Hello, Louis,
Louis de Leon wrote:Lady Charlotte wrote:I agree with you. Although Louis de Leon had suggested that people here read the description of a psychopath at the link he'd provided, above, in my opinion Mr. Price's behavior is classically that of someone with
Narcissistic Personality Disorder:
Perhaps so. But some of the bullet points
from the psychopathy page rang bells for me:
Psychopaths lack a sense of guilt or remorse for any harm they may have caused others, instead rationalizing the behavior, blaming someone else, or denying it outright.
Their behavior is impulsive and irresponsible, often failing to keep a job or defaulting on debts.
Psychopaths also have a markedly distorted sense of the potential consequences of their actions, not only for others, but also for themselves. They do not deeply recognize the risk of being caught, disbelieved or injured as a result of their behavior.
It's that last one that really hit home...
I quite understand.
I think this (very slight, actually) difference of opinion highlights why the D.S.M. V recategorizes and reduces Axis II personality disorders from 10 categories in D.S.M. IV to only five in D.S.M. V. "Psychopathology" was characterized in D.S.M. IV as a subtype of
Antisocial Personality Disorder, with "sociopathology" as the other subtype.
Under the D.S.M. V, Narcissistic Personality Disorder appears to be largely subsumed under the new "Antisocial/Psychopathic Type," but despite the bullet points that rang bells for you, I was less convinced that the psychopath category was the best choice because no one's reported a history of violence, cruelty to animals, disregard for safety, etc., which are so characteristic of psychopaths. However, under the D.S.M. V we'd probably be in complete or nearly complete agreement, not that I'm a clinical psychologist or psychiatrist, nor do I play one on TV.
Louis de Leon wrote:...I have spent some time thinking about this thread. A lot of time actually. This whole thing is just so bizarre to me. I want to know how this could be. How could someone do this? Take people for decades for thousands upon thousands of dollars, copy works, pass off other people's work as their own, and so on and so on. How could someone live day to day with all of that?
So I tried a thought-experiment to try to imagine what it would be like to take 5000 or so dollars from someone and just flat-out screw them. No intention of repayment or delivery or anything. Just "thanks for the money sucker" and walk away. That's only about 5k, not the 6 figure amounts that are most likely the sum of the claims in this thread.
And I was immediately hit with an extreme sense of danger. I would be looking behind every bush, checking under my car, looking at every shadow for someone with a baseball bat come to exact their revenge, or a cop at my door with my victim, or a summons, or a lawsuit notice in the mail. Now multiply that by a few dozen over the course of a couple of decades. How could you live with a sword of that size hanging over your head? Something must be terribly wrong, terribly terribly wrong. Something missing or just plain broken to live day to day in that state with no distress. It would crush me with fear and anxiety.
If you can live that way there is something seriously wrong with you.
Again, I quite understand, but the thought processes of psychopaths and narcissists are almost as different from each other concerning such things as they are from yours and mine.
Many years ago I was robbed of money I had saved painstakingly for tuition by the family member who was eventually diagnosed by a psychiatrist as having NPD. It was disastrous for me and I was utterly incredulous, not to mention outraged.
A psychopath simply wouldn't have cared; s/he might have recognized s/he was stealing, but did it anyway out of impulsivity and a failure to recognize the consequences, as outlined in those bullet points you cited, above.
On the other hand, an NPD (like "mine") would feel
wronged by an accusation of stealing because s/he wouldn't regard it as "stealing" but rather as something like "borrowing-with-every-intention-of-returning-the-money," and since the NPD convinces themselves (at some level) that they're
not doing anything wrong or are perfectly justified in doing what they've done, the bullet points you listed aren't applicable in the same way.
After many years of mistreatment by "my NPD," I finally forced them into family counseling with the psychiatrist who made the diagnosis (I was beginning to wonder if
I was the mad one after years of dealing with their crazy rationalizations).
I asked the psychiatrist, during a private session, where he'd delivered the diagnosis of "my NPD" to me, "When narcissists lie, do they
know they're lying, or do they believe the lies they tell as deeply as they want us to believe them?"
He said that that was a subject of continual debate among psychiatrists, but his own opinion was that they convinced themselves of the lie most of the time, but if sufficiently confronted would recognize it at some level, even if incapable of acknowledging it.
Louis de Leon wrote:If you can live that way there is something seriously wrong with you.
I don't think mere narcissism can account for it. While I do see the parallels you have drawn, you have to also look at the criminal side to all of this. The total lack of acknowledging that something bad may happen to you. Personal revenge, lawsuits, jailtime. And there is no acknowledgment of those possibilities at all.
If the claims in this thread are true, then something is seriously dreadfully drastically wrong with the guy. I don't think it's a personality deficit. That just doesn't seem big enough to cover all of this.
It's far more than a "personality deficit," it's a
"personality disorder."
The psychiatrist also explained -- and this was the single most helpful insight he gave me -- is that by the time someone with NPD reaches their late 20s, they will be -- permanently, except in
very rare cases -- a "moral and emotional toddler in an adult body with adult experience and education."
Toddlers consider themselves the center of the universe and anyone they "like" or "love" to be
extensions of themselves they are perfectly entitled to manipulate, use, misuse, etc., (think of how toddlers treat their favorite toys) and they possess only the most
rudimentary grasp of morality
except to the extent that parents punish or reward them consistently and lovingly for moral behavior. A toddler will thus eventually mature and internalize morality as well as develop empathy, but a narcissist largely fails ever to do so. So if you re-do your thought experiment with the mindset of a toddler who views the people who give him money as extensions of
himself, I suspect your result will be rather different.
The only way to deal effectively with someone with NPD, the psychiatrist advised me, is to punish them when they misbehave: they
will not change otherwise because they are
incapable of it. I was willing to pay the psychiatrist's fees to treat "my NPD," if there was any chance of success, and the psychiatrist agreed to try, but he warned me that narcissists are the hardest patients for psychiatrists to treat because someone with NPD lacks the very psychological tools most necessary for treatment to be effective.
Consequently, in my opinion, based on that advice (backed up in the literature) and my life-long experience with "my NPD," expecting Mr. Price to behave at all differently after this would be foolish in the extreme. He may settle -- if he's at all smart or receives decent legal advice -- the claims against him, but if he continues on in this business, there will be new and additional victims down the line, which is why I will
never purchase
anything from him.
Ever. Even if he sells the "best" or "only" of something. To do so would be effectively subsidizing a form of "individulalized terrorism," in my not so humble opinion about this. I therefore think it would be utterly immoral to do
any business at
all with him.
Lady Charlotte
If some folks out there think an angry mob is forming, all I can say is hand me a pitchfork. 
