Reading sociopaths

I think tarot can pick up on antisocial personality disorder cases just fine. Whether or not any particular READER can interpret that--ymmv. There's a lot of highly specific context to spotting that kind of thing.

Problem one is still using the term "sociopath." I'm never met someone who used that as their catchall term for APD like cases that could reliably spot one. It's not in the DSM, and neither is "psychopath," and there's reasons for that. It's not like the movies or TV or *cough* most of the stories you hear people tell. Frequently people are describing clinical narcissists, etc.

That said I'm not sure how I would spot APD with tarot, though I do have some other mental health specific associations.

ace of swords reversed + devil (upright or reversed) is my personal combo for eating disorders, especially of the restrictive type, which makes sense--it's an addictive behavior, mind over matter to the determent of the body, etc.

I have a friend who shows up as Justice reversed + the Sun reversed whenever he is or is about to go through a significant depressive episode.

Temperance reversed, repeatedly, for people where alcohol is a problem, which is one of those times tarot is so literal it would be funny if it wasn't sad.

Maaaybe the Magician reversed plus the Devil plus one of the sword courts for a high functioning APD case? King of swords reversed would be someone I looked at more closely if the other cards seemed to indicate the need for closer scrutiny.

I don't want to be That Guy in this thread, but a high functioning APD person isn't going to be easy to spot as one might think. The high functioning ones aren't flat at all, and are very, very hard to find out unless they want to be found out.

bonebeach said:

I think tarot can pick up on antisocial personality disorder cases just fine. Whether or not any particular READER can interpret that--ymmv. There's a lot of highly specific context to spotting that kind of thing.

Problem one is still using the term "sociopath." I'm never met someone who used that as their catchall term for APD like cases that could reliably spot one. It's not in the DSM, and neither is "psychopath," and there's reasons for that. It's not like the movies or TV or *cough* most of the stories you hear people tell. Frequently people are describing clinical narcissists, etc.

That said I'm not sure how I would spot APD with tarot, though I do have some other mental health specific associations.

ace of swords reversed + devil (upright or reversed) is my personal combo for eating disorders, especially of the restrictive type, which makes sense--it's an addictive behavior, mind over matter to the determent of the body, etc.

I have a friend who shows up as Justice reversed + the Sun reversed whenever he is or is about to go through a significant depressive episode.

Temperance reversed, repeatedly, for people where alcohol is a problem, which is one of those times tarot is so literal it would be funny if it wasn't sad.

Maaaybe the Magician reversed plus the Devil plus one of the sword courts for a high functioning APD case? King of swords reversed would be someone I looked at more closely if the other cards seemed to indicate the need for closer scrutiny.

I don't want to be That Guy in this thread, but a high functioning APD person isn't going to be easy to spot as one might think. The high functioning ones aren't flat at all, and are very, very hard to find out unless they want to be found out.

Click to expand...

I absolutely agree with you. This reminds me a bit of a thread years ago about using tarot for therapy (by members here with no psychiatric/psychology training, just who "knew" they could do it) and the general consensus - except from those who were determined that THEY were the ones who would be REALLY REALLY GOOD AT IT (caps intended, as I was very angry ! I have a mental health history and I also have bipolar and autistic family members) was that we aren't trained and to try and do anything - even diagnose - that involved genuine mental health issues in any way would be dangerous and would do our clients no good. I think that applies also to "detecting" their conditions. I think that not least because the bipolar family member was misdiagnosed by professionals for years. Good professionals who were very competent and who were doing their very best to help.

APD is very very complex. These things are NOT ping ping check the box GOT IT conditions. None of them are. And a good psychopath (as in one who knows what they are doing) is capable of looking perfectly normal, engaging with you and the rest. I recall - when I was at work in the health service - a truly terrible case where a psychopath was able to talk his way through a mental health assessment at the end of his detention under the mental health act because he had been acting strangely - but he was able to show it was a drug he'd been given, chat, smile, laugh, get released because he hadn't done anything wrong, and there was nothing he did or said to indicate anything out of the ordinary - and went out on the street to murder. It was only at that point that they were actually able to diagnose him.

Not to mention that many people with APD/sociopathy/even psychopathy have no idea that there is anything wrong with them until the day they actually do something outrageous. Some of them never DO do anything wrong. I would be inclined to treat them (assuming that I had the slightest reason to assume) as I would any other person - if they want reading for, I would read for them as I would for anyone else. At what point does one decide they are TOO whatever to read for ?

Decline to read for any reason you like - the person is rude, frightening, has asked the same question 17 times this week, smells so bad you can't sit near them - but not on the basis of some diagnosis we are not qualified to make.

This thread has brought up a sad memory. l had a young man who's mother recommended l see him. He was having difficulties at University.
l do not do reversals of cards so l did a straightforward reading for him. l was able to pick up his anxieties and the fact that he was overthinking things too much., and that there were other difficulties he was coping with. But l was not seeing in the cards (or not being allowed to see) that he had problems way out of my scope, or indeed the tarot's.
If l had known the extent of his problems l would have politely declined the reading. l would have recommended a doctor to his mother rather than a reading.
Unfortunately this dear young man took his own life at the beginning of the year, a few months after the reading.
Nothing in my reading had seen that coming, perhaps to safeguard me. What he did receive from the reading was encouraging and he was pleased and seemed to understand it all.
Usually in a reading l am very intuitive but l just did not pick up on this sad event occurring, which as l mentioned before was perhaps a safeguard for me. And even if l had picked this up what then? you cannot pass that on to the young man or indeed his mother. That would have been utterly against the code of ethics.

It seems to me that unless something is in your frame of reference, you can't see it. What I mean by this, as a "for instance", is: If you have never seen (or been taught) what an elephant is, no matter how the cards try to point out to you that an elephant is in your future, you'll never see anything that resembles an elephant in those cards. So in the same way, unless you have seen (or been taught) that such-n-such may lead to suicide, you'll never see the suicide (only the such-n-such). Same goes for seeing a sociopath, a serial killer, or what have you...
Phew! That made my head hurt...

Yes l see what you mean. We always expect the tarot to show us everything, but l think there are areas that we do not, or should not, need to know, therefore we do not see it in a reading.
For me if l had known at the time, it would have put an enormous stress on me.

Agreed...

I think the diagnosis (especially of the armchair variety) of "sociopath" gets overused these days. There is a tendency to want to pathologise everyone.

Most of the time, the person isn't actually a sociopath, (a thankfully rare occurrence) but rather just an ordinary, garden variety a-hole.

In the same vein, a person can be conceited without being an actual narcissist, the other term that gets tossed out there a lot these days.

It's important to remember this to work with people effectively and honestly. Once you label someone a sociopath or a narcissist they take on a kind of mythic status that just isn't something anyone can work with.

(Not so long ago, it was common to tell a person in an abusive relationship that she was a masochist. I think it's pretty easy now to see how that wasn't helpful. )

Good point...