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Psychopathy. Can it be cured? With drugs?

rollingstoned!

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Any thoughts on curing psychopaths with LSD, MDMA, or both? I feel psychopaths are people without empathy for others. So if you instill empathy (MDMA) and make them realize what they are (LSD), will that empathy gain a high priority in them and become part of them?

Also, it is generally accepted in the medical community that there is no cure for psychopathy.
 
Any thoughts on curing psychopaths with LSD, MDMA, or both? I feel psychopaths are people without empathy for others. So if you instill empathy (MDMA) and make them realize what they are (LSD), will that empathy gain a high priority in them and become part of them?

Also, it is generally accepted in the medical community that there is no cure for psychopathy.

I don't believe that 5-HT2A agonists would be all that beneficial to patients with psychopathic behaviour however the down-regulation that happens as a result would certainly be useful. There's research linking low density D2 receptor sites to Schizophrenia, creativity and social anxiety. I hope this is investigated and maybe some selective agonists of D2 could mitigate issues if the patient desires it.

Also, there's something wrong about forcing somebody to feel what you want them to. If you gave an autistic child MDMA he would not become empathetic. He'd probably become quite horrified. Forcing emotions with pills is not feasible or appropriate. They do not last long enough and the resultant lack of neurotransmitters could make things a whole lot worse.
 
I think its a bit simplistic thinking that psychopathy is purely about lack of empathy. Much like Autism isnt simply that. I used to work with psychopaths and sociopaths. Some of them were the most socially aware and empathic people you could meet. Many of them simply didnt care about other people and what they felt. They usually saw other people in very simplistic terms - like objects. So hurting or killing someone, although they understand that it probably hurts them or is some kind of loss to their family, really isnt their concern. Like kicking the cat when youre annoyed at them. Many of them that I worked with would regularly take substances like MDMA and LSD, and really enjoyed them. But again it would be more akin to hugging the cat and feeling fond of them on it, but once youre down you'll possibly still give it a kick if it gets in your way.
 
I think its a bit simplistic thinking that psychopathy is purely about lack of empathy. Much like Autism isnt simply that. I used to work with psychopaths and sociopaths. Some of them were the most socially aware and empathic people you could meet. Many of them simply didnt care about other people and what they felt. They usually saw other people in very simplistic terms - like objects. So hurting or killing someone, although they understand that it probably hurts them or is some kind of loss to their family, really isnt their concern. Like kicking the cat when youre annoyed at them. Many of them that I worked with would regularly take substances like MDMA and LSD, and really enjoyed them. But again it would be more akin to hugging the cat and feeling fond of them on it, but once youre down you'll possibly still give it a kick if it gets in your way.

It really is about empathy. I taught myself empathy and consider myself to be the only "cured sociopath". Empathy was really the cornerstone to turning my life around and becoming someone who could be a part of society. Drugs did not give me empathy, unless mood stabalizers somehow affected the amygdala.
 
What exactly do you mean by "psychopathy"?

edit: also not entirely sure about this being a suitable thread for BDD hah but goodness knows where I'd move it to..
 
Do you know of drugs that induce psycho- or sociopathy? Temporarily or permanently. Just asking out of curiosity, I don't know the medical definition of either, if one such exists.
 
^ we might not be but isn't it fun to pretend ;)

Let's give this a try in Psychedelic Drugs.



BDD>>>>PD
 
I know multiple sociopaths that have tripped. I wouldn't say it cures the issue at all, but that's not surprising. IMO a sociopath isn't looking to be cured anyway, and all anyone can hope for is that they act in ways that are cohesive with society. As mentioned in this thread, it does tend to get better with age and I believe the reason for this is that there is learning as far as what behaviors bring about more desirable results. I know that "having no fear" is a common description of sociopaths, but I believe that something analogous to fear does develop over time in that the person wants to get the most out of life and learns that certain behaviors are definitely not helping them get these things. Sociopaths do learn, albeit stubbornly.

All that said, I think it's not going to hurt to give the person psychedelics. The ideal thing to happen would be to see life in a different light that makes them learn acceptable behaviors faster than they would have on their own with aging. This is not guaranteed by any means, but if the person wants to do trip, I think it's a good idea to try. Remember not to expect a cure though.
 
I would NOT give a known sociopath hallucinogens. Or at least I wouldn't take them with them and I wouldn't want them to know where I lived.

I'm thinking of this sociopath I know that reminds me of Patrick Bateman from American Psycho to a fucking T. All I can see happening is it exposing his darkest side and him getting a bunch of coke and xanax and getting out his fucking handgun and killing people. Fuck that noise. I wouldn't trust him to watch my grass grow, let alone to trip with anyone like that. I truly think it is one small subset of people who do not belong in society AT ALL.
 
^ typically serial killers are sociopaths but few sociopaths are serial killers. Most prisons are filled with sociopaths - impulsive people who don't have qualms breaking laws and so forth to get what they want. Simply because someone lacks empathy doesn't mean they are violent or are going to start hacking people to pieces. If you remove the impulsivity (lacking conscientiousness) from the diagnostic criteria -- something many psychologists are arguing for with fictional characters such as Dexter or Gordon Gecko epitomizing this -- you'd find sociopaths throughout society in business, in the military, in government and you've probably known more than a couple.
 
Psychopathy does not and never has existed as an actual diagnosis. The diagnosis used to be 'sociopath', but this also does not exist anymore.

The modern diagnosis is 'anti-social personality disorder', it is a highly political diagnosis that is generally only given to men by court-associated psychatric services. The main psychological aspect of antisocial personality disorder is a lack of emotion in a very specific way- they are aware of the theoretical existance of emotions and can recognise and respond to emotional ques without 'feeling' any emotion. Normal people are controlled by their emotions, this is what regulates your behaviour- you don't do thinks that make you feel bad because it feels bad, people don't commit crimes because people actually FEEL guilt and it causes them a lot of pain. People with ASPD may be aware of what 'guility is' or that they should be 'guility' but they never feel guilty.

I think that in truth ASPD and Borderline personality disorder (BPD) are the same thing on a spectrum (like autism & schizophrenia)- they are all emotion dysaffective disorders that are characteristed by not experiencing emotion properly. Normal people experience emotion in the first person, people with Borderline experience emotion in the third person subjectively (meaning that our emotional affect is highly variable resulting in 'splitting') and people with ASPD who experience emotion in the third person objectively (they may are perfectly capable of feeling bad, they just won't feel bad unless they believe that they SHOULD feel bad).

I've typed out and deleted about 3 paragraphs on this...I'm not entirely sure how I should talk about this stuff. I have BPD and I react very differently to drugs than normal people, I have also had a couple of very close relationships with people who have been diagnosed as ASPD; including tripping with them both on many, many occasions. To be honest, psychedelics are water off a ducks back with us- I would argue that they ARE theraputic , but they don't change anything about us, they don't 'treat' the condition because the condition is not a 'sickness', it's just...how we experience the world. 'Treating' someone with ASPD/BPD is the equivilant of conditioning someone to percieve black as white- maybe you could do it but you're actually destroying the essence of their humanity by imposing your beliefs on another.

LSD doesn't seem to effect us very strongly- the 3 of us all are noted as being LSD hardheads, we also all get very limited visuals; the mindfuck is there with a vengance though. I think that we are also capable of abusing LSD in a way that most people aren't though- I have noticed that we could take it much more just like a 'recreational drug' than most other people could. Maybe we got nothing out of it but told ourselves we did. Maybe that's what normal people do. Maybe it did 'treat' us, in that we are all high-functioning, not on medication and not involuntary treatment- but then again I'm sure a lot of people would view us as a cancer hiding within society, drugs have helped us disguise the cancer. What I consider consider treatment is most definately what you consider treatment. Normal people harbour a lot of fear of people with ASPD and want them to be normal- most people with ASPD consider this a product of normal peoples jealousy/secret desire to be ASPD, so you can't win.

Dissociatives seem to be much more theraputic than traditional psychedelics- they seem to effect us much more strongly, though we all seem to enjoy and 'handle' the dissociative experience more than normal people. I think that Ketamine Psychedelic Therapy is probably the best possibility for 'treatment' for people with ASPD, but once again I think that most people within the psychiatric profession would viciously oppose my reasoning as intellectualised drug-seeking behaviour. There is no cure for ASPD because there is no desire to be cured, you can;t fix something that isn't broken- something isn't broken just because you don't like it.

To be honest I think that this thread should be locked, most people don't have the knowledge or insight to be able to contribute anything sensible. It's just going to be a couple of people arguing over what exactly a 'psychopath' is and a bunch of comments about how potentially dangerous it could be to give someone with ASPD psychedelics without any real life proof or experience.

I don't know if anyone will understand any of this, or if I contrbibuted anything.
 
Asocial Personality Disorder is the politically correct term for sociopath, and sociopaths aren't necessarily sadists or killers.
Sociopaths simply have little or no sense of others' experience, or acknowledge the fact and don't care.
Manipulation and disguise are also individual; not a common characteristic of all sociopaths.
It's not any sort of disease or disorder; It's just disregard.
Not giving a fuck is not a mental malfunction.
Thought systems are variable people.
 
Do you know of drugs that induce psycho- or sociopathy? Temporarily or permanently. Just asking out of curiosity, I don't know the medical definition of either, if one such exists.

Alexander Shulgin reports in PIHKAL that he took some form of synthetic mescaline, and it put him in a very violent and sociopathic frame of mind. He never took it again.
 
I used to be pretty psychopathic, including breaking the law all the time. I've taken tons of different drugs and none of them had very much of an effect on this at all, they're all just ways to get high. Even MDMA's empathy only lasts while the drug is working. They did, however, mellow me out a bit and my tendencies slowed down. What actually changed me though is that someone helped me with my very deep-seated problems (which I will not go into) and constantly tried to get me to see the world in a positive light. They helped me so much that I promised myself I would do whatever I can to change and I've been working on it ever since. I also don't use drugs anymore, although one day I plan to go back to psychedelics when I can use them in the correct frame of mind.
 
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