Awesome post, Shwets ... hmm, all the points you brought up really fit Shyam to the T ... including the over-confidence. Also, most psychopaths that I have read about DON'T have a valid reason for their behaviour, or at least not a reason that any sane person would call valid. After reading your post, I did some research of my own (kya karoon, aadat se majboor!)
"Likeable,"
"Charming," "Intelligent," "Alert," "Impressive," "Confidence-inspiring,"
and "A great success with the ladies": often found as descriptions of psychopaths.
But the defining traits, from what I read, are two or three - shallow emotions, to the point of a lack of emotions, and a lack of conscience - they simply do not believe that what they are doing is wrong. which is why it's difficult to correct them or cure them - their main motivation is not to improve, but merely a desire not to get caught. Interestingly, most are not violent, they turn to violence only if unsuccessful, they are much more likely to be cunning and manipulative, and their high verbal intelligence and superfical charm helps their manipulative powers. Again, fits Shyam, he has been violent only with Shashi, because Shashi caught him out. Now Khushi has, but she is safer, because with her, the entire Gupta family has found out his lies.
Another interesting trait is a need for stimulation and being prone to boredom - living on the edge, manipulating, lying, cheating, because they actually enjoy doing it. Again, fits Shyam - he's cheating on Anjali because he's bored with her (now that one is actually understandable! Poor Anjali!) ... and not because he's fallen out of love with her ... he was never in love with her at all.
They also DON'T appear to have any long term goals and live day to day ... they don't think about the future ... something which has always bothered me about Shyam - as to HOW he expected to get away with his plans of marrying Khushi !
And yes, hair trigger temper is another feature, poor behavioural control as you said ... that's another very common feature, especially when their plans don't work out. And we've seen that with Shyam a couple of times, when he beat up the rickshawvala and the doctor.
There are lots more that I read and they do fit Shyam ... to keep this post short and stop people falling asleep, I'm leaving them out! 😛
DTeacher ... am not familiar with narcissistic personality disorder, however I agree many of these personality disorders do show overlap and need a long period of observation to accurately define which one it is ... but as the treatment is pretty similar, it may be a matter of semantics at the end of the day. But judging from the common traits I read, the cv's do seem to have done some homework into this character after all (surprise, surprise! 😆)
Someone mentioned DSM IV - apparently from DSM III onwards, psychopath is no longer used as a diagnosis, the term is now "anti-social personality disorder".
Sush ... another feature is that they lie compulsively, but NOT very intelligently ... so increase the chances of their being found out ... as happened with Shyam ... all his lies finally caught up with him.
Shwets ... you made a geeky post, and asked me to comment ... sorry, I made it even more geeky! 😳 😲
Edited by DiyaS - 12 years ago
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