Sanctuary for the Abused
Wednesday, September 29, 2010
Liar! Liar!
How to tell when you’re not being told the straight story
By Cynthia Hubert
SACRAMENTO BEE
You think you can tell when he’s lying.
His eyes dart back and forth. He can’t keep his hands still. He stutters and stumbles over his words.
Deception is written all over him, right? Not necessarily.
Nailing a fibber is not nearly as easy or instinctive as most people think, say scientists, authors and other keen observers of the art of deception.
“There is no simple checklist,” says Gregory Hartley, a former military interrogator who applies the techniques he used on enemy combatants in a new book for civilians, “How To Spot a Liar.”
But with a little practice, Hartley insists, you, too, can become a human lie detector.
It is a skill that has challenged us through the ages, says Dallas Denery, a professor of medieval history at Bowdoin College in Maine who is working on a book about the history of lying. “The problem of lies and liars has been with us forever,” he says. “In the Judeo-Christian tradition, history really begins with a lie, with Adam and Eve and the serpent.”
Fast forward to modern times and a 2002 study suggesting that most people lie in everyday conversation. Researchers at the University of Massachusetts observed people talking for 10 minutes and found that 60 percent of them lied at least once, telling an average of two to three fibs. Some of the lies were benign, but others were extreme, including one person who falsely claimed to be a rock star.
“We didn’t expect lying to be such a common part of daily life,” one of the researchers, Robert Feldman, observed after the study was published.
Over the years, CIA agents, police detectives, psychologists, lawyers and others have tried a variety of methods to identify liars, from polygraph machines to “voice stress analysis” to analysis of barely perceptible facial movements that can give away hidden feelings. None of the techniques has been foolproof.
And the search for the truth continues. The science of liars and lying remains a hot topic in research circles, and book after book offers the latest theory about how to tell when a spouse is cheating, a witness is lying in court or a car salesman is overstating the value of a vehicle.
Check out just a few of the titles on the subject at www.amazon.com: “Lies and Liars: Pinocchio’s Nose and Less Obvious Clues,” “Liar! A Critique of Lies and the Act of Lying,” “When Your Lover Is a Liar,” and “The Concise Book of Lying.” It’s enough to shatter your trust in humanity.
John Mayoue, an Atlanta divorce lawyer who has represented famous clients - including Jane Fonda in her breakup with Ted Turner - says lying is rampant in his business.
“In the courtroom, there is no end to the lying, particularly if money is at stake,” Mayoue says. “The more money, the bigger the lies.”
The greatest lie in relationships, he says, is “Honey, I love you but I’m no longer in love with you. That’s someone’s way of saying they’re cheating on you.”
The Internet culture has made lying practically a sport, Mayoue observes. “You just have to assume that you’re in the midst of a liar’s ball when you’re online,” he says. “It’s a fantasy realm. I can’t see you. I can’t look at signals. I can’t test you. There is no verification.”
In court and in daily life, Mayoue believes, a person’s eyes tell the truest story.
“Looking at someone in an unwavering manner and answering the question is very telling,” he says. “When I see eyes shift side to side and up and down, it just causes suspicion.”
Hartley, the former interrogator, agrees that body language can hint at deception. But not always, he says. “Your eyes drift naturally when you’re searching for information,” he says. “I’ve never met anyone who doesn’t move their eyes when looking for details.”
The key to uncovering a lie, he says, is knowing how the liar behaves normally, when he or she is relaxed, and picking up on changes in voice patterns, eye movement and other body language.
“You’ve got to ask the right questions, then observe how that person responds,” Hartley says.
Signs of stress, which may signal that someone is lying, include flared nostrils and audible breathing, shaky hands and elbows moving closer to the ribs, according to Hartley.
“Stress does horrible things to our brains,” he says. “Stress hormones can virtually turn off your brain and make you become reactive.”
For the most notorious liars, the tendency to fib may be biological, suggests a study by researchers at the University of Southern California.
Pathological liars, the scientists found, have structural differences in their brains that could affect their abilities to feel remorse and learn moral behavior and might give them an advantage in planning deceitful strategies, the researchers discovered. Other scientists have suggested that pathological liars owe their behavior to the psychiatric diagnoses known as narcissism or sociopathy, and may truly believe their own falsehoods.
But the average, everyday fibber lies to achieve a goal, says communication expert Laurie Puhn, author of the best-selling book “Instant Persuasion, How To Change Your Words To Change Your Life.” Most people lie to avoid hurting someone’s feelings, to avoid a commitment or a task, to cover up bad behavior or to elevate themselves professionally or personally, she says.
Puhn advises people who suspect someone is lying to ask unexpected questions, look for contradictions in their statements and ask a follow-up question a couple of days later about the suspected lie.
“If someone says they had to work late to deal with a new client and you are suspicious, ask them about it a week later,” she says. “They’re likely to answer, ‘What new client?’ It’s hard for liars to keep their lies straight.”
Bettyanne Bruin, who parlayed her experiences with a former partner into a book and a support group for people who have been deceived, says the first step toward detecting a liar is overcoming denial.
“People tend to ignore the red flags,” says Bruin, author of “Shattered: Six Steps From Betrayal to Recovery.” “Their gut tells them what is going on, but they really do want to believe the best about the person they love.”
The most critical sign that a partner is lying, she says, is defensiveness.
“Liars are very defensive when you question them,” says Bruin. “They will become very resistant and angrier and angrier upon each attempt to probe.” Often, she says, they make their partners feel guilty about questioning them. “They’ll say, ‘You’re being unreasonable,’ or ‘Why are you treating me this way?’ ”
Types of lies
Joseph Tecce, an associate professor of psychology at Boston College who has studied liars and lying, identifies six types of untruths, some more egregious than others.
He classifies them as:
The ‘protective’ lie, which can shield the liar from danger.
The ‘heroic’ lie, created to protect someone else from danger or punishment.
The ‘playful’ lie, such as an angler’s fib about the size of his fish.
The ‘ego’ lie, designed to shield someone from embarrassment.
The ‘gainful’ lie, which somehow enriches the fibber.
And the ‘malicious’ lie, told to deliberately hurt someone else.
Labels: con man, deception, fraud, infidelity, liar, narcissist, sociopath
Tuesday, September 21, 2010
Batterer Intervention - Does It Work?
Research on Batterer Intervention Programs
“Can people who batter change?”
This is a common question with a complicated answer. Some people do make changes in their actions and the beliefs that underlie the violence. Such change takes a long period of time. And some people may not change, even if they attend a batterer intervention program. In fact, thousands of people attend this program, often against their will. For example, everyone convicted of a domestic violence offense in California is required to attend a 52-week batterer intervention program.
These programs should not be called “treatment” because people who batter are not “sick” or “ill” but must change their belief system that justifies violence in their relationships. Effective batterer intervention programs are not “anger management” programs because abusive behavior comes from beliefs justifying power and control, not from anger.
Just because an abuser attends a batterer intervention group, abusive behavior may not stop. In most research many people in these groups do commit violence after they have enrolled. Victims should continue to determine whether or not they feel safe.
Successful batterer intervention programs rely on the coordinated community response that includes law enforcement, the courts, probation department, and domestic violence advocates. Only when a community takes domestic violence seriously with clear and consistent consequences, do batterer intervention programs exist in the environment where people can change.
In all measures (surveys, reports to police, injuries in hospitals, calls to hotlines), men commit most incidents of domestic violence. Most batterer intervention program focus on men and address issues of male socializations that contribute to violence beliefs and behavior. While some women are arrested for domestic violence, most of them are primarily victims of domestic violence who have committed a violent act. While there are some programs for lesbians, gay men and women who batter, the majority of research focuses on heterosexual men who batter.
It is difficult to measure success. Good research should not be limited to one factor. Look at many measures over a long period of time, such as: change in attitudes, re-arrest/police/probation records, self-reports of abuse, and partner reports of abuse.
There are many types of programs. Some prominent organizations that provide training and have developed a curriculum are:
Duluth Domestic Abuse Intervention Project
206 West Fourth Street
Duluth, MN 55806
(218) 722-2781
Emerge
2380 Massachusetts Avenue, Suite 101
Cambridge, MA 02140
(617) 547-9879
Manalive
30 Monterey Blvd.
San Francisco, CA 94131
(415) 239-8050
manalive@igc.org
Men Overcoming Violence (MOVE)
1385 Mission Street, Suite 300
San Francisco, CA 94103
(415) 626-MOVE
Volunteer Counseling Service (VCS)
Community Change Project
77 S. Main Street
New City, NY 10956
(914) 634-5729
Here is some recent research, evaluation and commentary on this issue:
Edleson, Do Batterers’ Programs Work?, 1995
Gondolf, Multi-Site Evaluation of Batterer Intervention Systems: Summary of the 15-month Follow-up, 1997
Gondolf, Multi-Site Evaluation of Batterer Intervention Systems: A Summary of Findings for a 12-month Follow-up, 1997
Gondolf, Characteristics of Batterers in a Multi-Site Evaluation of Batterer Intervention Systems, 1995
Gondolf, Discharge Criteria for Batterer Programs, 1995
Gondolf, Men Who Batter: A Selected Bibliography, 1995
Montreal Men Against Sexism, Limits and Risks of “Programs for Wife Batterers”, 1995
Tolman and Edleson, Intervention for Men Who Batter: A Review of Research, 1995
from Support Network for Battered Women
Labels: abusers, batterers, change, entitlement., intervention, pathological, sociopaths
Monday, September 20, 2010
Psychologist Explains the Psyche of Psychopaths
By April Wilkerson
When news broke of the alleged BTK Killer's capture in Wichita, it sparked new discussions and feelings toward a decades-old case: fear, relief, intrigue about such a person.
Public interest in serial killings and psychopaths is always high, says a local psychologist. But her involvement in the field is from a more analytical perspective.
Dr. Sue Stone is a clinical psychologist at the Citizen Potawatomi Nation in Shawnee, a position she's held since January. Although her work here is in general psychology and therapy, her specialty area is psychopathy, and she came from three years' work at the Department of Corrections, doing criminal court evaluations, consulting on capital murder cases and more.
Stone says there's an adage in her field: Not all psychopaths are serial killers, but all serial killers are psychopaths. While psychopaths as serial killers are a relatively rare phenomenon, there are people functioning in society who exhibit various degrees of psychopathic behavior in their daily lives, she said.
That makes the term psychopath a relative one, but there are definite characteristics of such people, Stone said.
Psychopaths demonstrate antisocial behavior and an aggressive narcissism -- they use people through charm, intimidation or violence, she said.
"They have a parasitic lifestyle -- they live off people. Their whole mindset is domination over other people," she said. "Psychopaths are not necessarily criminal in their activities, but they are attracted to positions of power. They have no anxiety about their behavior.
"Psychopaths see themselves as wronged. They can be paranoid, feel persecuted, feel a need for revenge. They harbor a lot of persecutory beliefs." (i.e. - They are the victim, not you, in their heads)
There also is a lot of thrill-seeking with psychopathic behavior, Stone said. Over time, there will be an escalation of their behavior because they've gotten sensitized to a certain act, but then have to "up the ante" to capture the thrill they seek, she said.
That may be the case with the alleged BTK Killer, who resurfaced with letters to the media after not being heard from in a while, Stone said.
"Psychopaths have a need for recognition, not just a need for attention," she said. "They have a sense of being invincible, of 'I can outsmart you.' They're taken in by their own narcissism. It's almost like a game."[Sociopaths] often take "souvenirs" from their victims -- pictures, jewelry, lock of hair -- to remind them later, Stone said. "They want to keep that image, the fantasy of that control going," she said.
In the BTK case, Dennis Rader has been arrested and charged in the killings of 10 people beginning in 1974. His seemingly normal life as a churchgoer and Scout leader has shocked many, but that type of appearance is not unheard-of in psychopaths, Stone said.
"It's a misnomer to think that if we saw a psychopath, he would look odd. Often, that's not the case," she said. "A psychopathic individual can be a chameleon and learn to act a certain way. That advances their opportunity to engage in certain behaviors because who would suspect?"
Often, people think that childhood abuse can create psychopathy in adults, Stone said. Childhood trauma certainly can aggravate psychopathic tendencies, but it's not a cause-effect relationship, she said. Research over the last 10-15 years is supporting the notion that psychopathy is related to a genotype (aka - GENETIC), she said.
Psychopaths also differ in that their intellectual and emotional understanding of things don't match. Stone said psychologist Robert Hare has a saying for this condition: Psychopaths know the words but don't know the music when it comes to emotions.
"They know intellectually what it is to be sad, but their empathy and regard for other people is not there," Stone said. "They can mimic the feeling, but they really can't put words to how they feel because they don't have that internal experience."
There is no known treatment for psychopaths; rather, behavior management is the course of action, Stone said. Psychopaths don't say, "I need help" because they see others as the cause of their problems; they don't have anxiety to prohibit their behavior, she said.
And studies have shown that group therapy not only doesn't work for psychopaths, it makes their behavior worse, Stone said. They use the therapy setting as practice for manipulating people.
One percent of the general population in the United States meets the criteria for psychopaths, Stone said. But the percentage is 15-20 percent in prisons because of the criminal activity psychopaths often engage in.
Instances like the BTK case often create anxiety or spark fears in people, Stone said. But it can be a good time for people to reassess their safety precautions in their homes, cars and when dealing with strangers.
"There's a certain amount of trust that goes into our daily interactions with people," Stone said. "It's important for people to realize when dealing with strangers that they need to take some precautions."Most people want to trust and help others, but that's just the position that Ted Bundy took advantage of, she said. He would act hurt and request assistance from women -- even using props like a cast -- then as soon as they were close enough, he would abduct them, she said.
Simple actions such as locking doors at home and in the car are important, but so is protecting yourself in a vulnerable position, Stone said. It's OK to call the office of a repair company to check a person's credentials, she said, and if a stranger comes to your door asking to use the phone, ask him to step to the curb, then call the police.
"It doesn't mean we need to be suspicious of everybody. We couldn't function in life; we have to have some sense of trust," she said. "The BTK case brings up issues of safety. It's a good time to look at what areas we can be safer in our day-to-day life, while realizing that serial killers are a relatively rare phenomenon."
SOURCE
BUT SOCIOPATHS ARE NOT A RARE PHENOMENON - THE MAJORITY OF SOCIOPATHS EXPLOIT OTHERS BUT DO NOT KILL - CLICK HERE FOR MORE
Labels: control, exploitative, mental, narcissism, power, psychopath, sociopath
FRAUD WARNING: SANDRA BROWN MA
