The Advanced Writer's Club

[Make_a__Scene]

Rolly, sorry, I didn't actually write that correctly. I thought that I put those particular characters I was talking about were also sociopaths. Sociopathy coupled with narcissism breeds psychopaths. And you're right; empathy is the basis of love, so if people have a hard time with empathy they'll have a hard time with love. There are a number of other personality disorders besides schizoid and psychopaths that also have trouble with empathy.
I'm also a psych student, and I plan on going to grad school for child psychology, so... I don't really know what happened in my last post; I could have sworn that I mentioned the sociopathy. That's what I get for trying to post after a 110 question test. -.-

[Rolly-chan]

Yay, another psych student |D *happy*
No worries, though, it's a compulsion I have because I always think, hey, maybe that person will then start a conversation with me about it *_* haha xD
I've always found psychopaths fascinating (and I'm still confused about when people use the term sociopath and when psychopath, since some use it synonymously, but others use psychopath only for those sociopaths that also committed a crime, or whatever XD). Robert Hare's stories (for all who don't know: Hare is the leading researcher on the topic of psychopathy) are wonderful on that topic. I love the one where he interviewed a psychopath in an interrogation room and the psychopath offered him a cup of tea (coffee? water?) and when he took a sip the psychopath said "what would you do if I had poisoned it?". I believe that was when he was still inexperienced. And it teaches you humility. At least I thought so, because I know I haven't had much experience in my desired field. And experience gives you a lot.
Well, other than the schizotypal personality disorder (and the antisocial one - though most people pack psychopathy/sociopathy under this type of disorder) I don't know of further disorders that impair the empathy so much that you are rendered unable to feel some kind of love.
The definition of love is another issue, so it's all hazy anyway XD

Child psychology. Nice :3 I'm doing my thesis about children's testimonies. I don't know if you have heard of the Narrative Elaboration Interview? It's a way (or can I say technique?) of interviewing children with picture cards by Saywitz and Snyder. In America it's got good results already, but in Germany, we don't have studies with bigger samples. Sadly, we probably won't get that much bigger a sample, but whatever xD

Excuse my excitement, but it's nice meeting other psych students on the net, especially ones not from Germany ^^

(and maybe some people can take profit for their stories from our discussion? xD Yes, I'm really using that excuse to justify this off-topic post )

[crescent + cheep]

Yay, another psych student |D *happy*
No worries, though, it's a compulsion I have because I always think, hey, maybe that person will then start a conversation with me about it *_* haha xD
I've always found psychopaths fascinating (and I'm still confused about when people use the term sociopath and when psychopath, since some use it synonymously, but others use psychopath only for those sociopaths that also committed a crime, or whatever XD). Robert Hare's stories (for all who don't know: Hare is the leading researcher on the topic of psychopathy) are wonderful on that topic. I love the one where he interviewed a psychopath in an interrogation room and the psychopath offered him a cup of tea (coffee? water?) and when he took a sip the psychopath said "what would you do if I had poisoned it?". I believe that was when he was still inexperienced. And it teaches you humility. At least I thought so, because I know I haven't had much experience in my desired field. And experience gives you a lot.
Well, other than the schizotypal personality disorder (and the antisocial one - though most people pack psychopathy/sociopathy under this type of disorder) I don't know of further disorders that impair the empathy so much that you are rendered unable to feel some kind of love.
The definition of love is another issue, so it's all hazy anyway XD

Child psychology. Nice :3 I'm doing my thesis about children's testimonies. I don't know if you have heard of the Narrative Elaboration Interview? It's a way (or can I say technique?) of interviewing children with picture cards by Saywitz and Snyder. In America it's got good results already, but in Germany, we don't have studies with bigger samples. Sadly, we probably won't get that much bigger a sample, but whatever xD

Excuse my excitement, but it's nice meeting other psych students on the net, especially ones not from Germany ^^

(and maybe some people can take profit for their stories from our discussion? xD Yes, I'm really using that excuse to justify this off-topic post )

yep I am taking profit off of this (:
especially as someone who is interested in psychology and possibly wants to study it later on.

on another note - do you prefer writing dialogue like this, with constant "she grinned" "james said" ;
"I'm leaving town tomorrow" james told her, grimacing
"Oh..." Sara replied, looking crestfallen that he wouldn't be able to come to the concert.
"Maybe another time," he added, trying to cheer her up.
yes this is a horrible example slap me
or more like this:
"I'm sorry"
"Not you're not"
"Yes I am! just because I don't sound like it"
"Shut up, just shut up, you never make things better!"

without constant remarks on how the character said it, and describing the situation beforehand.

[Rolly-chan]

yep I am taking profit off of this (:
especially as someone who is interested in psychology and possibly wants to study it later on.

Yay, justification accomplished XD

on another note - do you prefer writing dialogue like this, with constant "she grinned" "james said" ;
"I'm leaving town tomorrow" james told her, grimacing
"Oh..." Sara replied, looking crestfallen that he wouldn't be able to come to the concert.
"Maybe another time," he added, trying to cheer her up.
yes this is a horrible example slap me
or more like this:
"I'm sorry"
"Not you're not"
"Yes I am! just because I don't sound like it"
"Shut up, just shut up, you never make things better!"

without constant remarks on how the character said it, and describing the situation beforehand.

I prefer the latter. Well, not all the time. It's perfectly fine to add lines like that from time to time (especially if it's something like "he added" when someone really adds something), but if you can recognize the character just from the way he talks, I think it speaks louder :3
And although I like short pieces of writing only in dialogue (which is also an interesting challenge, if you think about it), in a normal narrative I'd try to avoid "talking heads" (just dialogue after dialogue).
But I guess you just left it out because that wasn't part of your question x"D

[Make_a__Scene]

Yay, another psych student |D *happy*
No worries, though, it's a compulsion I have because I always think, hey, maybe that person will then start a conversation with me about it *_* haha xD
I've always found psychopaths fascinating (and I'm still confused about when people use the term sociopath and when psychopath, since some use it synonymously, but others use psychopath only for those sociopaths that also committed a crime, or whatever XD). Robert Hare's stories (for all who don't know: Hare is the leading researcher on the topic of psychopathy) are wonderful on that topic. I love the one where he interviewed a psychopath in an interrogation room and the psychopath offered him a cup of tea (coffee? water?) and when he took a sip the psychopath said "what would you do if I had poisoned it?". I believe that was when he was still inexperienced. And it teaches you humility. At least I thought so, because I know I haven't had much experience in my desired field. And experience gives you a lot.
Well, other than the schizotypal personality disorder (and the antisocial one - though most people pack psychopathy/sociopathy under this type of disorder) I don't know of further disorders that impair the empathy so much that you are rendered unable to feel some kind of love.
The definition of love is another issue, so it's all hazy anyway XD

Child psychology. Nice :3 I'm doing my thesis about children's testimonies. I don't know if you have heard of the Narrative Elaboration Interview? It's a way (or can I say technique?) of interviewing children with picture cards by Saywitz and Snyder. In America it's got good results already, but in Germany, we don't have studies with bigger samples. Sadly, we probably won't get that much bigger a sample, but whatever xD

Excuse my excitement, but it's nice meeting other psych students on the net, especially ones not from Germany ^^

(and maybe some people can take profit for their stories from our discussion? xD Yes, I'm really using that excuse to justify this off-topic post )

I was born in Germany, but I've been living in the US most of my life. What?

Well, sociopathy and psychopathy are used synonymously a lot, but from my understanding psychopathy is more often used when referring to psychoticism.
I believe there is psychosis, antisocial personality disorder, dissocial personality disorder, apathy (on unusually high levels), and a few others that I can't think of that have a basis in impaired empathy.

I've been trying to dabble with characters who are antisocial, but I don't know how much success I've had with that quite yet. I also have one particular character who is extremely asocial, but that doesn't really have anything to do with sociopathy.

On the dialogue note, I write with a mix. It gets tedious and unnecessary to write "he said/she said" after each little quote, and it starts sounding like children's literature.

[Rolly-chan]

[size=85]I was born in Germany, but I've been living in the US most of my life. What?

Well, sociopathy and psychopathy are used synonymously a lot, but from my understanding psychopathy is more often used when referring to psychoticism.

I think the debate is still going on, about which terms to use, and who uses which terms, and all that xD It still confuses me quite a bit (that bit about psychoticism does make sense, though, since psychopathy doesn't really mean anything that contributes to a psychopath xD). Hare's explanation is that some people use sociopathy because they believe that social factors are the main cause for that condition, while psychopathy is used by those that believe it's caused by psychological, genetic and biological factors such as neurochemical imbalance, certain genes that make you vulnerable to develop it, etc. But although I like that differentiation, it still confuses me XD

I believe there is psychosis, antisocial personality disorder, dissocial personality disorder, apathy (on unusually high levels), and a few others that I can't think of that have a basis in impaired empathy.

The antisocial personality disorder is from the DSM, while the dissocial personality disorder is from the ICD, and they're pretty much the same but for some slight differences. Psychosis isn't a personality disorder, and doesn't really mean you have problems with empathy. Psychotic patients lose touch with the real world from time to time (not all the time), which can manifest itself as delusions, hallucinations, agitated states and such (and also withdrawal symptoms and apathy, but that's only when they're in a psychotic state). A severe form of a psychosis is schizophrenia, for example, and schizophrenic patients have lucid times, too. And they certainly can feel and exhibit empathy and love. They just don't always walk in the same space and time as the rest of us.
Some books, TV shows and movies depict it pretty well what it approximately looks like when a person is currently in a psychotic state (like Criminal Minds, crime shows in general when there's a character with a mental disorder in the episode, the movie Silver Linings, American Psycho - though that one's also a bit on the psychopathic side, ...).
Schizophrenia with negative symptoms (as in apathy, motionlessness, slow reaction to stimuli, etc) is regarded as worse than one with positive symptoms (as in delusions, hallucinations, etc), because there are therapies and meds that help with the positive symptoms, but it's hard as hell to alleviate the negative ones. And the ones with a negative symptomatology of course also have shallow emotions, including little empathy. But they also won't show much else other than apathetically standing or sitting around, not saying and moving much.
But we're talking about the ability to feel love here, and psychotic patients are able to during their lucid times.

I must make a brief break here and marvel at all the things I can still remember about all that o_o The mind's a wondrous place.

I've been trying to dabble with characters who are antisocial, but I don't know how much success I've had with that quite yet. I also have one particular character who is extremely asocial, but that doesn't really have anything to do with sociopathy.

Oooh, I'd love to read that if you have it available. I'm a bit sad that there aren't more antagonists like The Joker, for example (who is a psychopath, and Christopher Nolan's depiction of that is viewed as really good by several psychiatrists and psychologists). It seems like the vast majority wants antagonists that have incredibly good reasons and can be comprehended on an emotional level, while I want psychopaths, who simply are not emotionally comprehensible. xD
You simply can't beat psychopaths in twisted-ness. /D
Which is why my main antagonist in my current original story is a psychopath. I'm not very nice towards my characters in that story, and it's kind of scary how sadistic I am with them XD
I think the character with the worst past in this story is Stella, who was abused and forced by her parents to make animal and later human sacrifices and who now has a split personality because of it. I say only split and not multiple because she only houses one more person inside her. I know that dissociative personality disorder aka multiple personality disorder is a controversial topic, because some deny that it even exists, but for my story, which is in the supernatural genre anyway, I've decided that it does exist xD
The other characters aren't that much better off, though. All of them have experienced some sort of trauma. It's kind of a prerequisite for the positions they have.
I think all of my sadistic tendencies will be used up in that story XD
Anyway, I needed a really twisted antagonist for my plot, and a psychopath was the best choice. I guess I won't be posting that story on CS *lol*

[Artesian]

Just wanted to say that Rolly-chan and Scene, I'm really enjoying listening in on this conversation. Your explanation of psychosis really is making sense. :3

One thing I'm curious about is multiple personality disorders. I have a character, Markov, that has two personalities, and I tried hard to make it accurate, but due to the rarity of the disorder I can't find much on the webs that's accurate about it. I do know that most of the multiple-personality characters on CS are really not accurate, but what is?

[Rolly-chan]

Just wanted to say that Rolly-chan and Scene, I'm really enjoying listening in on this conversation. Your explanation of psychosis really is making sense. :3

One thing I'm curious about is multiple personality disorders. I have a character, Markov, that has two personalities, and I tried hard to make it accurate, but due to the rarity of the disorder I can't find much on the webs that's accurate about it. I do know that most of the multiple-personality characters on CS are really not accurate, but what is?

That's actually really hard to tell because, as I said, it's highly controversial. We have seen a video / documentary about that topic in university (a German one, sadly, and I don't remember what documentary anyway right now, but I SHOULD have noted it down somewhere in my notes). They interviewed a woman with over 300 personalities, and Stella is actually a little based on this woman, because she also had to experience sacrifices (though I don't believe she was forced to do it herself - I may be wrong).
That woman had a therapy behind her, and she seemed like your average middle-aged woman if you didn't look close. She had already learned to deal with her other personalities and to live together with them. She also said that it's like with friends and acquaintances. Some you know better and some you know less well. She can kind of "talk" to them inside her mind, but she couldn't explain it well.
Then she led the interviewer team to the place she experienced the sacrifices and suddenly, her whole demeanour changed. She walked, talked and behaved completely differently than before. That was when another personality took over because it was too much for her.
I could look for that documentary this weekend, but I can't promise I'll find it. Other than that you could look that disorder up on the DSM-V or ICD-10. Those manuals list the symptoms and how the personality disorder looks like. Wikipedia is also always a source for that because mostly, the information on personality disorders is taken from those manuals and sometimes other scientific works.
But keep in mind that almost all people with mental/psychological disorders don't really stand out. They mostly behave normal, save for the situations in which their disorder gets the upper hand (like with psychosis, or paranoia, or schizophrenia, etc). Some disorders are apparent almost all the time (like personality disorders, though these people also have their better and worse times), others hide really well.
There was an experiment once where several different people were used as the subjects (some with and some without mental/psychological disorders) and psychologists and psychiatrists and "ordinary" people had to find out which ones had a disorder and which ones didn't, and which disorder they had. Especially if the people are at the end or in the middle of therapy, it's very hard to diagnose it just by observing. I believe all of them got the depressed one wrong, and only one of the psychiatrists, I believe, found the person with social anxiety.

[indebted]

help me help me.
is anyone here a twin, and i mean twins that fight a lot?
no offense.
but i need to know....HOW THEY ACT.

i'm freaking out.
i started a story in Russia and I'm not Russian.
help meeee.

[Rivkah]

help me help me.
is anyone here a twin, and i mean twins that fight a lot?
no offense.
but i need to know....HOW THEY ACT.

i'm freaking out.
i started a story in Russia and I'm not Russian.
help meeee.

I'm not a twin but I know many and my sibling and I are only a couple years apart.

We also get asked a lot if we're twins because we act and look like it, so I partially know what it's like.

Want some help?