Finishing this post shortly after the 10th anniversary of the blog was completely unintentional – a funny coincidence, rather.

When exploring this issue in 2015, I was late by about 5 years: people with no psychology degrees were in the full swing of posing as experts on Cluster B disorders, with an emphasis on psychopathology and narcissism. Forums, books, videos, coaching sessions (with unqualified strangers) – you name it. The general public was avidly seeking information; many had been victimised by individuals with strange behavioural patterns, who seemed to lack empathy, and needed to understand why.

Whether they did or not depended on the sources they accessed.

Lacking the ability to spot the kitsch, as in unqualified sources improvising easily digestible, sensationalised content (for fame and revenue), turned vulnerable people into fodder for the dodgiest characters, from garden variety grifters to cults.

This post takes a look at how the grift evolved for the past decade and where it seems to be at the moment.

Dishonest from the beginning

The vocabulary used today to describe NPD and recovery from narcissistic abuse was coined by Prof. Sam Vaknin in the 90s – concepts such as the no contact strategy, flying monkeys, narcissistic supply, narcissistic injury and hoovering were picked up by self-proclaimed experts and popularised through their own materials in the early 2010s, with no attribution. It was as if these terms had sprung out of nowhere or were 100 years old. Those interacting with said materials didn’t know any better.

They were learning a new language, vital to them – alas, through spoofers.

The authors and leaders of online communities engaging in this appropriation described themselves as victims of narcissists and psychopaths, seeking to help other victims by raising awareness of these disorders. Objectivity and in-depth study were not their goals, but purportedly, supporting those who were experiencing, or had experienced abuse.

That was enough for unsuspecting people to trust them.

Since the plagiarised concepts were valid and provided victims with a way to verbalise their experience for the first time, their use, combined with SEO and marketing skills, was very successful. Psychopath Free was probably the largest community of this type, followed by Out of The Fog and a few others. Book authors were far more numerous, as a simple search on Amazon can reveal.

The awareness-raising gradually came with a twist: portraying community leaders as saviours with a strong impact on the world, combined with depicting victims as angelic empaths, fighting a war against demonic forces. This was patently not a mental health endeavour.

Furthermore, as their intention was to demonise anyone suffering from a Cluster B disorder, genuine experts included, they strongly discouraged people from reading Prof. Vaknin’s material, which is the mother of all ironies. Unless, of course, they didn’t want their followers finding out where they had sourced the terminology from.

If one is seeking to understand the processes driving a narcissist’s behaviour, dispassionately and in minute detail, Prof. Vaknin’s books and videos are invaluable, as they are objective, based both on studies and his own experience of the disorder, as well as continuing to incorporate new research, year after year. No other material goes as in depth and is presented with such clarity.

For career/ pretend victim advocates with a penchant for fame, these pathologies were no longer an object of study – they were now the focus of a crusade against evil, potentially non-human forces. Religion per se was not mentioned, or the presumed source of said evil, but one thing was certain: the cart had left the field of psychology and was now flying off to Saturn.

The 3 Us: Unqualified, Unsupervised, Unaccountable

There is a rationale behind the field of psychology being tightly regulated, from the way studies are conducted to treatment modalities. Operating in this sphere carries a heavy responsibility. Mental health matters just as much as physical health. Both can be debilitating and shouldn’t be experimented on by pretenders. Just as with quacks, the potential exists to cause untold damage to someone in a vulnerable state.

Interacting with a clinician has legal implications as well. There are privacy laws and specific circumstances when information needs to be disclosed to third parties. Barred those circumstances, the content of all discussions is private and confidential. Trust is essential for the process to work. The rules are clear for all involved.

Not so with those posing as knowledgeable, abuse recovery “coaches”, internet victim advocates, gurus and whatnot. In those interactions, there are no rules to regulate anyone’s conduct.

Instead, the following generalities apply:

  • You don’t really know who you’re communicating with;
  • You base your trust in the person/ group’s expertise on their claims alone, as well as internet fame;
  • You take their mission statement and good intentions at face value;
  • Your may share personal information with a doxxer, brigader, or predatory individual or group;
  • Because you volunteer this information to strangers (albeit they invite it by portraying themselves as wanting to help people in your situation), you may end up feeling ashamed and stupid over what they do with it;
  • Such interactions have the potential to impact your mental health, at least temporarily;
  • Your recovery process, a big part of which involves learning to trust people again, may be impacted;
  • You may end up in actual danger, depending on the exact intentions of the trauma farmer;
  • Not only does the fake expert have no idea how to deal with someone else’s trauma; most couldn’t care less about the impact of their conduct.

For years, the mere claim of having been a victim of abuse by a narcissist, psychopath or borderline counted in the eyes of the public as proof of good faith and proof of having researched the issue thoroughly, being personally motivated to do so.

In some cases, feigning anecdotal encounters and research was sufficient to write books on these disorders. The hook was sheer emotion – the feeling that someone was getting it. Someone finally understood and could further elaborate on what this was.

If one were to write about cirrhosis or prostate cancer, the public would (hopefully) expect them to be an actual doctor. We know however that easily digestible information, presented briefly on TV to sell useless supplements, does seep through and part of the public falls for it. We also know that spiritual scam artists – pardon me, faith healers – still manage to attract crowds. What happened in this case would be somewhere in the middle.

The quack can describe the symptoms well, while not having studied anatomy sufficiently (or at all), being paid to offer a “solution”, and the faith healer offers a solution out of the ether, based on mere belief and trust, to get other things out of followers.

Trauma and kompromat farmers

This blog started as a collection of experiences from the now defunct (or underground, no one knows) online community Psychopath Free, closed to the public since 2016, although the website still exists. They were the stories of people who had ventured on the platform innocently, taking the stated mission of forum admins at face value (of educating and empowering victims of abuse).

Members used it to open up about their trauma, as freely as one would to a therapist, only to be seen as suspicious out of nowhere, by moderators and admins, who were incredibly paranoid at the thought that outsiders were trying to infiltrate and damage their holy mission.

They were, often enough, labelled as psychopaths and treated as a danger to the community for no reason. They were then banned, losing access to the support and encouragement other members were providing, at times for weeks or months, as well as their information, which could not be deleted.

At the time, admins and mods had obvious issues, behavioural if nothing else. They may have resolved them by now. Nobody knows. They were on a power trip, gatekeeping the understanding of Cluster B disorders, as if they were the ultimate authority, with nothing to legitimise that claim. Nuance or disagreements were not tolerated. The quest to identify the enemy among them, a constant preoccupation, must’ve taken half of their time. It was cult-like.

The swiftness (and gleefulness) of placing the label of psychopath of all things on complete strangers, after brief written interactions, should’ve indicated that forum leaders were not experts of any kind. It didn’t. The witch hunts and member disappearances continued.

The stories of members’ genuine trauma became confession files.

The “Meta forum” was the subsection dedicated to fresh targets, whose trauma was taken apart, mocked and ruled upon as fabrication (again, by complete strangers), with utter hubris, in a kangaroo court held behind their backs. It should be self-explanatory that no one deserves this treatment, having volunteered personal information in what they thought was a safe setting.

Ergo the anxiety ousted members felt when describing this experience. Their access to support had been cut off and their information was in the hands of people who were themselves blatantly unwell and malicious. They were in fear of these tyrannical shitheads and retraumatised through the awareness of having been duped, invalidated, made the subject of a smear campaign based on their most intimate disclosures.

Morally, this is repugnant.

It can set someone’s recovery back to 0. In an abusive relationship, the abuser often seeks enmeshment, asking you to distrust the world and trust them only, or above anyone else. Running into these types while recovering only reaffirms the claim that people in general are not to be trusted. It can make a person feel very isolated.

The Depp v. Heard court circus in 2022 had the same effect worldwide, when women realised that despite the apparent progress made in understanding domestic abuse, a woman’s worst experiences could still be turned into a grotesque sideshow, to the delight of millions. They learned that MeToo had been a fake liberal veneer for unscrupulous individuals, embraced as a trend and money-making venture. Tabloids, “victim advocates” on YouTube etc.

The experience was not unique to Psychopath Free, as digging enough revealed similar comments made about other platforms. The pain of real people was being used as fodder, for aspiring public figures to write books, ask for donations and whatnot. Meanwhile, the people contributing to these platforms were being treated like trash.

There should’ve been an initiative to regulate these platforms somehow, limiting the damage done to the public. Although the owners didn’t outright claim to be psychologists, they claimed advanced knowledge on this particular issue and the process invited sensitive disclosures.

Cult fodder

Vulnerability is very attractive to those seeking to start a cult, as it inhibits the defences people would generally employ when dealing with strangers.

Cult leaders promise (or strongly imply) unconditional understanding to the alienated and traumatised, who seek it outside of conventional means, often having trust issues with society. Seeking a community while vulnerable is very, very dangerous. One may end up convinced their feeling of alienation comes from being part of a different species, genetically or intellectually superior etc. – either way, part of the chosen crowd, who shortly after, must not interact with outsiders, or at least view them in a radically different way.

Cluster B disorders offer something very precious to would-be cult leaders: an enemy. A horrid, almost non-human enemy to mobilise abuse victims against, embracing the us vs. them mentality. The leader, of course, is a know-it-all and protector. He/she knows everything there is to know about the creatures.

When leaders are soft-spoken and compassionate at first sight, as well as vulnerable themselves, like Teal Swan (who still runs a profitable operation), the craziness and fraud are not always obvious. Many stumble upon her psychology-related material innocently, knowing nothing about her. They find it helpful in the moment and that’s all that matters. They associate a feeling with the content and her as a person. They refuse to let go of that feeling when discovering that she’s a pathological liar.

Most people are not sociopaths, narcissists, predators. We tend to take others at face value. If they claim they are trying to help, put forward interesting or empowering perspectives and are very popular, trust is easily gained.

Extremist cult fodder

I’m referring to political extremism here.

The leader claims to recognise evil and offers solutions on how to deal with it (plagiariased ones, in this case, chiefly the no contact strategy). Followers, having been victimised, automatically see themselves as less capable of recognising it and prone to future errors, storing their brains in the leader’s warehouse, metaphorically.

They need and take instruction on identifying the enemy constantly. From there, serving them political propaganda is all too easy. All one needs to do is point the finger at any given group.

This is how Thomas Sheridan managed to take anti-establishment people, opposed to psychopathic behaviour and authoritarianism, gradually turning them into supporters of war criminals, oligarchs and dictators, even getting them to endorse mass murder for material gain.

He first solidified his image as an expert on the mentalities and behaviours that cause harm in the world, then gradually drove his audience into the far-right.

Today, not only can he armchair-diagnose entire groups opposed to his fascist grift; he can spot demonic possession in them too, through his magical powers. The labels need only used, not justified: evil, wicked, psychopaths, narcissists, demons. These words are now synonymous with “leftist” in his opinion.

The image is an AI rendition of the nonsense he was spouting. Sometimes it’s useful to transpose absurd ideas into images, to showcase just how absurd they are. There you have it. Interdimensional Marxist aliens.

Followers are already familiar with the concepts he uses, superficially (but not familiar enough to recognise traits in the leader or movement, it appears).

It’s astounding that someone can, in real time, support acts of extreme cruelty and every criminal act under the sun (up to genocide), while continuing to pose as an advocate for those affected by psychopathic and narcissistic abuse.

There are followers who read his books on psychopaths today, while listening to his current talks, which clearly encourage them to adopt a psychopathic mindset. This includes the following:

  • adulating dictators;
  • supporting wars of aggression, genocide, ethnic cleansing, apartheid, land theft, colonialism;
  • promoting the great replacement theory and aggression, if not violence, against immigrants;
  • respecting white collar criminals as mavericks;
  • respecting gangsters as decent people;
  • defending any white rapist under the sun, provided he is right wing/ far-right, as a victim of false accusations (even when proven in court);
  • showing contempt for the most disadvantaged and helpless (starving children for instance, or child victims of war);
  • arguing there is nothing wrong with being motivated by money (and greed) etc.

It somehow doesn’t click that he treats his so-called expertise as an abstraction, to write books about, devoid of applicability, while in real life, week after week, he supports psychopathic conduct. It boggles the mind that they still don’t see it.

It’s worth mentioning his habit of sharing private images sent to him overtime by women (this is well known), falsely accusing women of trying to have a sexual relationship with him (also well known and proven publicly in 2019) and sharing private correspondence.

His audience is extremely paranoid in relation to the world (outside the cult), comprised of everything from garden variety conspiracy theorists to Nazis. But they don’t bat an eyelid at trusting a doxxer (to any degree). They think their turn will never come (and perhaps some avoid publicly disagreeing with him for this reason alone). Perhaps some think he’s got the actual ability to curse them. Then again, that’s how cults work.

Identically to the Psychopath Free community (which he founded but was expelled from), his pretence of being knowledgeable and empathetic in this sphere created a power dynamic with followers, who gave him information he could use against them, in real time or later. They were and continue to be fodder.

The only way to remove the power dynamic is to stop being afraid of such characters and their current adulators. This is literally all they’ve got. They are one trick ponies.

The YouTube era

Any topic of high interest is picked up by those wishing to produce large amounts of content in order to get paid. This was no different. Sensationalised advice for victims of psychopaths and narcissists began proliferating and making good money, at least while it was a novelty.

The pivotal moment was 2018, through a so-called documentary by popular (for some reason) creator Shane Dawson, a character straight out of Idiocracy, encouraging his young fans to spot sociopaths around every corner based on small behavioural cues. It was so successful (again, for some reason) that it was mentioned on the BBC.

This coincided with a time of intense promotion of subscription scam BetterHelp, all over the internet and on YouTube in particular.

Queue the invasion of such drivel, some channels still being in operation. The one below is still going strong since 2018. Granted, now AI can write it.

Granted, the public’s interest has dwindled, compared to the viewership of old:

The vast majority of fake experts want one thing: money. Most obtain it on platforms like YouTube, through monetisation; others seek viewers’ money directly, through paid memberships, donations, merchandise and “coaching”.

The specimen below advertises coaching sessions, also described in this post. The privilege of talking to this complete stranger for 3 hours costs you 245$.

The channel owner’s mention of “brain rot slop” is ironic, since his content is precisely that. Row upon row upon row of drivel designed to keep uploading. He has no psychology studies, does not reference any, has nothing new or relevant to add, yet he keeps making videos on this almost daily.

Recent uploads:

A year ago:

He’s been at this for 5 years.

Armchair-diagnosing celebrities

Slop content seeks to milk people’s attention – to no one’s surprise, fake experts in personality disorders quickly realised tabloid content with a side of armchair psychology could make good money. It became a cottage industry that still exists today.

A tabloid channel managing to reach fame belongs to former BBC journalist Andrew Gold. His trajectory was much like Sheridan’s, these two cases likely being replicated all over the internet.

He grew an audience by exploiting former cult members (yes, exploiting them; they were and are fodder for his channel; this individual has no ethics at all). People took him at face value, as they were interested in the stories of those he was platforming. As viewership grew, greed got the better of him and he adopted the armchair psychology grift, using notions like “psychopath” and “narcissist”, plus celebrity names, as SEO. The typical format of his “diagnosis” videos consists of interviewing someone else, tangentially related to the field of psychology (such as fellow grifter Richard Grannon, who loves opining without a degree, for views).

The people who hate Meghan Markle do so because of a constant infusion of tabloid content dissecting her every move and gaze, like these two. It’s sick. She’s an internet consumable. The “expert” is no expert of any kind. He is a life coach with a love for gluing his behind to any chair in front of a microphone.

Otherwise, Gold interviews celebrities using his former BBC credentials, asking them out of the blue if they are psychopaths or if someone else is, to clip it and make an entire sensationalist video out of a reaction of a few seconds.

He ended up interviewing Anthony Scaramucci, most famous for his extremely short role in Trump’s first administration. Never mind your opinion on this individual, should you have one – the tactic Gold used was cheap and infuriating. Out of nowhere, he asked Scaramucci whether he was a psychopath, to clip it for a video. Scaramucci took a second or two to answer, probably surprised by the question. This in and of itself was enough for Gold to upload the following:

The “shock response”, by the way, was “no”.

This should’ve shown Gold’s audience that he was unserious and after clicks alone. It didn’t. This kept happening, again and again, using snippets from interviews.

In 2022, Gold boarded the Meghan Markle hate gravy train. He still makes content on her to this day, in collaboration with someone else. Three years. Three fucking years, pardon my language, of speculating on any possible detail of this woman’s life, almost daily. He noticed quickly that this gossip was lucrative, so he kept going. For this alone one should not trust a word this individual says about mental health.

The screenshot above is from one video. He has possibly made hundreds.

Predictably, as it was again lucrative, Gold joined the far-right grift, now predominantly interviewing prominent figures within the *cough-cough, cult* movement.

His brand of “heresy”, shared by his fellow grifters, is of being bootlickers to oligarchs and ruthless capitalists. In other words, rimming the establishment, to ensure political figures on the left, like Jeremy Corbyn, seeking to disturb the status quo in favour of the working class, never rise to power. Adding to that, he has been pushing conveyor belt Zionist propaganda since 2023.

The deception, as well as the umbrella of caring about the effects of psychopathic behaviour (while condoning Israel’s genocide, multiple wars and general behaviour), just as in Sheridan’s case, is perverse.

Body language analysis

A complement to armchair psychology (much like the flies swarming a pile of dung) the explosion of body language analysis has enriched many con artists for the past decade. This so-called field of expertise has been repeatedly debunked as pseudoscience. Nonetheless, it continues to proliferate the impression that one can decode someone’s sincerity or intentions based on small cues, just by looking at them.

The vast majority of the public did not seek to learn this “art”; instead, it sought confirmation from these “experts” for the hatred against topical targets (at times targets of smear campaigns). Celebrities involved in a scandal, now rendered consumables, could be turned into yet another type of product for mass entertainment.

Curiously, the targets of choice were often female. When Gabby Petito disappeared in 2021, footage was released of an argument between herself and her fiancé, Brian Laundrie; she admitted to having slapped him. Some of these sharks were very quick to portray her as the abuser and dissect her body language. This young woman was an abuse victim; it turned out shortly after that Laundrie had murdered her. The vultures were so ravenous they couldn’t even wait for her to be found, alive or dead, before profiting from a high interest subject. I obviously can’t find screenshots today, as to no one’s surprise, the rodents deleted them in a rush.

Other posts on this blog mention the explosion of hatred against Amber Heard, Meghan Markle, Angelina Jolie, Jada Pinkett Smith etc. It has been 3 years since Meghan Markle became a consumable for these types, and as of June 2025, they have not stopped. Both the obsessive speculation mill (Andrew Gold, Steph the Alter Nerd etc.) and these modern day frenologists (pardon me, but these types are always right wing) relentlessly attack her and her husband over as little as facial expressions.

It’s disheartening to see that so many people fail to employ their brains and continue to fuel this nonsense. If they stopped paying attention, the grifters would move on to something else. Quickly.

Rent-a-mouth tabloid psychologists (with a degree)

The post wouldn’t be complete without an honourable mention of these amoral people.

The Depp v. Heard case was a litmus test for some who make money on YouTube using their psychology degrees, focusing on celebrity scandals. They’ve never met the celebrities in question, and although they give a disclaimer of not diagnosing strangers (which would contravene the rules of their profession), there is always a commonality: their opinions align with those held by the majority of viewers. I wonder why!

They produce vast amounts of content, obviously not looking into any particular case in depth, and issuing an opinion on the fly. They find internet witch hunts particularly juicy.

In Amber Heard’s case, to understand reality, one would need far more than the circus that was the Virginia trial, pirate costumes included. Evidence was withheld from the jury and Stephen Deuters, who unwittingly helped sink Depp’s case in the UK, was not called to testify. To understand this case, one would need to read the UK verdict (all 143 pages of it). One would need to listen attentively to testimonies and be familiar with the evidence released post-trial. One would need to be aware of how Amber Heard ended up being diagnosed by the utterly corrupt psychologist who was a personal friend of Depp’s lawyer. And why not, one would need some common sense in relation to raging alcoholics who take tons on drugs and are known to smash up properties. That would be a start.

Everyone and their parakeet was milking this case.

Take Kirk Honda, owner of the channel Psychology in Seattle, who is a couples’ therapist.

Lundy Bancroft’s advice to abused women, after 15 years of working with violent men in court-mandated programs: don’t go to couples’ therapy. He thoroughly explains why in the brilliant book, Why does he do that?, which has been helping women recognise the patterns for decades. Observing Kirk Honda’s “analysis” only substantiated the point. Superficiality would be a euphemism.

Kirk Honda made 69 videos on the trial, milking it for all it was worth. He discussed generalities regarding topics that had come up, without bothering to look up the facts of the case. It was so lazy it was unbelievable, especially since he continued to cover this for so long (he normally covers the dynamics in reality shows). I tuned out after he ignored Depp’s 83 lies under oath, skimming through his cross-examination, which greatly pleased his witch-hunting audience.

It surfaced later, through a channel called Medusone, who made in-depth videos about the way this case was treated online, that Honda had propagated false information out of his own pocket, such as Amber Heard’s claim of being knocked unconscious (at any point). This never happened. He wasn’t even paying attention. Medusone concluded the following, and I concur: “Never put Kirk Honda on a jury”.

Wanting to discuss tangential topics and generalities is one thing; being that lazy and disinterested, when using real people (one of them being the victim of atrocious harassment in real time, which he knew), and real situations such as a flipping court case, really paints a picture.

The person below is more chilling than milquetoast, disinterested Kirk Honda.

This person has, prior to her milking of the trial and after, made videos involving the following:

  • Coercive control
  • DARVO
  • Power dynamics
  • Reactive abuse
  • Abusers portraying their victims as unhinged (for having emotions) while remaining calm

It’s not that she was unfamiliar with these concepts and tactics – she chose to ignore them altogether, to benefit from viewership by Depp supporters, when everyone was raking in the cash.

Equally unfamiliar with the evidence, this individual used to make videos on a conveyor belt, issuing quick opinions with a sarcastic bite. This is his uploading rate: one or two short videos per day.

His channel is a content mill at this point, as he couldn’t possibly research anything in covers in depth. He improvises based on one news segment, a few titles, bits and bobs. His aim is to keep producing content, regardless of accuracy.

And what do you know; he gives a nod and a wink to the fascist administration controlling the US today. Who would’ve seen it coming?

My main point regarding these individuals is that they, just like fake experts, use real people’s trauma, never closely examined, as fodder for their channels, with a predetermined conclusion (what the largest audience wants to hear). They are in essence no different than those with no degrees at all. They run tabloid channels.

Is there a conclusion to this post? Perhaps. Kindly do yourself a favour and avoid the following “personality disorder experts”:

  1. People with no psychology degree;
  2. People milking celebrity scandals for views;
  3. People seeking to diagnose or demonise entire groups for political purposes;
  4. People who in practice blatantly contradict what they preach;
  5. People whose ethics and empathy are conspicuously missing;
  6. People running content mills, who couldn’t possibly research long enough to have an informed opinion.