Hidden Suffering of the Psychopath

Willem H.J. Martens* has published his book, heavily featuring some of the readers of this website and participants of the forum.  Martens says: "The money (8 dollars) is for our Kahn Institute os Theoretical Psychiatry and Neuroscience."

About the book:

This book provides new insight in the nature of psychopathy. On basis of analysis anonymous self-reports and case reports of members of an internet forum for psychopaths it was concluded that psychopaths are suffering too and demonstrate a different psychodynamic mechanism as was proposed untill now. Dr. Martens is a forensic psychiatrist/psychoanalyst who published in many international journas.


It is for behavioral scientists, forensic psychiatrists/psychotherapists, criminologists and staff members of forensic psychiatric hospitals extremely important to know how persons with psychopathy experience their disorder and how do they think about their behavior, tendencies and attitude. Until now this is not clarified. 

Psychopaths might regard their features, attitude and behavior quite differently than their non-psychopathic counterparts and researchers do. This distinction might be the result of a) ignorance of non-psychopaths about the true nature of this complex disorder, b) a very different perspective of psychopaths and non-psychopaths in analyzing this phenomenon, c) the fact that most empirical data is gathered from incarnated, criminal populations who are very able to manipulate tests (most of them know much about the PCL-R), asessments, researchers, and therapists (just for fun, revenge, hatred, or disgust) and d) a lack of utilization of and unavailability of reliable and voluntary self-reports of psychopaths in informal settings, and so on. Informal, non-academic and non-clinical settings are important because the psychopaths I investigated hate formal academic and clinical settings because they consider them as bulwarks of repressing authority which are harmful for them. They consider current theories and concepts of psychopathy as inadequate, incomplete, incorrect, stereotype which bring about stigmatization. 

I revealed that reliable self-reports of psychopaths (which would not have negative consequences) were posted on the anonymous internet forum discussion for psychopaths (www.SociopathWorld.com). I discovered that Internet Forums of Psychopaths were true goldmines of information which form the missing link in current research, treatment and theorizing. On the internet forum the participants can tell their stories, concerns and discuss their items freely and anonymously. They trust the fellow psychopaths and their stories are really revealing and provide profound analysis of their behavior and many unknown details. Their otherwise defensive attitude appeared to be vanished and it seems that they are able to help and support each other. Potentially persons with very violent tendencies are guided and supported by other forum participants in a rather “social” way in order to stay out of problems and avoid harmfulness. Many visitors of the forum tell that the discussions and the chance to tell their true stories caused relief for them and there were many we were thankful to be part of a sort of community which gave their life structure and new insights.


*Willem H. J. Martens - MD, PhD - Composer and Chair of W. Kahn Institute of Theoretical Psychiatry and Neuroscience and Advisor appointed by the European Commission (Leonardo da Vinci). Address: Henk van Tienhovenstraat 67, 6543JB Nijmegen (Gelderland), The Netherlands.