Psychodynamic structures: who you became.

This is the fourth article in a series on understanding psychopathy. Previous articles covered the framework, biology, and environment. This article covers the D (dynamic) and A (agency) levels – the psychological structures that developed and how you understand your own intentionality.

Introduction

The substrate (G and N) and the shaping (E) produce the self (D). This is the level most people think of when they think about “who someone is” – not their genes or brain scans (not merely their outward behavior either), but their psychological organization, their characteristic patterns of relating, their attitudes and motivations, their experience of themselves.

This article describes the major D-level variants I’ve identified through conversations with friends who have these presentations. It also introduces the A level – how people with different presentations understand and narrate their own intentionality.

These are modifiers, so it stands to reason that someone with only D-narcissistic would not be considered to be significantly psychopathic in any of the many senses, but I rather wanted to include more variants rather than fewer to make the system more expressive. This way it can be used to show, for example, that if someone has D-narcissistic and A-amnestic and acted violently in rage is not lying about not remembering it but actually doesn’t remember it, a sign that a diagnosis of ASPD would be unhelpful for them.

D-Level: Psychodynamic Variants

D-anatta: The Empty Self

The term comes from the Buddhist concept of anattā – “no-self.” Individuals with this presentation have minimal sense of identity. There’s no stable “I” that persists across contexts. At the extreme, there is no “I” ever.

Self aspect. The inner experience is one of absence and direct experience. Identity is borrowed from context: They become what the situation calls for, but it’s a thin mask, not something that actually gets imbued with identity. There’s no intrinsically compelling reason for them to identify with “themselves” more than with others, so respecting others’ autonomies can be unintuitive to them.

Relational aspect. They mirror those around them, take on contextually appropriate personas, and usually don’t feel like they are in touch with anything that is genuinely “them” underneath the adaptations.

Agency style. Often A-observational: “I watch

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Psychopathy

Psychopathy