I bought an awesome book ‘Authentic love’ by Brennan Mullaney and this is what he had to say in one of his chapters.
“All emotional and mental disorders except the organic, are wounds of the psychospiritual heart, symptomatic expressions of love damaged, love rejected, betrayed, perverted, twisted, lost or never received.”
When we hear of people with the dark triad traits, the last word you want to associate with them is love. But the truth is childhood trauma that evolves from any form of emotional deprivation can develope into psychic wounds, that cause great suffering from the centre of the soul.
With Psychopathy and to a large extend sadism, the traits are about 50% genetically inherited. So a psychopath dad could end up with a psychopath son, but then growing up in an aggressive environment with a twisted sense of love, or a home with no realistic limits and rules for self control can make the condition lethal.
Psychopaths according to S. James of ABC see people as a piece of furniture and the empathy that allows you and I to feel others or for others is completely missing. Their brains are simply wired differently she adds.
How can this be detected in Teenagers?
Growing up around the age of 7 to 13 should be filled with fun things like sports and other social activities both at school and at home. But pre psychopaths, are more interested in finding something to get into. They prey on people, so unlike kids who are just mischievous, they have a predation about them, thier acts are planned, for a purpose with a goal.
Recent studies from university of western Australia have shown a link between academic misconduct like cheating and plagiarism with dark triad traits. Student with the traits exhibit academic entitlement ( remember entitlement grandiosity are part of these traits.) These students believe in externalised responsibilities; this implies that such students feel that responsibility for learning lies less with them and more with others. There is also “entitled expectations” — the feeling that they deserve lenient grading for one excuse or the other, or simply justify cheating because they believe learning is not thier responsibility.
Psychopaths also don’t feel guilty, they could be described as having a deficiency of anxiety, they remain cool in every situation and beacuse they are well focused, great manipulators and in most cases charming they are usually well liked, even after doing the most dangerous things.
So if a child continuously hurts others with no remorse, commits an offence and is quick to blame others for such, tell lies with no shame when discovered and acts entitled in every situation, then you could start asking questions. It could just be teenage tantrums but it could also be something deeper brewing in the dark.
What can be done?
Parenting styles go a long way to help, most teenagers might come across as self centered, but a parent must pay attention to the patterns. Loving a child and being too permissive can be harmful but also being too authoritarian can drive the child away. What is important is to put in structures and limits and remain present and mindful of the growing and evolving child.