can sociopaths be cured I've heard it said again and again that sociopaths can never heal they can never be cured once they're a sociopath they're always going to be that way there's something permanently broken about them there's something permanently defective about them to do the horrible things that they've done to face the world and other people in their relationships the way that they do they're never going to get better they're just someone who is permanently evil or defective and I want to challenge that now does that mean that every sociopath every person who gets diagnosed
in that way every person who fits the criteria for sociopathy has the potential to heal I think yes actually I think that not a lot of them will I think given the world the way it is I think a lot of people don't have the incentive to heal and change but I think people all have the potential to heal and part of the reason I say that is because I've seen some people change I've seen some people who have that label of sociopathy antisocial personality disorder psychopathy whatever you want to call it I've seen them
change I've seen people get in touch with their empathy people who didn't have much or had very very little or none people who did horrible horrible things to other people and didn't feel bad about it I've seen them change I've seen them grow I feel I've seen them connect with things inside of them that reconnected with a part of themselves that had much more humanity it's so much more empathy and what is it now does this mean that I don't take the side of victims that I don't support support the people who have had the
horrible things done to them no actually I don't I think when people harm other people they need to be held responsible and if they continue to harm people and they show a callous disregard and an inability to stop themselves from harming other people I don't have a problem with those people being removed from society being removed from an ability to harm other people I think people have a right to be protected from people who harm them however what I have seen also is underneath the surface when people who basically make a life of going around
and harming other people harming people in their personal relationships in really extreme ways harming society underneath that those people were victims at one point and when I've listened to people who get diagnosed as sociopaths antisocial personality what I have seen again and again and again is when they tell me the stories of their childhood it's not nice they were victims bonafide victims 100% they had horrible childhoods they had childhoods were primarily their parents but other people in their lives didn't empathize with them they were objects they were objects to be neglected abused mistreated hated being
treated with violence being treated sometimes with sexual abuse all sorts of different horrible ways most of these people had nobody who loved them nobody who protected them nobody who cared about them so the way they were raised the environment in which they were raised the emotional personality relational constellations in which they were raised were ones that taught them they were objects other people are objects people take advantage take advantage of each other people harm each other people don't care about other people's feelings and a certain percentage of people who are treated like that grow up
to treat other people that way people who get labeled as sociopaths they didn't grow out of nowhere they didn't just get created with a defective gene somewhere they got treated that way by other people they learned to behave that way and they continued behaving that way and from what I've seen is a big part of why they continue and continue and continue to behave that way is because they're so emotionally out of touch with what actually happened to them in their own childhoods actually a big part of why they behave like sociopaths treat other people
in such evil disrespectful callus on empathic ways is because at a fundamental level they don't connect with the little child inside of themselves that little child their little true self their hurt wounded victim of a child is so buried inside of them so profoundly disconnected that they don't actually relate to other people they really don't relate to other people as human beings because they have nothing to relate to because they're so disconnected from the beautiful humanity with within themselves and for what I've seen every single person who is created is created perfect beautiful lovely they're
I mean us that's not to say that some babies aren't born with problems but also it's important to remember that even babies by the time they're born they've already been as in existence for nine months they've already lived inside of an environment within their mother in a physical environment perhaps with all sorts of different drugs or not drugs or substances but also there are mothers problems their mother's anxieties their mother's hopelessness a lot of times depression frustration anger sometimes their mothers suffer physical abuse sometimes their mothers while they're pregnant with them suffer sexual abuse abandonment
hopelessness depression all sorts of problems that pregnant mothers can go through rejection this affects their babies so even by the time their babies are born they can already be having problems physical problems emotional problems psychological problems and as they grow up well these problems can get worse but they're not created evil evil is something that is a response to something else earlier in life when people become evil they were treated in evil ways that's how human development works now that doesn't mean that everybody who is treated in evil ways turns around and becomes evil because
a lot of times there's different factors that go into people people's development what happens to them sometimes people were treated evil in some ways and loved in other ways and that love can actually help them they were witnessed in certain ways and that can help them work out and not become evil necessarily but a lot of times the people who were treated the worst of all had nobody to witness nobody to make up for the horrible things that were happening to them or sometimes what happens is people's parents have some evil sides and some healthier
sides some more loving sides and actually some of these can kind of balance each other out a little bit so people have a chance even though they have some strikes against them they have some other things that actually make up for it but a lot of times when people really grow up to become the coldest most calloused and the most evil the most harmful and their behaviors there really wasn't much to balance it out so how does someone heal what is my experience with watching people who get labeled as sociopaths what is my experience with
their healing well why would they come to therapy I've seen people like that who had that label I've seen it in their charts when they came to me they already said here's my here's my chart here's my diagnosis some of them even know it I'm diagnosed as a sociopath I am diagnosed with antisocial personality disorder they're not unaware of it sometimes they even say I don't even know why I'm this way but what I've seen a lot of times is when people come to therapy and they end up with that diagnosis that label or they
get called sociopaths they don't come to therapy because of that label they come to therapy because of other problems often they feel really depressed they feel lonely they feel isolated they feel unfulfilled or they have terrible anxiety sometimes sometimes they can have other sort of psychiatric symptoms that bring them maybe they can get help with something else but what I have seen is when people come to therapy and they have that label the basic way for them to start to heal is to start to connect with the child they were and a lot of times
for me it's just as simple as some me saying tell me your story tell me the story of your life and a lot of times they don't see the relevance of it or they want to avoid it they don't want to know their story and why because their personal story is so painful many times it's easier for them to inflict pain on someone else and to watch someone else suffer than for them to have to go back and relive in any way the painful suffering that they went through so from what I've seen for that
reason when people end up with that see a path label it's a long slow process to slowly be able to look at their story and to slowly begin to integrate it into their life to slowly begin to have empathy for the little child that they were and from what I've seen is when people end up with that label they don't have empathy for themselves they don't even want to think about themselves having been a little pained child but what I've seen is when they do and some people do sometimes it takes a while sometimes actually
people it's it's actually quicker than I would have expected but when people start to tell their stories I've seen it with people who are labeled sociopaths when they start to cry they can start to really grieve they can start to get memories back remember the horrible things that happen to them and sometimes it's absolutely shocking when I hear things it's like how did a five year old live through that how did a five year old live a life where nobody loved them nobody cared about them they were just a pinball in the bowling ball of
other people's lives other people were knocking them down again and again attacking them physically sexually violating them rejecting them never sticking up for them now I bounced that against my life my life wasn't easy as a child I had a lot of really painful stuff happen I had traumas happen all over the place but I also had a lot of positive things going for me I did have people who loved me in various ways some people who loved me a lot and I really feel I credit that with a lot of the good things that
happened to me in my life a lot of the problems I developed later came right out of my traumas but I had a lot of good things going for me so when I listen to someone who when they were a little child had basically nothing going for them nobody defending them nobody caring about them nobody thinking about what's in their best interest it's like it's horrible and it kind of makes sense why people wouldn't want to remember that it's like the last thing in the world anyone would want to remember especially if they look at
themselves as an adult and their defense against dealing with the horror of the world is to saying I'm tough I'm strong nothing can hurt me and yet I've seen them people like this when they come to therapy and they let their guard down and they start to cry and they start to weep and they start to remember the horrible horrible painful things that happened to the and remember how they feel and remember how they felt way back then and they start to recall oh my god my mother wasn't a nice person she was a horrible
person my father was a horrible person these people were evil or maybe I never even had a mother or maybe I never even had a father all I knew was evil and violence and rejection maybe I was passed around from adult to adult or foster care or terrible terrible environments and I think how would I have survived what I have become a manifested adult to the degree that I am now with a healthy life to the degree that I have if I've gone through that and I think no absolutely not that's what I listen to
these people and I've watched them over time some times over many many years reconnect with their feelings grieve come in week after we can cry and recall what happened to them and begin to integrate it and have someone aka me who sits there and is paid to listen to them and respect them and to say wait a second that wasn't right what you went through that wasn't fair what you went through someone who empathizes with the child they were and the child that still is within them buried but it's slowly becoming unburied what I've seen
with these people if they become less evil it becomes harder for them to harm other people so easily so unconsciously what happens is they begin to have empathy with other people and I've seen it I've heard them say it I've heard them say oh I was in an environment normally I would have punched that person on it would have done some horrible manipulative violent thing to this person and I just looked at them and I thought oh my god I couldn't do it or maybe for a moment I couldn't do it or I remembered how
I felt and they start reflecting in the moment of their horribleness on who they are and they start thinking I'm not the way I used to be I can't be that anymore and I have seen people change I've seen people who were diagnosed with antisocial personality disorder diagnosed sociopaths who slowly no longer fit the criteria for that I've seen it and and so when people say oh it's impossible for sociopaths to heal they'll never change they'll never heal well I think for a lot of people with that diagnosis with that label they never do but
that's because they never have a healing environment in which to do it now another thing is not everyone who's come to me when I was a therapist not everyone I've met in my life in that healing kind of setting does do that change some people defend against it some people realize wait a second I don't want to go into that I don't want to feel weak I don't want to feel vulnerable I don't want to cry they get angry at me sometimes they feel like I'm manipulating them into trying to feel those feelings oh I
get it you're one of those people who's just gonna sit there and get me to cry in front of you I ain't gonna do it I never went through all that I was tough that never hurt me at all I was never harmed as a kid I'm not traumatized etc etc and often straight up they quit therapy or they make it very clear that that's not what they want to discuss they want to discuss something else now I can't force anyone to try to deal with their traumas as a therapist I never forced anyone to
do anything but I could be patient I could wait and what I did see sometimes is people who had that label they could come to therapy for one two three years and never face that stuff but they could keep coming back and maybe one day maybe one year down the road two years down the road three years down the road who knows maybe in the future tender years down the road with a different therapist or in some different environment they could say you know I do want to look at what happened to me I do
want someone to hear my story I do want someone who can possibly witness me and maybe see that I wasn't a worthless unimportant non-existent object of a child maybe there is a possibility that I did have some value and maybe I can cry maybe someday I will be ready for it and I've seen people also years later begin to thaw out and to start their feelings again and begin the process toward becoming a human being again [Music]
