Sehr geehrte Frau Höschele!

Herzlichen Dank für Ihre Zuschrift! In der nächsten Ausgabe werde ich mich näher mit den Werken und Verdiensten Hempflings beschäftigen. Das Thema ist noch nicht erledigt. Kennen Sie die › Ausgabe 326 mit dem Titel "Ihr wißt nicht, was Liebe ist"? Das ist die Fortsetzung des von Ihnen erwähnten Artikels.

Mit freundlichen Grüßen

Gerd Hebrang

Guten Tag Herr Fredholm,

herzlichen Dank für Ihr Schreiben! Unfortunately, I don't have the time to translate the article series and I don't know if anybody would be interested to do it.

The term "Psychopath" was used in the past, but I learned from Wikipedia that psychologists no longer use it. To me, the characteristics are pretty obvious; I met a couple of people personally whom I would consider to be typical and whose behavior I could understand with this model. I don't think that psychology today has a substitute for this, at least I couldn't find anything in this direction.

Anyway, by reintroducing the concept and describing characteristics, I could offer an explanation for the behavior of Hempfling. Of course, there must be people with the opposite disposition who will fall prey to this kind of personality, be it Hempfling or any other. I don't remember if I discussed this aspect in full length. Also, once you disrupt the connection between both parties, the question arises what future direction both of them will take? Most probably they will continue to do what they have done in one way or the other, just looking for other partners who will do the job.

Life is quite dangerous in many respects, and enlightenment in general does not help, as we all know with respect to drugs including alcohol and tobacco. The learning process is very often very painful. People have to make their own experiences and find their personal limits. [...]

Consider parents watching their kids growing up. If they decide to abuse their life, there is little parents can do about that. This is a lesson that Alcoholics Anonymous teach us. Dependency of drugs is pretty much like dependency on other abusive structures. That's what makes it so hard to reach the person who is in danger. They are most probably not receptive to arguments and even scary examples.

If you understand my articles and if you get the ear of anybody you care about, you may tell them. If both of you think that a translation would make a difference, I will think about it once again.

Mit freundlichen Grüßen

Gerd Hebrang