BIB So twisted, fascinating though.
OTopic really but how do people like JB and his partner forgive when it's a psychopath? It's not as if he has a treatable MH issue. I bring in JB's partner as he is a Revd ( IDK what denomination) but I've always marvelled & admired how people can forgive. Or would you say regardless of someone's religious "journey" that counselling is still vital?
( If a killer is psychotic /there is no pre-med I absolutely could see myself finding some empathy but with this kind of character I come up dry. At the same time, I appreciate all victims have to find some kind of peace or acceptance or they will be dragged down with this awful creature. )
Do you ever envisage that these P. disorders will be treatable in any worthwhile way, say , in our life-time?
Appreciate those are big involved questions, feel free not to answer all/some of them.
(Goodness knows how the two sons and the parents will cope with what's been revealed)
I guess at the heart of Christian forgiveness is the idea that evil exists solely to bring us to a point where we have no hope, nothing to live for and care not what happens to us or others. This is the antithesis of God's love and sacrifice which if we take the example of the Crucifixion says: watch this, everything you fear, everything you're terrified of, humiliation, passiveness, violence, mocking, and even death, watch what I can do with these terrible things that bring fear darkness and hopelessness to humanity. In three days I'll turn all these things into something beautiful and profound!
So Christian's feel that just as they share in the resurrection when their own sufferings will be transformed as Christ's were, so too must they forgive as Jesus forgave, even on the Cross when being murdered. "Forgive them Father, they know not what they do".
Despite having the Faith (Big F ) of the Church it is not easy and individuals have their own faith (small f) and sometimes the two don't easily reconcile. Sometimes, pastoral care, guidence or counselling is needed, sometimes not.
Whether you are forgiving a person with mental illness or a person with a personality disorder it is still a difficult process to go through and impossible for some. What lessens the possibility of forgiveness for the two son's is the personal betrayal by their own father and all the associated baggage that will come with that. We cannot forgive unless we know what we are forgiving.
Those young men will have questions about their own mother and undoubtedly ask did their father murder her too? Nobody can forgive with so many questions and uncertainty. This will hinder what is already a difficult process for them.
Before we can forgive we have to reconcile ourselves to the grave wrong done to us and make sense of that in light of our own faith or individual philosophy (in the absence of faith). How on earth can they even begin that process when they won't ever get a straight answer from their father.
It will be a long and tortuous process for all involved, not least the two sons and I have no doubt they will need therapy at some stage to come through this trauma.
APD's aren't treatable and I doubt, despite the advances in the neurosciences, we will see a treatment in our lifetime.
It needs to be said though that not all psychopaths are cruel, dangerous, killers. Psychopathy, in and of itself, is a benign condition. It's the nurture in childhood that makes this nature so potentially dangerous. Psychopaths are born that way, their brains are known to be congenitally, physiologically different; not so much sociopaths - but, crucially, how both conditions manifest themselves in adulthood is determined by the nurture received in childhood.
