY sociopaths lead seemingly normal lives. It is not out of the realm of possibility (in fact, it's not even terribly uncommon) that sociopaths care for children, so long as that childcare can be a means to whatever end the sociopath considers important.

Yes that is true, it is also suspected that many of the business world's top executives are socialized psychopaths, falling more on the path of aggressive narcissism rather than social deviance. However given the basic makeup of a psychopaths, I do not see one looking after autistic kids for any great period of time, way to much work and personal sacrifices involved for a typical sociopath.

http://www.youmeworks.com/sociopaths.html
This is something that anyone with even a brief primer in psychology knows. So next time you want to criticize someone's use of a psychological term, maybe you should do more than a cursory internet search to figure out what it means.

I think I have demonstrated that I have at least some knowledge on the subject. I didn't even bother with a "cursory search of the internet" in the first post other than to find a link that had the main features of psychopathy/sociopathy.

Would you like to borrow my copy of DSM IV?

No thanks, I have my own copy of the DSM IV TR a few feet from where I am. Also the current version is a bit out of date and not used for diagnosing sociopaths/psychopaths. The preferred method is the PCL-R developed by Dr. Hare (as mentioned above). But this is also an area of some contention. Some psychologists think sociopaths and psychopaths are the same thing, some not, and the DSM categorizes them as APD which experts like Dr. Hare disagree with and want categorized separately (I personally agree with Dr. Hare). We will see how it changes when the DSM V comes out.