Table of contents:
- What does a psychopath feel
- Does a psychopath feel love?
- Can a psychopath fall in love and love?
- Can you have a relationship with a psychopath?
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:
- Failure 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. You want to 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 be interested in: Can a sociopath love? Index- What does a psychopath feel
- Does a psychopath feel love?
- Can a psychopath fall in love and love?
- 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 capacities 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, it is incongruous with said responses. That is, your bodily sensations differ from your actions.
A psychopath has a great lack of empathy for 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. Also, they do not accept responsibility for their own actions and have no regrets or guilt.
Contrary to what one might think, a psychopathic person is usually very attractive on a social level, always showing a superficial character, which leads to other people being liked. However, this is done in order to take advantage of others, since they are usually manipulative people by nature, with a tendency to deceive and with a great sense of grandeur towards their person.
Their affective capacity is superficial so they will value and maintain a relationship with a person to the extent that this is useful to achieve their purposes.
Does a psychopath feel love?
A psychopath does not have the capacity to love as we properly understand it. 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 for the other person to fall in love with him or her. For this reason, he will resort to all the strategies available to him, whether through deception, manipulation, modifications of his personality.
A psychopath sees seduction as a game and seeks to "get" his partner through an expert level of seduction. For this, the psychopathic person, as a result of his narcissistic personality, is able to see the weaknesses of the other person and act appropriately so that he feels that he will be protected by his side.
Can a psychopath fall in love and love?
As we have said before, a psychopath is not capable of love. However, they 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, since 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 others.
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 sexual relations and be unfaithful to their partner, they will not hesitate for a second, because they do not consider how other people may feel in the face of said deception.
On the other hand, it must be taken into account that these types of relationships tend to become toxic, where the psychopath wants by all means that his partner develops a dependence on him. In the following article you will find How to get out of a toxic relationship.
In turn, the trait that characterizes them as aggressiveness can lead to cases of gender violence, where the psychopath abuses both physically and verbally his partner if he does not comply with his demands or if he feels that he 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, DJ, Forth, AE, & Hare, RD (Eds.). (2012). Psychopathy: Theory, research and implications for society (Vol. 88). Springer Science & Business Media.
- Hare, RD (1999). Psychopathy as a risk factor for violence. Psychiatric Quarterly , 70 (3), 181-197.
- Hare, RD, & Neumann, CS (2009). Psychopathy.
- Villa, E. Psychopathology. Jaume I. University 2016.
- Psychopaths.es. Characteristics of a Psychopath in love. Recovered from: