Psychopathy can run in families – a possible warning for you

From:  Love Fraud 

by Donna Andersen

Lovefraud recently received the following request in an email:

My husband’s psychopathy was never diagnosed as far as I know, but some years after we married and her second suicide attempt that I knew of, he told me his mother had been diagnosed as a psychopathic manic depressive.
Maybe you could give your readers ‘a heads up and how to’ on finding out as much as possible about the in-laws’ medical conditions before marriage, better yet sound them out before becoming emotionally entangled?

This is a great suggestion, so thank you to this Lovefraud reader.

Here’s my basic advice: Understand that psychopathy can run in families. So if you see or hear about bad or disturbing behavior by relatives of your romantic partner, pay attention.

Highly genetic

Psychopathy is highly genetic. What that means is that a person can be born with a predisposition, a genetic risk, to develop a psychopathic personality disorder.

There is, however, an interaction between nature and nurture. Whether a child with genetic risk actually develops the disorder may depend on the type of parenting that he or she receives, or other factors in the child’s environment.

Research has shown that harsh and inconsistent parenting is associated with a child developing callous and unemotional traits, which can be precursors to psychopathy.  MORE