Volunteers worked hard in 2022, giving their time and talents, to fulfill the Foundation’s Mission this year. Our mission statement guides our efforts to achieve our overall goal of reducing the negative impact of psychopathy on society and is used to measure our success.

Aftermath Mission
The Aftermath: Surviving Psychopathy Foundation is dedicated to educating the public regarding the nature of psychopathy and its cost to individuals and society. We seek to support the families and victims of those with psychopathy.  We support research that aims to: prevent or minimize the development of psychopathic traits, reduce the impact of psychopathic traits, and understand and treat the aftermath of psychopathy.  Our ultimate goal is to reduce the negative impact of psychopathy on the families and victims of psychopathic individuals.

Educating the Public
Research on psychopathy: In 2022, Aftermath Foundation volunteers and psychopathy experts summarized journal articles as well as a documentary to help people understand the nature of psychopathy and some of the impacts individuals with psychopathy can have on others.  The studies summarized examined topics such as 1) psychopathy and creativity, 2) the impacts psychopathic traits can have on a romantic relationship, 3) psychopathy and vulnerability detection, and 4) psychopathy and cyber dating abuse. The documentary focused on the life of an individual who swindled women he found on a dating app.

Experts share their knowledge: Also, this year four psychopathy experts answered questions posed to them for “Ask the Expert” on topics such as, 1) how individuals with psychopathy identify potential victims, 2) differences between the Elemental Psychopathy Assessment and other self-report psychopathy measures, 3) differences between antisocial personality disorder and psychopathy with respect to emotional processing, and 4) how to potentially protect yourself from being a victim of someone with psychopathy.

Special presentation by psychopathy expert: In addition, Dr. Angela Book participated in a web conversation about research identifying ways in which individuals with psychopathic traits function as social predators. She addressed issues including whether people with psychopathy are especially adept at identifying potential victims and at mimicking emotions such as remorse, and whether they are more willing than others to seek out risky or frightening situations.

See the Research Committee report for more information on the research summaries, the “Ask the Expert” posts, and the web conversation.  

View the Research Committee report.

Educating people around the world: To reach people around the world, Aftermath volunteers continue to translate materials on the Foundation’s website into other languages including article summaries, frequently asked questions, and “Ask the Expert” questions, among other things.  Translations were available on the website in 13 languages in 2022, including Greek, added in 2022.  In 2022, the Aftermath website was visited by 29,958 people, viewing 64,571 pages in total, from around the world with most of them coming to the website for the first time.  The ten languages used most often by visitors on the website were:

1. 1) English (13,503 visitors)
2. 2) German (6,967)
3. 3) Spanish (2,998)
4. 4) Polish (2,704)
5. 5) Hebrew (1,043)
6. 6) Greek (504)
7. 7) Dutch (343)
8. 8) Turkish (264)
9. 9) French (212)
10. 10) Catalan (150)

 

And the ten countries visitors came to the website from most often were:

1. 1) United States (8,091 visitors)
2. 2) Germany (6,341)
3. 3) Poland (2,633)
4. 4) Spain (1,448)
5. 5) United Kingdom (1,443)
6. 6) Canada (1,232)
7. 7) Israel (1,210)
8. 8) Australia (343)
9. 9) Greece (264)
10. 10) Austria (212)

2022 Website Visitor Countries

 

If you would like to help us reach more people by translating material from our website into other languages, please let us know! You can contact us at: moving-on-support@rosalindfranklin.edu.

International Links
To reach even more people, this year the Foundation created and implemented a Partner Agreement to share resources, among other things, with other nonprofit organizations that help victims and survivors of individuals with psychopathy, consistent with our mission.  In the future a page will be added to the Aftermath website to list our new partners.  See President’s Letter for more details.

Support for Families and Victims

The Foundation website continued to host a survivors’ forum, maintained by Aftermath moderators, to ensure people are safe on the website and individuals who have been in abusive relationships are able to post content to help others.

Using the forum is a great way to connect with other survivors and share your experiences.  Click here to visit the forum.

Survivors speak up about their experiences: In 2022, survivors continued to share their experiences on their paths to recovery from relationships with individuals with psychopathy in the hope that doing so may be helpful to others. Two additional resources were added this year, including:

1. Tips about how one survivor gained a new perspective through learning everything they could about psychopathy to navigate their untenable situation,
2. How a survivor benefited by viewing themselves like someone who was addicted to an individual with psychopathy to facilitate recovery to free themselves from him. 

 

These tips can be found under the resource, “Through the Eyes of Survivors: Tips for Recovery.” Click here to read these tips for recovery.

If you would like to share what you found helpful in your recovery, please let us know! You can contact us at: moving-on-support@rosalindfranklin.edu.

Helping survivors directly: The Help Committee volunteers continued to assist people this year who contacted the Foundation for help.  We tried to answer any questions a survivor or victim asked us to help them on their road to recovery.  In several cases, we also located resources about psychopathy, including mental health professionals who understand psychopathy and who are able to meet a person’s specific needs.  In 2022, we received 46 requests for help. 

View the Help Committee report.