Can a psychopath fall in love?

  • Jul 26, 2021
click fraud protection
Can a psychopath fall in love?

It has been found 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.
  • Presenting childish behavior.
  • Being easily irritable, aggressive and with a great lack of tact.
  • Resorting to behaviors of use and imitation frequently.

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

You may also like: Can a sociopath love?

Index

  1. What does a psychopath feel
  2. Does a psychopath feel love?
  3. Can a psychopath fall in love and love?
  4. Can you have a relationship with a psychopath?

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 shown that psychopaths do not have the necessary abilities to experience emotions.

These people in situations that should create an emotion can only produce facial and verbal responses according to expectations, however, if their autonomic activity is analyzed, this is incongruous with said answers. That is, their bodily sensations differ from their actions.

A psychopath has a great lack of empathy because of the pain that others feel, so many times they are not able to realize that their actions are causing anguish and pain in other people. What's more, do not accept responsibilities of their own actions and have no regrets or guilt.

Contrary to what you might think, a psychopath is usually very attractive on a social level, always showing a superficial character which leads to them being liked by other people. However, this is done to be able to take advantage of others, since they are usually manipulative people by nature, with a tendency to deceive and with a great sense of greatness towards their person.

Their affective capacity is superficial Therefore, they will value and maintain a relationship with a person to the extent that this is useful to achieve her purposes.

Does a psychopath feel love?

A psychopath does not have the ability 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 to make the other person fall in love with him or her. For this reason, it will resort to all the strategies available to it, either through deceptions, manipulationsof her, modifications of her personality.

A psychopath sees seduction as a game and seeks to "get" his partner from her through an expert level of seduction. For this, the psychopathic person, as a result of his narcissistic personality, she is able to see the weaknesses of the other person and act appropriately so that she feels that she will be protected by her side.

Can a psychopath fall in love and love?

As we have said before, a psychopath is not capable of loving. However, yes that can establish romantic relationships which will be based primarily on convenience. For them, a relationship is based on satisfaction, complacency, and an increase in their own ego.

Rather, a psychopathic person 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, because 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 the the rest.

In addition, it is very likely that one of the basic points of any relationship, such as the commitment, will not be fulfilled. This is because they are very impulsive people who always want to satisfy their desires, without caring about emotionally damaging others. Therefore, if despite being in a relationship, they want to have sex and be unfaithful to their partner, they will not hesitate for a second, because do not consider how other people might feel in the face of such 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 that her partner develops a dependency towards her person. In the following article you will find How to get out of a toxic relationship with your partner.

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

This article is merely informative, in Psychology-Online 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 category of Clinical psychology.

References

Bibliography

  • Cooke, D. J., Forth, A. E., & 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/
instagram viewer