More technical info and unfortunately terminology to assimilate here:
[h=2]Narcissist or Psychopath—How Can You Tell?[/h] We hear the terms all the time, but what is the difference?
https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/spycatcher/201712/narcissist-or-psychopath-how-can-you-tell
A question I am often asked on social media is: What differentiates the narcissist from the psychopath? This is a profound question that has many divergent views depending on who you talk to.
As I have written in previous articles, narcissists, in my experience, are noteworthy for their principal trait of overvaluing themselves at the expense of devaluing others. They think of themselves as special, privileged, entitled, and void of flaws—in other words, they give themselves plenty of latitude while giving others little to none. In their mind, they are always right, and the rules don’t really apply to them. They are incapable of admitting mistakes and taking responsibility. If things work, they believe it is thanks to them. If things fail, it’s the fault of others.
Break
Psychopath By Another Name — Predator
Now we come to the psychopath. Here is where definitions and terms get a bit tricky, because there is little agreement between Robert Hare (the premier expert in the world on psychopaths), criminologists, and mental
health professionals. Compounding all of this, for the average person seeking to educate themselves or help, the DSM-V (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 5th revision) and the World Health Organization’s ICD-10 (The International Statistical Classification of Diseases-10th edition) are frankly no road maps to understanding these individuals who habitually live by taking advantage of others physically, mentally, emotionally, psychologically, or financially—without remorse.
That is why, when I wrote
Dangerous Personalities (link is external) with Toni Sciarra Poynter, I avoided using the term psychopath, choosing instead to use the term predator. I felt that for the average person, this term was easier to understand than all the other terms upon which there was little agreement, such as
sociopath, psychopath, habitual
criminal, or anti-social
personality. If the objective is to keep the public safe—and that is certainly mine—far better to have a term that people can understand and can put to use.
In talking to victims of social predation for more than thirty-five years and in doing research for various books, I found that victims don’t care whether the person who held a knife to their throat or who took their life’s savings is a psychopath or a sociopath. The only thing they care about is recognizing what these individuals are like so they can avoid them or deal with them effectively.
Unfortunately, predators have always been with us, in one form or another, and they’ve been called many things. In the Bible, there are more than six hundred entries dealing with “evil.” Past or present, when people speak of someone who is evil or who has done something evil, what they’re generally talking about is social predation. Victimizing others without a
conscience defines Cain in the book of Genesis, as well as the serial rapist in any university town today.
Social predators live by taking advantage of others. They come in all varieties, shapes, and forms, from every level of society. Some live lawlessly on the streets, mugging people or worse. Others have respectable jobs where they transact mayhem. They see themselves as unrestrained by rules or laws. Morals and ethics, to them, are mere words. They have little or no regard for others and once more, they will take advantage of them finding exploitable weaknesses or the right opportunity. No matter how safe you think you are, social predators will undermine and get around whatever safety mechanisms you have in place. They lack the ability to be introspective or to restrain themselves from doing harm to society and are quite content violating human rights.
What predators have in common is a gross disregard for the sanctity of others. For them, the most important priority isn’t living according to a higher social standard, but rather not getting caught. The Ted Bundys, Bernard Madoffs, and Jerry Sanduskys of this world are impervious to decency. Human lives are something to prey upon in their own chosen way, and they have absolutely no regrets about what they do. They are evil, yes, but more specifically they predators, and as such, they need a human to take advantage of. Unctuous, beguiling, deceptive, mendacious, amoral, cold, degenerate, Machiavellian, malevolent, sleazy, uncaring, wicked, and unfeeling — that is who they are. They differ from the narcissist in that taking advantage of others is their most prized objective in their life.
